As we were talking yesterday, she realized, which is great because then I didn’t have to point it out to her but was prepared to, that she has great ideas, and she needs to implement them.  She told me, that she has to journal about her ideas first and get emotionally involved in them before she can take action.  This is the way she does things.  This reminded me of a blog I wrote a couple of years ago, called: Take Action Revise Later.  I have included it below.  I would love to know what is “your way of doing things?”

Take Action, Revise Later

I just saw these four words, Take Action, Revise Later in a blog I was reading, and it got me thinking about something that happened this week.

I am the president of a local BNI group. Our BNI group has decided to dump BNI, and start our own group. What’s the big deal? We have been holding meetings, recruiting new members and passing business to each other for the past 7 years.

As we held our last BNI meeting this week, group members started asking questions about who was going to lead the group, how the group was going to continue, how will we recruit new members, what training will we provide our new members, how will the group run, etc. These issues, while real to them, were of no concern to me. I am a “jump-in-the-water-and-hope-I-can-swim” entrepreneur. Which means I, Take Action, Revise Later.

I know all of these people through BNI, a very structured organization with rules that we followed. I was taken aback a little by their concerns. I just assumed all of these business people were like me. It never occurred to me that other business owners didn’t TAKE ACTION REVISE LATER. This was actually a very interesting lesson for me.

Part of what I love about being self-employed is that there are no rules to follow. I make them up as I go. After that meeting I was thinking about my coaching business, and how so many people stay, “STUCK” where they are, because they have to have all of the answers before they can get started. Maybe they are just waiting to get started until all of the puzzle pieces are in place and they don’t have to Revise their plan. That thinking is not only unrealistic, but unproductive. You don’t have to know how your are going to accomplish your goal, because once you TAKE ACTION, you will find that people who are suppose to help you accomplish your goal will start showing up in your life, and supplying you with what you need to get you “there”. It is an amazing adventure. See you in the pool.

I really love beautiful, heavy, expensive looking pens when I’m working.  It makes me feel super successful. I was on a mission.  I wanted to get a new Disney Pen, because the one I had purchased several years ago wore out, a few journals and a few gifts.  I found this beautiful pen.  This is no ordinary pen. This pen is fit for a Princess.  So much so that it has a crown on the top.  I bought 5 of them, one for myself and four for gifts to special women in my life.  And while the cost of each pen was $19.99, plus my added expenses, the value to me was so much more. I was able to spend a couple of hours in Downtown Disney all by myself.

Just one little problem when I got home.  Watch this three minute video I made yesterday and sent to Disney about my poorly designed pen.

I sent this video to 2 different places, not knowing where I should send it.  Within 30 minutes, I received a call from Lee in Orlando at the Disney Store Customer Service.  He had viewed my video, called me to get some more information, and was forwarding my information onto someone who can do something about the problem.  I had not even provided my phone number.  Lee assumed, correctly I might add, that I had probably ordered from Disney.com before and he found my phone number.

This is not unusual service.  Disney provides this kind of outstanding customer service to each and every one of their guests each and every time.  This is one of the reasons I love Disney.

There is so much to learn from Disney, and here is some of what I have learned from them over the many, many times, I have visited.

• I have learned about marketing, merchandising, customer service, company culture, detail, building a brand, innovation, how to treat your employees, but most of all, I have learned about creating an experience.  For it is in the experience where the value of your ticket is found.  Even in their free experiences, like Downtown Disney, there is tons of value to be found, if you just look around and take the time to notice it.

I sent the video to Disney, not to complain that I had been ripped off, because I wasn’t, but because I know they would not want to sell a pen that was not up to their high standards.

I was telling my husband about this, and he said, “My Company doesn’t even respond when someone complains on Facebook about a problem with a $100 product they purchased from us.” My husband is my business partner in our franchise stores, and he understands how important good customer service is.  It’s too bad the company he works for does not.

