Archive for March, 2010

Today is the fifth anniversary of my business formation as Kmc Brand Innovation, LLC.  As I reflect upon these past five years,  I feel compelled to share some of my lessons learned with you, my fellow motivated business leaders.

Truth be told, my business was born out of necessity. I was in-between jobs and found myself in a precarious position. No company would hire me (at least not in my time frame or on my terms).

What a gift this turned out to be!

A networking friend, Alan D. Weber (a marketing professional who retrained himself and is now qualified as a certified financial planner with Merrill Lynch) gave me a good piece of advice. He suggested that I start consulting as a way to “keep the pencil sharp.” He also said I would be able to answer the question “What have you been doing with your time?” with a respectable answer “Oh, I’ve been consulting with various clients during my job search.”

After my first consulting engagement, I quickly fell in love with the freedom, the challenge and the idea of paving my own way in the world of work. Finding my first client was easy. I met Optometrist Dr. Leora Berns of Avon Eye Care at a Soroptimist meeting. She was looking for a marketing consultant to help her grow her medical practice. I was looking for my first client. It was a match made in Heaven. (Incidentally, it was feedback from Dr. Berns that led me to discovering my brand, Marketing Motivator. )

Perhaps I was blessed with beginner’s luck, but the entrepreneurial reality set in as I struggled to land my second and third clients. My misguided marketing pitch “I can do anything for anybody, because I’ve done all kinds of marketing in my 22 year corporate marketing career” resulted in no bites. I have since learned that if you attempt to be all things to all people, you will effectively be nothing to nobody.

The key to entrepreneurial success is to focus and specialize. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I facilitated a half-day workshop on presentation skills to forty non-profit professionals who have been trained in the area of trauma informed care for children, adults and families. The workshop was sponsored by my clients, The Traumatic Stress Institute, a division of Klingberg Family Centers. All forty of these amazing individuals had been trained in Risking Connection, a philosophy that supports the transformation to trauma-informed care and advocates for relationships and connections as the best treatment for healing traumatized children and adults.

In this workshop, we elected to focus on a specific skill with the field of presentation and public speaking – story telling. This blog post is designed to motivate and equip you to:

“Never make a point without telling a story. Never tell a story without making a point.”

Why tell stories?

Brain researcher John Medina, author of Brain Rules, suggests that story telling in presentations is a very effective way to “wake up” your audience and re-engage them. His brain scan studies show that the human brain fatigues every ten minutes or so. We must do something at minute 9 and 59 seconds, or we lose them. Medina recommends story telling and use of metaphors. (p.s. buying Medina’s book is a no-brainer. I highly recommend it!)

What’s makes an effective story? Click here to read the full story and to download the 3-part story telling template for your use.

I was at the pediatrician’s office with my twin boys (age 13) the other day and a most remarkable thing occurred. We observed a very obnoxious teenage boy verbally abusing his little brother while the mother just sat there doing and saying nothing. The teenager spoke so loudly that you could not avoid his conversation. It was like verbal poison for everyone in the office.

I decided to hold my tongue, although I was tempted to say a few words. We walked out of that office and I said to my boys:

“Thank you for not being like that. Today we are going to celebrate what we are NOT.”

I took them to Cold Stone Creamery to get an ice cream, complete with chocolate dipped waffle cone!  Indeed, I was feeling grateful.

As I was driving home I thought about how profound the statement was: Celebrate what you are not.

We spend some much of our time and energy criticizing ourselves, condemning our circumstances and generally thinking negative thoughts. Sometimes we need a wake-up call to realize our true blessings. After all, most of us are not living and suffering in Haiti, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, recently devastated in a massive earthquake.  For that alone, we should be grateful.

Here are a few things for you to consider:

• Accept who you are;
• Celebrate what you are not;
• Decide what you want to change;
• Get motivated and take action to make that happen.

Self-improvement is a life’s work and I believe it can only be accomplished when you accept and love yourself just as you are right now. You are building upon something already good. Don’t strive to be perfect, rather embrace your magnificence and that of other people. This is the platform from which you will make yourself and this world better.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. May the luck of the Irish shine on you today. This holiday is named after Saint Patrick (circa AD 387–461), the most commonly recognized of the patron saints of Ireland. St. Patrick’s Day is traditionally celebrated with shamrocks, corn beef and cabbage, beer and good cheer and wearing the color green. (of course, I wear that color everyday – Marketing Motivator Green!)

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

1. Connect to the reason WHY you want something. You must know the why (your compelling motivation) before you can achieve the what (goals and intentions) with your how (strategies and actions)
2. Maintain a consistent state of positive motivation. If you need help, watch this music video – Motivation: Elements of Greatness.
3. You can’t force luck. Patience is required. Sometimes the best you can do is to plant a lot of seeds, water them regularly and patiently wait for some to sprout, accepting the fact that not all of them will grow as you desire.
4. Rarely does luck happen in isolation. We need people in our lives to help us create the good things and opportunities. I encourage you to actively build your personal and professional network, nurture these relationships over time and enroll them in helping you to prepare for new opportunity.
5. The last ingredient of luck is an attitude of gratitude and appreciation. Who you are right now and what you have is a blessing. Honor that as you strive to better yourself and your situation. Express your appreciation to those you care about. Why not send a card to someone you are thinking about right now.

