3 Laws for Success from Coach John Wooden

John Wooden's three laws for his UCLA basketball players.  He is the all-time most winning coach in US college basketball.

1. Never be late
2. Keep neat and clean
3. Be quick but don't hurry (quickness is under control, hurrying is frantic and out of control)

Get your customers to do your best marketing for you Part 1 of 4: Nobody talks about boring businesses

I recently listened to John Jantsch speak about his new book "The referral engine: Teaching your Business to Market itself". This post is part of a series of 4 that provide the valuable insights that I drew from his words.

The power of word of mouth
John spends a lot of time out talking to small business owners and found that in contrast to large corporates, most small businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups say the bulk of their customers come from word of mouth.  They come because of another customer's recommendation.

If you run a small business or are an entrepreneur, this then is key.  How do you make a business highly referable?  How can you create a system so that referrals happen consistently?

John outlines 6 "realities" of the world that we can use to build our referral system:

1. People make referrals because they need to.  We are wired this way.  It builds my social capital if I can share valuable, useful services with friends that need them.
2. Referral is a big risk- a referral means that I am loaning trust to your organisation.  This level of trust is more important with doctor or lawyer than with a decent local restaurant.  Companies can reduce perceived referral risk through consistency of service delivery.
3. Nobody talks about boring businesses.  Will I talk about your service, people or company at a party or over lunch? What is unique? What is special?
4. Consistency builds trust.  Steps: 1) Know a person 2) Like the person 3) Trust the person. I have to get to know you, then to like you before I begin to trust you.  Any surprises along the path and I will not reach "trust".
5. Marketing is a system.  Digital interactivity is at the center of marketing.  It is not alone, but cannot be avoided in today's Web 2.0 world.  The marketing concept of the customer funnel is broken and needs replacement.

Key insight:  Nobody talks about boring businesses.

I will continue this series next week with part 2: "Get your customers to do your best marketing for you Part 2: The marketing funnel is broken".

What keeps prospects from buying?

If they do need your product or service, the major barrier for most prospects is a lack of trust.  Put simple, they just don't trust you yet.

What builds trust?

• Consistency
• Time in market
• Testimonials and Referrals
• Awards
• Expertise (content, blogs, articles in magazines, books, videos)

The school of the future

I have posted about education a few times in the past.  (The purpose of school, The best teacher I had in school, How we really learn).

photo credit: chrissuderman

What is the future of education?  I think Ken Robinson has some great ideas for education delivery, and Seth Godin on how education will be delivered.  I think the follow 5 sites are already big part of the future of education...

1. Academic Earth - The best university courses. Academic Earth offers free access to video courses and academic lectures from leading colleges and universities.
2. Khan Academy - The best tutorials. Khan Academy is a global free educational site that hosts 1600 mini-tutorials (15 minutes or less) on math, science, and other subjects. Bill Gate uses the site with his 11 year old. (the #1 visited educational site in the world; september 2010)
3. Edutopia - The best resources for teachers, parents and school administrators. George Lucas's foundation is behind this source of innovative learning resources.
4. iTunes University - Apple brings learning to the mobile. Lectures from MIT, labs from Stanford, history from Oxford, maths from Cambridge, physics from Trinity College Dublin.
5. TED - the best source of powerful ideas delivered through great speeches. A global community covering every discipline and culture.

I believe peer to peer learning is another thing that will characterise the school of the future.  I was good at maths when I was in high school... but that was because I compared myself to 32 other kids...  not the millions that I might realistically be able to connect to today via facebook, linked-in, twitter...  is there a business here?  The network of peer to peer learning...  the online network of developing shared passions (for those out of school) and peer learning networks for schools...  could it be youtube?  will it be another?

What are you favourite TED talks, online videos, iTunes courses?  I am putting together a list of the top engaging learning videos.

Everything changes. Everything is connected. Pay attention.

The circle of Life. This is a guest post by Eric Ronning, father, husband and President of Channel Financial, a financial advisory business of which he is a co-founder.

I have been exploring many of the same topics you speak of in your writings for about 11 years now. As a youngster I came from a blue collar family that didn’t have much (from a material standpoint), but I did have a wonderful, loving and very supportive close family. However, I was a good student and was very driven from early on to “be somebody”. I did well in college, got a great job right out of school, and made tons of money at the time for a 20-something. Life was good, I was happy, and I felt like everything was on the right track. By all accounts my goals and aspirations at the time might not have been much different than many of the eager MBA students that you mentioned.

Carpenters at work, photo credit: wccls

Then, my grandfather died. My grandfather was a carpenter his whole life in a tiny German town outside the twin cities. He was a terrific man by all accounts, but did not have a lot of material success and lived a pretty simple life. His funeral changed everything for me. That day, I arrived expecting family and a few others to be there to pay their respects. I was shocked at his wake as the line of people grew and grew and grew and eventually trailed all the way outside the chapel. Hundreds of people showed up. As I stood close to the casket with other immediate family to talk to these people as they made their way through the line, I was changed.