I would like to know, how would your company handle this problem?  How would you have responded to my video?  Or, would you have responded to my video?  Keep in mind; I have already given 3 of the 5 pens I purchased away as gifts.  I have one, and the last one was for a gift for a friend’s birthday next month, and I realize you aren’t earning the kind of money the Disney Corporation is, but I’m just wondering how you would handle this?

Last week, I was fortunate enough to be in West Palm Beach, FL, training with my mentor, Bob Burg, and my fellow Go-Giver coaches.

If you are familiar with the book, The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg, and John David Mann, then you know the first law of stratospheric success states: “Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

We were talking about how some people get value confused with discounted prices. Discounts do not equal quality of service. This made me think of something that is happening in my own business right now.

You may or may not know that I own 2 franchise stores. There was another franchise, the same as mine, located about 20 minutes from one of my stores that recently went out of business. The day after this store closed I started getting her clients in my store and calling on the telephone, and they all wanted the same thing, a discount.

I know the owner of the closed store, and she had been complaining about not making any money for as long as I have known her. From what the clients were saying, they never paid full price for the product they bought from her. Her clients told me her prices were cheaper, she always gave them a discount, and why wouldn’t I do the same?

I won’t do the same because I provide value to my customers by providing high quality product that is fresh, most of it hand-made with great care, at a reasonable price. I provide value in that my staff provides on time delivery for our orders every time. We provide value by giving quality service to our customers, hopefully with a smile. And I know what margins I need to maintain in order to keep the doors open, pay my awesome staff, while still making a profit. After all, no profits equals out of business. She believed that her customers would not pay for her products unless they were discounted. She had trained her customers that in her store, discounts equaled quality of service. She discounted herself right out of business.

Now, I am not saying that I never offer discounts, because I do. I offer discounts to my corporate clients and regular clients when they ordered in quantity. But I understand, as any good business owner does, that if you provide more in value than you take in payment, you will have a successful business, it’s the law.

So that brings me back to my original question. What are you teaching your customers about your business? Please share below.

In 2011 I sat down to write out my goals for the year.  My #1 goal was to write a book.  I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write on, but I knew I had a lot of info rolling around  inside my head, and I wanted to get it out.

Around June I knew what my topic was going to be, and I realized I had already written most of it in another format.

In July, I adopted a rescue puppy to distract me.  In August, I was still enjoying my puppy and the pool.

October came along as did the start of  my busiest time in my franchise stores. Around Thanksgiving, my super busiest time of the year, I was feeling kind of like a slug, because it was apparent that I was not going to accomplish my #1 goal for the year.  I had accomplished some smaller goals, but this one really bothered me.

After Christmas, when I could finally get back to work, I started making excuses for not accomplishing my goal.  And my self-talk, that we all have going on, was trash talking me.  And I was choosing to listen.  And wow, was the trash talk mean.  “Why are you wasting your time writing a book no one will ever read?”  “You’re not a writer”.  I think “the talk” even called me a “dumbass” a couple of times.

Other than our mothers, we are all our biggest critics, and let me tell you,  I know better. I work with clients all the time who suffer from STTS (Self Trash Talk Syndrome) and I teach them how to change it. We work long and hard on STTS.  Luckily for me, I recognized the symptoms right away, and got my self  on a steady prescription of “GOI” (Get Over It), and restarted my daily excerise regement created by NIKE  (Just Do It.)

In January, I started “feeling” better.  I decided to give myself a break, but only because I was consciously aware that I had been making excuses for not accomplishing what I really wanted to do.  Within 22 days, I finished my book.

My book launch date is March is set for March 16th.

What is it you want to accomplish?

Register for Blogging for Bucks Workshop : www.ezregister.com/events/4252

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Amy left my “retail” world for a job in a bank 6 months ago. When she texted me, last week about getting together, she hinted that she might like to come back to work for me, and nothing would make me happier than having her on my team again. I wanted to make this deal happen. BUT, I knew what she was earning in her new job, and in retail, there just isn’t that kind of money. So I started thinking about how to make this happen. I created a position for her. If she managed my 2 franchise stores, I could concentrate on my coaching business and spend my time doing what I am passionate about, and it would definitely be a win/win for both of us.