Today I read an blog post by Karen Burns, author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Carer Advice You Can Actually Use, about the 50 Worst of the Worst (and most common) Job Interview Mistakes.

Some of the mistakes are pretty obvious, some are shocking (would anyone actually think about lighting up a cigarette in an interview???)  Other mistakes were more modern, like forgetting to remove your Bluetooth earpiece.

My motivation of re-posting this insightful article is to ask you to read through this  list of the worst of the worst job interview mistakes with an eye towards networking and relationship building. Some of these same mistakes occur when we network with other people.

These unconscious behaviors and negative actions can put a real damper on the conversation and can ruin any first impression that you hope to make. The results: it is unlikely that you will develop a long-term, mutually-beneficial relationship with the person you are networking with. More likely you will create the “yuck” response. That is the opposite of the law of attraction; it is the law of repulsion. Click here to read about more…

I run into a lot people who are reluctant to dive into the inner workings of technology-driven marketing tools, including social media sites, blogging or even running their own web sites.

The excuses run the gamut from:

• “I don’t have the time.“
• “That’s a waste of my time.“
• “I don’t want to get that involved.“
• “I don’t like the computer that much.”
• “I hate the computer.”
  

If that sounds like something you’ve said recently, I have news for you…

Technology is not going away. It can help save you time and money and give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace and in the job market.

For the past year, I have spent every Friday morning on the phone with my “technology coach” – Robert Bronson of Best Web Presence.

Rob has taught me how to build my own web sites (all 5 of them in fact), how to produce, edit and upload my own video content, how to create digital downloads of my content and sell it on the Internet to produce revenue for my business. Nice.

Truth be told, when I first started to work with Rob, I went “kicking and screaming.” I didn’t want to learn this technology stuff, but I just had to learn it.

Fast forward one year later, my weekly coaching sessions with Rob are something I look forward to. The thrill of learning new things and being able to do the “technology things” for myself is just awesome.

If you need to tackle your own technology monster, I recommend that you reach out to Rob and claim your complimentary coaching session.

You may just find that the imaginary technology monster is just a misunderstood warm fuzzy.

I have always wanted to sit in the “big chair” and have my shoes shined by a true professional. Every time I dash through the airport headed for a connecting flight, I would catch a glimpse of this bye-gone era. I witnessed people taking care of their things, rather than just simply throwing them away and replacing them with more new stuff.

“They say you can tell a lot about a person from their shoes.” I believe that this expression has less to do with how much you spend on your shoes, but more to do with your attention to detail and the care and pride that you take in your personal appearance.

Back to the chair. Rarely have I see women in the “big chair,” having their shoes shined. Instead I see women at the shoe store, buying more shoes. Why is this?

Glut of casual footwear

In speaking with Johnnie, the shoe shine professional at the Atlanta airport, the reason we see so few shoe shine stations or shoe repair shops any more is because of “tennies.”  That is, the trend toward casual footwear (I’ve been seeing a lot of UGG boots in public. What’s up with that?) and athletic shoes (i.e., tennies). Johnnie and I brainstormed along with another waiting customer, a male pilot about 60 years old, who by the way shines his shoes every Sunday. We discussed ideas on how to make shoe shine relevant and desirable to women and today’s modern traveler.

Johnnie said that about 25% of his clientele are women, who come mostly in winter to have their boots polished (yes, I was wearing boots). He talked about the idea of combining the manicure and massage with shoe shine services. He longed to have his own shop. I suggested that he offer to clear/polish women’s handbags and briefcases as well. Theses accessories get filthy and scuffed too.

Whether or not these “marketing ideas” have legs or will ever see the light of day is not the point. The conversation with Johnnie was energizing and his service to me was invaluable. I walked out of his shoe shine station taller and more self-assured, feeling like I had the world at my feet.

Time check

Until I got to my departure gate and learned that Read the rest of this entry »

This hysterical video (which also serving as a commercial for a health center) is a great commentary on the human condition and the dangers of “learned hopelessness.”

Watching this video is an excellent opportunity to not only laugh (good for your health), but to take a look in the mirror and see your own potential blind spots.

• How often do you feel “stuck” or trapped in a situation?
• Why wait to be rescued when you can easily change your own situation with simple action?

While there are many external forces that we all have to contend with, it has been my experience as an certified Blind Spots executive coach and a motivated human being that WE are the barriers, WE are what gets in our way, WE are the problem. When you acknowledge and accept your role in your current situation and begin to live in “cause” rather than “effect” (i.e., victim status), then you regain the kind of personal power that can move you forward in your business, career and life.

In my study of Neuro Linguistic Programming, I embraced the following attitude and belief:

There are no unresourceful people; only unresourceful states.

People have all the resources that they need.

Sometimes we all need a good swift figurative kick in the pants to help us make the necessary changes that we already know we need to make. If you’ve been complaining, hesitating, holding back, or have been indecisive for longer than you care to admit, watch this video a few times. Ask yourself, “Now, how can I get off this broken down escalator?”