Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle Rhode Island Chapter

Isn’t that what everyone does in August? Not that I never go but I don’t go that often. Why? Well, I love the beach but my wife only likes very warm water, like over 85 degrees. Therefore, Florida is her only viable option. To me it doesn’t matter. Go to the beach or go bike racing, both are great.

The real reason that I like them has actually more to do with business then it does with relaxation. I find the opportunity to be out of the office working “ON” myself is a great way to work “ON” my business. There is no one to call or to disturb me.  I sometimes get my best ideas lounging in the water or racing down the rode on my stick at 40mph.

What is it that you do to work “ON” yourself and your business? Let me know.

Next GKIC meeting is August 20, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza at 8am. If you enjoy the meetings as much as I do, share them with a friend and bring a guest. We want to grow the chapter to share the experience of working together.

 Michael

I’m an unabashed Boston sports fan, good weather or foul, good scores or terrible. Last night, the Boston Celtics pulled another one out of their hat and shocked the Lakers. Celtic Paul Pierce held Kobe Bryant down to only 17 points in this Game 4 of the series after Bryant scored 34 points in Game 3. This puts the championship series at 3-1 Celtics over the Lakers. One more game on Sunday June 15th and the Celtics should wrap up the series for the Championship.

The Celtics did what it took last night to win that game and set themselves up for the final win.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make your business a success? It often means stepping outside your comfort zone, learning new skills, using a different strategy or technology, or getting that extra nugget from a new book, article or GKIC Chapter meeting.

In the Bonus CD with the GKIC “Creative Thinking for Entrepreneurs,” Bill Glazer give 10 Creative Thinking Concepts. All are excellent and he recommends figuring out a way to do, not one, but as many as you can at the same time. One in particular is a story he tells to illustrate the concept of ‘Rapid Implementation’. One of his VIP Mastermind members got a great idea at a Mastermind session to tweak his teleseminar process that he used to promote a free seminar where he sold his $5000 boot camp. He was so fired up by the idea that he just had to fax GKIC the following day showing Bill that he’d created a new landing page, marketing sequence, auto-responders etc. In less than 24 hours.
On a related subject, in the lead article of the June 2008 issue of the GKIC No B.S. Marketing Letter, Dan Kennedy talks about the myth of the ’successful’ business. Read it. It’s worth your time. (If you don’t receive the No B.S. Marketing Letter, you can sign up for a free trial at www.nobsri.com/nobsfreegift.)

Kerry

P.S. GO YOU! And GO Celtics!!

Ever since I attended Sydney Barrows’ session at the SuperConference I have become more acutely aware of the incongruence in the places of business that I have the occasion to visit. Here is one example.

A high end medical practice that provides expensive generally non-reimbursable services. While the services are excellent and do what they practice claims they do, some aspects of the experience are not up to the same level as the treatments given. For example, the hand soap in the bathrooms is supermarket brand, while there are bottled water stations, scattered throughout the facility, cups are provided in the bathrooms for drinking, but the water is not filtered and you can taste the chlorine. Often patients stay several hours or the whole day for treatments, there are no previsions for a selection of up to date reading materials, whether books or magazines.

There are several more that popped out but you get the idea. These may seem like small items and they in fact are, however, what does the person coming there expect to experience (either consciously or subconsciously) and is that experience met? Certainly, the experience of the care and treatment is top notch, but the experiences of the environment should be equally top notch. I’m sure that the practitioners have not even given this type of stuff a thought. Most business people don’t (or at least not to this level of detail).

What incongruence exists in your business either for the type of clients you have or they type of clients you would like to attract? Think about it, and make the “movie in the mind” of your ideal client the actual experience that they will receive. It will make a difference in customer retention, buying size and referrals, etc.

Dom

A few weeks ago, I watched a television episode of “Dancing With The Stars.” Haven’t seen it before or since. But that particular time, I had the pleasure of watching Hollywood star Marlee Matlin dance with her professional partner. If you’re not familiar with her, she is a very talented deaf actress. The first time I saw her act was in the movie “Children of a Lesser God” - well worth your time, if you haven’t seen it. No, it’s not a new movie, but it speaks a lot about values and persistence and overcoming odds.

Anyway, back to Dancing With The Stars and Marlee Matlin. Now if you’ve ever done ballroom dancing, you know the guy has to lead. If he doesn’t, his partner is clueless and that’s how toes get broken. It also really helps if both dancers has some rhythm beside their knowledge of the steps and techniques. Being deaf, you can imagine the Ms Matlin was at a disadvantage in ballroom dancing. Maybe, but it sure didn’t show.

She decided she was going to dance perfectly and competitively in spite of her challenge. And she did. She is a graceful, consummate performer and danced beautifully.

How can you translate what Marlee Matlin did on “Dancing With The Stars”, to your business? Whether you are in a commodity business or in a tiny sub-niche, you still need to stand out from the crowd around you. Your customer has plenty of places and ways to spend their money, for sure. If you’ve been knocking your head against the wall trying to answer the question of how to be unique, here’s the answer. Figure out your unique selling proposition (USP) and tell the world. Are you unique because of location? Service? Customer experience? Credibility? Price (please don’t rely on being the lowest price)? Memberships? Guarantee? Irresistible offer? Personality? … You get the idea.

If you want help with your USP, come to the next GKIC Rhode Island Chapter meeting and tell me. I’ll have a few options to get you started. Check out the Chapter calendar or home page for the next meeting date. (May’s meeting is the 28th). See you there!