We met for breakfast to discuss her returning, and as she was taking off her coat Amy said to me, “Jean, you have spoiled me from working for anyone else.” Wow, what a compliment that is for any employer. I offered her a little less than she was making, but with a bonus plan. I put together a nice little package for her. She told me she had already written her letter of resignation, and she liked what she heard, but she would like 24 hours to think about it.

Forty-eight hours later, I still had not heard from her. My heart was beginning to sink. I sent her a text that said, “You’re killing me :-) dying to hear from you.” To which she replied, “Hiiii! I’m just worried. I’m taking over a $4000 cut in pay. Is there a chance that at some point you’d be able to at least meet me in the middle? Like….as we go along…see what happens?”

I didn’t know it at the time, but she had already turned in her letter of resignation, but now the fear of that $4000 was starting to get to her. Was she starting to second guess her decision? This got me thinking, how so many people let fear keep them from getting everything they want in life. I was offering Amy almost the same amount of money, she would have complete flexibility in her hours as long as she worked the amount of hours agreed upon, a bonus program, complete control over the staff, paid time off, and a trip with me to Vegas in March to attend a conference I hold for my fellow franchisees. Oh.… and to work for the person who spoiled her from working for anyone else.

I could only see the positives, and Amy could only see $4000. What is your fear right now that is keeping you from realizing your goals? What fear keeps you from having the job that you would want, or the partner that you really want? What scares you into staying right where you are? Someone once told me, “You can’t grow if you are comfortable.” Are you comfortable? Have you stopped growing? Are you content to be, or have, or do what you already are, or have, or done? If not, it might be time for a change. Give me a call we can chat about your fears, and help you move forward.

Amy and I talked on the phone, and I reminded her that she could make the $4000 if she hits the bonus plan goals. I think she felt a little relieved, but she still sounded a little fearful. I am happy to say, Amy accepted my offer. I am glad she is a little “uncomfortable” right now. It means she is growing, and I can’t wait to see what this beautiful butterfly transforms into next.

Businesses do not appear to be slowing down for the holidays this year?  I am not talking about just retail businesses, I am talking about all businesses.  In years past, it seemed like from Thanksgiving to the New Year there really just wasn’t much going on in the way of business. 

When my kids were little I was in sales, and I was done for the year around December 3^rd.  I loved it.  We made cookies, or gingerbread houses, watched Christmas movies, decorated the house, and I would leisurely shop the first 3 weeks.  We would have the gifts beautifully wrapped and under the tree long before Christmas.  My husband would save his vacation for the end of the year.  He and I would go to numerous holiday parties, and my memories are all of wonderful, stress free holidays.

You see I now own 2 retail businesses and a business coaching practice.  In 2002, we bought our first retail business, and my holidays have never been the same since.  But this blog isn’t about that.  Later when I have the time, I will spend years in therapy figuring out why I did this to myself, but for now this is my reality.

A funny thing happened this year.  There was some training I wanted to take.  It was the first time she was offering it so the price was super low.  If I waited till the next session the price will be 3-4 times higher.  It was going to be right in the middle of the day for 90 minutes, but only for the first two Mondays in December, two huge days for me at the stores for corporate orders.  Both Mondays, I had big corporate orders due.  Arrrrggghhhh, what am I going to do, because I need to be at the stores?  Who plans a training in December?  Didn’t this business person  know she was suppose to be slowing down for the holidays? 

I really thought twice about not taking the training.  And it wasn’t just the class time that was the issue, there would be a couple hours of homework every week to go along with it.  There were several other meetings, and numerous phone planning sessions these same two weeks that I should be attending, because we are working on some January-March events. I thought about all of the people I knew that would not pile on the added work load this time of year, and then I remembered.  I’m not like other people.  BRING IT ON!

So as we head into the next 11 days before Christmas I am begging all of you, WAIT! STOP! I Can’t Keep Up! I feel like I am missing out on things because I am working as fast and as hard as I can, and you my business buddies are not waiting for me.  What I really mean is:  Keep Going! Finish Strong! Don’t wait for anyone! Not even me.