Many said: “I am a better person because of him”
Dozens of people, with all sincerity, made sure that I knew how lucky I was to have the grandfather I did. They told me how great of a man he was. They each shared stories of how he had gone out of his way to help them at one point or another in their lives. They told me how he had made them laugh. Many said: “I am a better person because of him”. “I feel fortunate that I had a chance to know him”. I knew that these sorts of comments were typical at a funeral, but it was the way that they said it and the sheer number of comments that really blew me away. This was clearly a man that touched a lot of people deeply in life, left the world a better place, and in all the right ways.

At the time, my wonderful wife and I had just given birth to our first child, a daughter. My family is quite spiritual and believed that as old life passes away, new life is born. They asked me if I would be willing to hold up my new daughter for all in the church to see at a certain point in the ceremony. A symbol of new life. I agreed.

When the time came, I stood up in the middle of a packed church, extended my arms, and held my brand new baby daughter up as high as I could. The priest said, “as old life passes, new life is born”. Few in the church could hold back tears.

What matters? What doesn’t?
It was on that powerful day that I suddenly had a whole bunch of new questions. Questions that I had never really asked myself before. What will they say at my funeral? What was it that my grandfather seemed to do so right in life? What matters? What doesn’t? What and how will I teach all of this to my new daughter? What did my grandfather and grandmother do to be in a relationship where they loved and respected each other so much? Etc. etc. etc. etc. All seemed to be pretty simple questions that I would figure out with a bit of study and thought. Ha Ha!

As you might imagine, I’ve been trying to figure out the answers to those questions ever since. The more I learn the more questions I have. I’m fascinated with the study of psychology, philosophy, leadership, authenticity, and happiness. Can you be a great husband, father, son, friend, and business owner all at the same time? Or do the qualities and character that make you good at some of these roles, make you bad at others? It is an amazing quest!

I don’t know if they’ll be of any value to you, but here are a few of the resources and thoughts that have resonated with me over the past several years. None are perfect but offered me powerful knowledge:

8 resources that have helped

• Ken Wilbur’s book “A Brief History of Everything” is based on Integral Theory and combines everything into one general theory. Interesting framework and concept.
• Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near”. Completely changed my old linear view of life and where technology will take humanity.
• Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. Seems like she wrote it yesterday.
• Jonathan Haidt’s “The Happiness Hypothesis”
• Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principals”
• Napolean Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”
• The Hudson Institute on Life Coaching teaches that life, and we as individuals, go through seasons, like nature. A cycle of renewal. All seasons are necessary to get to the next one. Know what season you’re personally in, and accept it. Winter is necessary for Spring to happen.  (more).
• Brian Johnson is an entrepreneur and philosopher. He can be a bit over the top with lovey-dovey stuff for my personal taste, but his website is fantastic. He has read and summarized 100 of the great books and thinkers (many that you have quoted in your thoughts). I have read most of them. Well worth the $50 to get summaries of 100 great teachings.
• Brian teaches that many extraordinary minds have been contemplating these same questions for centuries and this collective knowledge can be organized into 10 categories: Optimism, Purpose, Self-awareness, goals, action, energy, wisdom, courage, love, entheos.

The three core values of truly successful people
Lou Holtz (the American football coach) says there are three core values that he can find in successful people, and only in successful people:

1. Trust. They always do the right thing.
2. Commitment. They are committed to excellence.
3. Caring. They care about themselves and others and show it.

These are just a few that come to mind. Lately I’ve been fascinated with the topic of how to be a good father, husband, son, and friend, and if being a good entrepreneur and business owner is compatible. All of these are my goal and purpose. How do you need to change your actions as you play each specific role, and can you do that while still maintaining authenticity and honoring your true character? The scary thing is that I feel like I’ve only met a couple of people in my whole life that I think have really managed to be good at all of these at the same time. So, it can be done! (but is far from easy).

Everything changes. Everything is connected. Pay attention.
A lifelong master student of Buddhism summarized all of their knowledge of this philosophy in 7 words:  "Everything changes. Everything is connected. Pay attention."

Sorry for the ramble. Keep up the great work, good luck on your “journey”, and I really look forward to hearing what you have to say in your book.

Eric Ronning is President of Channel Financial. He is a sponsor of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation Minneapolis chapter. 

The Pilgrimage. Where would you go?

I was reading Richard Wiseman's blog and read that the New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman says that everyone should go on a pilgrimage to see an important piece of art.

credit: jasonb42882

What would yours be?

It’s an interesting idea.  Where would you go on your pilgrimage? It might be somewhere connected with your religion (or lack thereof); your sport; your love of theatre, a great movie; a specific piece of art or an artist; your hobby; somewhere that you have always wanted to visit or someone that you have always wanted to meet; or perhaps something to do with your family history or personal life.

Either way, let’s share ideas for destinations and see where we all end up ;-)

I'll tell you mine this weekend (in a comment to this post).

Five ways email is killing you. What did they used to do at work?

I was inspired by Michael over at Box of Crayons blog in his post 5 ways email is killing you. He found a terrific article from PsyBlog. They’ve written a compelling article that sets out the ways in which email lessens our impact in the world, rather than supports it.

photo credit: Polandeze

The original article actually sets out ten reasons – you can pick the reasons that resonate most for you.