Kerry

In a recent Gold+ fax, Dan Kennedy wrote about his ‘Thoughts About Money’ which I’ll try to do justice to here in summary. He makes a few points worth paying attention to during any economy but especially in these rockier times. Look very closely at your mindset and how you do business.

#1: “Money is no substitute for the ability to produce,” says Kennedy. If you’ve always relied on having money to make money, you will most likely have a more difficult time in the rising rough tides of this economy. Be a serious student of what you do best and you’ll find that experience to be an asset rather than a hindrance.

#2: If you think being rich gets rid of your problems, forget it. Rich people still have to deal with the hassles of everyday life plus different problems. Sure, rich is better but it’s no panacea.

From George Bernard Shaw: “The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about rich men.”

#3: If you need money to do something worthwhile in your business, you are a slave to it. You’ve sacrificed independence for money. Money does keep you warm in winter but it’s not guarantee of success. Glazer-Kennedy teaches how to build your business without relying on capital, most especially by not wasting capital on bad marketing.

From cowboy philosopher Texas Bix Bender: “Try to remain independent of any source of income that will deprive you of your personal liberties.”

Are you in pursuit of independence… or money? Don’t get the second at the sacrifice of the first.

Food for thought on a lovely spring day.

Kerry

One of my coaches, Lee Milteer, wrote a book that I’m halfway through called “Success Is An Inside Job.” It’s a strong book and each chapter focuses on a different step in the path toward “getting anything you want.”

She asks a series of questions designed to provoke your productive thoughts in the chapter called “How to Find Your Talents and Capitalize on them.” One of her questions is “Do you have any dreams today that may be signals of how you might use your talents in ways you have not used them before?” It’s a question worth spending time on to help you take stock of where you are at in relation to the dreams you had as a child of how your life would be.

I’ve worked through that chapter and several beyond, to great benefit and I recommend the book to anyone interested in taking a close look at where you are at and where you’d like to be. You can get this book and other books by Lee at www.milteer.com.

But what really brought this all to mind again was a video I received from my fellow GKIC Peak Performer, attorney Ben Glass. Perhaps you’ve seen it. A professor with only weeks to live talking about “life.”

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

Kerry

I just got done reading “Lone Survivor” - The eyewitness account of the operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10. It’s a must read for everyone. I’m usually recommending business books but this true story portrays all the discipline, persistence and will power you could ever imagine. It’s a great read and a diversion from the sometimes mundane business books - and a true story. The reason I felt compelled to write about it is that we’re in the midst of an election and a war that everyone seems to argue about and remain confused about. I don’t get into the political scene much at all, but after reading this book, I wanted to at least expose it. To hear about the war from a Navy Seal’s point of view and to read about actual battles and conflicts that have taken place and how the Geneva Convention is a bad word for some of these soldiers, it really makes me stop and study the liberals and some of their ideas. I’m not offering an opinion here because that will only cause a milion blog entries with everyone’s opinion. I’d like everyone’s opinion of the election and the war after they’ve read the book.Let’s see how everyone feels about Bush, Hillary Clinton, McCain and Obama after this read. Maybe it will change your thoughts, maybe it won’t - it merely solidified mine!

Here’s a couple quotes to wet your whistle about this Navy Seal:

On p313: “Look at me, right now in my story. Helpless, tortured, shot, blown up, my best buddies all dead, and all because we were afraid of the liberals back home, afraid to d what was necessary to save our own lives. Afriad of American civilian lawyers. I have only one piece of advice for what it’s worth:…”

Chris

Be sure to mark your calendars to attend and not miss the next local Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle (GKIC) Rhode Island Chapter breakfast meeting, on February 27th starting at 8:00AM. Why because we have lined up a very special guest, Howie Jacobson the author of “AdWords for Dummies”. Howie will be using most of the meetings teaching attendees how to get qualified buyers to your website the smart, fast and easy way with Google AdWords. if you’re already a Google advertiser, using Howie’s expertise you’ll reduce marketing waste by learning how to more effectively manage your campaigns and get the highest return on your marketing investment.

However, if you’re serious about making AdWords work for you, Howie has also agreed to stay after the meeting work closely with a small group in an interactive, hands-on, roll up your sleeves session. In this session, Howie will work directly with your AdWords account to tweak your campaign so that it is brought into sharp focus. Your takeaways will be immediate actions that can cut the fat out of your campaigns, reports that will tell you how to keep improving, and a sense of ultimate AdWords and online marketing mastery through measuring, testing, and continuous improvement.

BREAKFAST ONLY: $30 in advance. $45 at the door
BREAKFAST + MID-DAY WORKSHOP: $97

For more information and to register go to www.nobsri.com/adwords

See you there, Dom

“The Science of Getting Rich” is the title of a great book written by Wallace D. Wattles in 1910. In it you’ll find timeless wisdom and a practical program for doing just that…Getting Rich.

In an excerpt from the author’s preface, he describes the book as: “… a pragmatical, not philosophical;— a practical manual, not a treatise upon theories. It is intended for the men and women whose most pressing need is for money, who wish to get rich first, and philosophize afterward. It is for those who want results and who are willing to take the conclusions of science as a basis for action, without going into all the processes by which those conclusions were reached.” To download a copy for free, go to www.nobsri.com/gettingrich

It makes for interesting reading. After reading this short book, share your thoughts on the book here in the blog.
Dom