Please take a moment out of your busy day to share here what you or your business have planned for 2012.  You never know what will happen when you put it out into the universe.  Well, I know what happens when you put it out there, but you probably don’t, but that is a blog for the New Year.  And don’t call me on December 27^th from noon till 2 p.m. I will be taking some time off.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

When my son was about 12 or 13 years old, he is 26 now, we sent him to a 10-day summer camp called Supercamp.  This blog is NOT about Supercamp, but I did include a link if you wanted to check it out for your children.  Supercamp is a motivational academic camp, where kids learn note-taking, memorization, writing, organizational, and other skills that will serve them well in life.  Where else would a “Type A” mother send her children to camp?  Swimming, hiking, horseback riding, not for my kids, where is the fun in that?  Just a side note, 2 of my 3 children loved it.

When we came to pick up our son, there were big page after big page of notes posted all over the room of different things the kids had learned while there.  One thing that has stuck with me all these years later is the set of “keys” they had on the wall.  Each key said something different:  They are called The Keys of Excellence.

•             Integrity
•             Failure Leads to Success
•             Speak with Good Purpose
•             This is It
•              Commitment
•              Ownership
•              Flexibility
•              Balance

What great life lessons for our children to learn.  Think about how many children you know that are lacking in some of these qualities.  Today I want to touch on “Failure Leads to Success”. 

As a highly motivated adult, I had never heard that phrase or anything like it before.  Failure Leads to Success.  I spent a great deal of time thinking about it, trying to wrap my head around it.  How can failure at anything lead to my success?

Here is what I figured out.  I have had many many failures, but I didn’t recognize them as failures.  I had only found another way something didn’t work.  From the age of 26 I have been feeding my mind with positive messages in personal development.  For me that was like having blinders on, I couldn’t see the failures so I just kept on going.   But once I turned around, I could see all of the “failures” laying there on each side of the path I had been on.  And, wow, there were lots of them.  Glad I didn’t see them before, they would have scared me.  Oh wait, there is one that says “FEAR”.  That one is not quite dead yet, but at least I can’t see it with my designer blinders on.

I knew what failure looked like.  I have seen it many times on other people.  The person who self-talk says, “I never win anything”, “I’m never going to find a job”, “Why does this always happen to me”, or my favorite, “I tried that before it didn’t work.” This is a person who can’t pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and go at it again, but with more determination.

This is what I would like you to take away today.  Failure = Feedback.  We all know the definition of insanity, right?  You do the same thing over and over expecting different results.  You now know what doesn’t work, so rework your plan and try again, rework and try again, rework and try again.  Maybe you have the type of blinders on that don’t allow you to see a different way.  If that is true, then you are going to need a new pair, and I would like to recommend you rent mine.  Mine come with personal instruction on how to use the failure as feedback, and move through it.

OK don’t tell anyone I told you this, but my husband has a saying that cracks me up every time he says it. “If at first you don’t “suc”ceed, keep on sucking till to you “suc”ceed.”  While he and I are not on the same level of personal development, we both have a 12 year olds sense of humor. 

Failure does lead to success, but it is up to you which path you take on your journey.  Do you turn around when you hit a dead end, and try another way, or do you quit, or go back to the beginning and stay there?  Everyone has to take the journey, it’s up to you on whether or not you finish.

When I “have the time”

I was honored and privileged to give a 10 minute presentation on my coaching business to my networking group this week. I made a video presentation of why we become self-employed. As entrepreneurs we want more: More freedom, more money and more free time. It seemed to hit home with many of the business owners there.

I also talked about a client I was working with who was not getting ahead in her business, because she would not do her “homework.” One of my networking buddies said to me later that day, “I will hire you when I “have time” to do the homework.” I have been thinking about his statement all week long, not about hiring me, but about “having the time”.

If you have seen the video on the home page of my website, you know that I own 2 retail franchises. I also have been working with other franchise owners for several years, and wanted to really develop a franchise coaching and speaking business. For over 2 years I had been “working” on it.