Michael's pick - #1, #2, #3, #4 and #6.
My pick - #2, #3, #4, #7 and #9

My maternal grandfather "Grandpa Ted" was a country bank manager in the Bank of Ireland in the 1940s through the 60s.  I often wonder what he could have done during the day.  No telephone.  No computer.  No email.  That is 80% of my concept of "work" today.

My friend Jolmer, co-founder of investment firm Triple Partners once told a story about asking his father "what did you do at work before email?".

His father's response was "Read the newspapers and company updates. Think about the implications.  Meet colleagues for lunch.  Discuss. More thinking.  Dictate a memo. Go home."

Imagine all the patterns he might see in the world that are invisible to somebody who's day looks like "Wake. Check email on blackberry. Shower. Check blackberry over breakfast.  Have a coffee.  Drive (sending 1 email while waiting at traffic lights).  Arrive at work.  Say hi to receptionist.  Turn on computer.  Check email.  Lose track of time.  Colleague says "lunch?" "No. have to finish something."  Rush out to buy a sandwich to eat at desk. Check blackberry while in queue to buy sandwich.  Return to desk.  Open word to write a proposal.  Eat sandwich.  Start writing.  Remember a to-do that requires an email to be sent.  Switch to email.  Send email.  See that 11 new emails have arrived. Attempt to resist temptation to read them.  Fail.  Read them.  Enter time warp until dark outside.  Head home.  Check email on blackberry.  Work on laptop at home because proposal didn't get finished while actually at work....  Dream of blackberries...  then a chilling nightmare - you are sitting on a toilet and not having a paper to read or a blackberry to check and actually have to spend 3 minutes listening to the noise inside your own head!!!"

And we call email a "productive technology".

How about you?  Would love your comments.  Do you agree with Michael's top 5 or mine?  What is the most outrageous email checking activity that you have ever seen?  People walking across busy streets while totally focussed on a blackberry keyboard?  Will the iPad make this situation worse?

How Pixar predicts mastery in a potential employee

Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University, outlines four criteria that they look for when hiring new people into the team at Pixar.

1. Depth (in any area) - Randy believes that the best predictor of ability to master any one area is if somebody has already mastered another area.  It is more likely that someone who has achieved mastery in golf will achieve mastery as a Pixar artist or programmer than any set of pre-existing talent as an artist or programmer.  Mastery requires discipline more than talent.  Discipline requires humility.  In the highly important NASA search for the astronauts to travel to the moon they were looking for mastery after some form of setback.  They placed a huge value on people who had failed and recovered. In doing new things (buzz word "Innovation") the key skill is "failure recovery".
2. Breadth - He says they look for interested people more than interesting people.  People who are broadly curious rather than just "different".  The key question is does this person "amplify me"? Can this person take my ideas and return them with passion?
3. Communication - Communication requires a process of translation.  When a techie speaks to an artist she must speak in language that the artist understands.  Randy says that nobody can be considered articulate, because the only success of communication is that the listener can say "I understand you".
4. Collaboration - This is far beyond simple cooperation.  Cooperation is for assembly lines, Ford Model T production workers. Knowledge work requries the ability for team members to amplify each other - creating truly connected human beings.

The full video is available here on the blog. It is well worth the 10 minutes to watch.  Chris Spagnuolo at Edgehopper blog has another great article about Randy's ideas on learning and working in the collaborative age.

Five telltale signs of a workplace that needs more courage

I spent a few days of my summer visiting Asheville, North Carolina and spending time with a friend.  I got to visit "America's largest private house" - the Biltmore Estate, built by the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt who had made his fortune in railways.

My friend, Bill Treasurer has spent his life exploring, living and writing about Courage.  Courage, according to Aristotle, is the first virtue - because it makes all the other virtues possible.

In his recent book Courage Goes to Work, Bill tells us that Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to perform in the presence of fear.  Bill believes that courage is a teachable and learnable skill; and that everyone has the capacity to be courageous.

According to Bill, there are five telltale signs of a workplace that needs more courage:

1. Covering your tail rules the day: Workers spend an inordinate amount of time covering their tails and generating "proof" that they are doing their jobs.
2. The Emperors are Naked: Leaders are insulated from employee feedback and dangerously blind to themselves.
3. Bean-Counters Rule: Financial acumen is valued more than creativity or innovation, causing decisions to be driven solely by "the numbers" versus what is in the long term best interests of the organisation.
4. People are Hung for making smart mistakes: Mistakes are punished swiftly and harshly, creating a "play it safe at all costs" environment.  Workers end up hiding mistakes or, worse, blaming others for their own mistakes.
5. Everything is perpetually urgent.  The work environment in fear-based organisations is fraught with urgency and anxiety.  In such places, regardless of their roles, everyone seems to have the same job: firefighter!

If some of these five signs resonate with you have a look at Bill's article on "The three kinds of Executive Courage" on Forbes or his free summary of the book at his website GiantLeapConsulting.com.