However, it seemed that my franchises were taking 75% of my time, and when I honestly looked at what was taking the other 25% I saw I was wasting it. Too many 2-3 hour lunches out with friends, surfing the net, social media, and of course, I took all of the sunny Summer days off to relax next my pool. And while all of this is important to me, I was spending too much time doing it, and it was keeping me from achieving my goals.

2010 was My Year of Change. I decided I did not want to waste any more time in getting my Coaching and Speaking Business going. So when I finally got serious about what I wanted I hired a coach to help me get to where I wanted to be faster. I had already wasted 2 years. I didn’t want to waste anymore time. I was ready to “spend the time, and do the homework”

Do you, as a business professional, give a Holiday Bonus to your employees? In tough economic times do you cut back on your holiday bonuses to your employees? What kind of bonuses do you give, if any? I’d like to tell you what I do that has been pretty successful.

I don’t like to pay a bonus for doing your job. I don’t like to pay a bonus that is expected, as if I owe them more than their hourly wage, for doing their job, but I do LOVE giving my employees, who do an incredible job, more than what they earn. Happy employees, make a happy leader. Happy employees, make a happy customer. Happy employees, make more money for you and for them.

Like most retail stores, we run at either a break-even or a slight gain for the first nine months of the year, and then in the 4th quarter, finally, make some money. In the summer of 2008, I decided I was no longer going to give a Holiday Bonus to my employees for just showing up and doing their job. BUT, I was willing to give my employee a percentage of the profits if they could increase sales in the 4th quarter over the previous year. We looked at our 4th quarter sales from 2007, and decided that we would like to increase our sales by 20% in 2008….wait, what? 20%? Weren’t we headed into a recession then…Oh, yes we were, but I was choosing not to participate.

I thought back to my days in direct sales, some 27 years ago, and thought about what really got me charged up. The direct sales company I was working for was straight commission, and they had a full color 16 page catalog filled with items like: a gas grill, Lane® cedar chest, Lane© Rocker Recliner, telephone, clock radio, jewelry, etc. Each item was assigned a point value, and depending on my sales, I could pick prizes from this catalog. I was more excited about the prizes than I was about the commission. I could “see” the prize, I couldn’t see the cash. I knew if I earned the prize the cash would be there. Today we would call that visualization.

I put together a small 8 page prize catalog, geared toward my employees likes. You can see the prize catalog here. Just a note, the catalog is formatted to print out like a booklet so the pages will look unorganized to you in the pdf.

We have had great success with this catalog. While we haven’t hit the 20% increase (mostly because the rest of the country thinks we are in a recession.) we usually have over a 10% increase, and we do have an increase in everything the employees have to do to earn points. That means we have an increase in customer average, and we have an increase in daily sales, all that adds up to increased quarterly sales. Last year we gave out over $2000 in bonuses at each of our franchises. That might not sound like a lot until you realize I have a staff of 7 at one store and a staff of 8 at the other, and most of them are under 21 years of age. They were thrilled when I use to give out $25 and $50 cash bonuses. Last year we gave away over $3000 in Visa gift cards, a 32” HDTV, a Garmin GPS, a $100 AMC gift certificate, and a couple of iHomes and a few miscellaneous items.

This year, I added to the back of the catalog a place where they could list what prize they wanted to earn, and a “thermometer” so they can keep track of how they are doing. I took them through a goal setting exercise, and told them how they can each reach their desired prize. If all goes according to their plans, I will be giving out several iPads , and a laptop.

My employees don’t realize it yet, but they all got a dose of “personal development”, and it didn’t hurt them a bit. I am training my employees to be goal setters, which will make them into great employees for their next journey as well as future leaders

When our employees realized that we were going to be sharing the increased profits with them they got excited. When they are excited they are motivated, and when someone is motivated with a goal, look out, you can’t stop them from succeeding.

If you are interested in starting your own incentive program for your employees, and would like a FREE 30 minute consultation I would love to help you. Please feel free to email me at: Jean@bounce-solutions.com I would love to help you increase your sales too, because rumor has it there is a recession going on.