Being The Best

Those who know me already know that I have an almost sick obsession with being the best at everything I do. I guess it is my competitive nature that drives this behavior. It is a hard line to walk between my desire for being the best in every aspect of my life, but also having the serenity to know that it is never obtainable.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, I wake up every day with a laser focus on being the best. I ask myself every morning, what I can do today to be better than I was yesterday; as a leader, a husband, a father,  or as a solution for my valued customers, etc...

I have always lived under the principle that if you provide a superior service at a fair price, you will always remain busy. So far that principle has served me well (knock on wood). However, this article isn’t about me and my relentless pursuit of perfection. This article is about focusing on being the best at what you do, no matter your station in your life.

On the business side it doesn’t matter what your role is in an organization. If you draw a paycheck then you are an important member of the team. It should always be your main focus to be the best you can be at that position. If you are digging a ditch, then you should focus on being the very best ditch digger. This is the true measure of a person’s character. I have spent my entire career focused on being the best team member I could be and focused on making the company the most money I could, regardless of what tasks I was given. This is the best advice I could ever give anyone. If you focus on the success of your team, rather than on your own selfish needs, you will always be in demand and rarely need to worry about money or keeping your job. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.”

It has always been strange to me that many people look past the receptionist at the front desk, or the janitor that sweeps the halls. Their role is every bit as important, if not more so, than that of the CEO.

Let’s look at the receptionist for example. When someone enters a business, the receptionist is the first person they meet. If they call the office, they are the first person to whom they speak. Have you ever heard of first impressions? How well the receptionist does their job, how clean they keep their desk, and how warm and welcoming they are, will definitely have an effect on your customer’s impression of your business. If first impressions are so important, then in turn so is the receptionist.

The same holds true for the janitor. Can you imagine what the place would look like if you didn’t have someone who cleaned up the place and kept it looking like a professional work place?

I bring these positions up because many times people take them for granted. In fact many times we take other very important people in our organization for granted. It makes it very difficult for a team member to put passion and desire into their job, if they feel they are being taken for granted. Always remember that every team member is important and has their role to play in the success of the business.

With all that said, how do we become the very best? Well you can’t! Remember, that is how I started this article. You have to understand that being the best isn’t really a goal, it is a desire. However you should strive to achieve perfection with every fiber of your being.

The difference between being ordinary and world class is often only one second. If you think about it for a minute you will begin to understand what I am saying. In most cases the difference between a gold medal winner in the Olympics and the person who came in dead last is less than a second. So these athletes train day after day, night after night, to gain that second over their competition.

If you want to be the best, then you also need to have that passion and work ethic. You have to want it more than you want to take your next breath. You need to dedicate your time and efforts to being the best. This means training, practicing, and conditioning day after day, night after night, to gain the one second on your competition. This is the portrait of a winner and it doesn’t matter what you do, you can be better at it; and people will notice. Good luck and train on!

What Makes You Different

What Makes You Different

One of the best questions you can ask yourself in business is; what makes you different? It really doesn't matter whether we are talking about your business, or your position within a business. I have been asked many times to help people with their business, or with their career, and this is always the first question I ask them. Rarely do I get a cogent answer.

The most common answer is “our company provides the best quality”, or “I work harder than my peers”. While all that may be true, it usually isn't a true differentiator. Just about every business thinks they are different, better, faster, or offer a greater value. The truth though, is that most people cannot articulate what makes them different, better, faster, or why their offer provides a greater value. Whether you are an employee or a business owner, you need to ask yourself this question and give it some serious thought. If you cannot identify specific metrics that truly separate you from the competition, then you are going to have a hard time convincing your customers, or boss, that you are the better choice.

If we take a look at some examples I think my point may become clear about how to differentiate you, even in a saturated market. In previous articles I have used the comparison of Best Buy versus Wal-Mart. I don’t mean to rehash the same point, but I can’t think of a better example when it comes to two completely different experiences within the same market. So for my faithful followers, here I go again.

Wal-Mart is a great company who provides a valuable service to a diverse set of demographics. If you want to but a product and be sure that you are paying near the lowest price possible, then Wal-Mart is the place for you. They have massive superstores now that have everything from furniture to tonight’s dinner. However, it will usually be hard to find a parking space anywhere near the store, it will be very crowded, and chances are you will not get a sales person who has a great deal of knowledge about the products you are considering for purchase. Once you find the product you want, it will take some time to find someone to pull it from the back for you, and if you are lucky, they will help you get it to your car. This works great for the frugal buyer who has no problem getting and loading their own products and already knows what they want. It is especially a great venue for the buyer who spends weeks looking up information on the internet deciding what the best product for their needs is and requires little to no input from a sales person.

Best Buy has a whole different model. They pay their employees no commission, and make sure that they are very well trained on all the products they carry. They have wide open spaces with great selections to choose from, and a salesperson will spend as much time as you need answering questions and making sure you are paired with the proper product. They will gladly load that product into your vehicle, and even send someone to your house to set it up for you if you desire.

So there you have it, two completely different experiences, in the same retail environment. One is not better than the other, just different. Each one caters to a different type of client. If you were to ask Wal-Mart what makes them different, they would more than likely respond, ‘great value and low prices’, and they would be correct. If you were to ask Best Buy what makes them different, they would more than likely respond with ‘great selection and exceptional customer service’, and they too would be correct.

So when you analyze yourself or your business, ask yourself what makes me/us different? For me, at my office, we have designed innovative ways to enhance the customer experience. We have used technology to become more efficient and speed up the service process for our customers. We have also designed a system to ensure the highest possible quality for every job, every time. If that wasn’t enough we have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that we have some of the best trained team members in the industry. While I am not going to reveal all the details, since this is our competitive advantage, be sure that they are a part of our marketing package when approaching new customers.

So what makes you different? What can you do that nobody else can do? If you don’t have that answer, get it! As the economy begins to recover, the companies and employees that truly set themselves apart will have an enormous advantage. You need to identify who is your perfect customer and how can you serve them better than anyone else? If you are an employee, ask yourself what internal need can I fill and be better than anyone else at performing? Once you have identified these things you need to plan and develop internal processes that will set you apart from everyone else. Whether it is focusing on a specific type of customer, service, or job duty, find something that you can do that no one else is offering or can’t offer, and then make that your sole focus. Saying you are better or faster is easy, actually being able to prove it is a whole different situation. So hurry up and develop what truly makes you different than your competition!

Three Men & A Hotel

Ok,  so yesterday a friend of mine came to me with this riddle. I am not usually someone who posts riddles, but this one really took me a while to figure out. I even looked online and couldn't find a acceptable answer. So here is how it goes;

Three men check into a hotel. The night clerk tells them it will be 30 dollars for the night. Since they are all sharing a room, they decide to split the bill, each paying 10 dollars. The men then proceed to their room. The night clerk realizes that he gave them the wrong rate. It should have been 25 dollars for the night. So the night clerk gives the bell hop five dollars and tells him to return it to the men.  On the way to the room the bell hop cannot figure out how to divide the five dollars between the three men, so he decides to give each of them one dollar and keep two dollars for himself. So each man only spent 9 dollars. So if 9 dollars X three men = 27 ( 9X3=27 ), and the boy kept two dollars for himself, then where did the other dollar go? 27+2=29

The Toll Plaza

In many other articles I have mentioned about how important it is to act professional at all times. Since you never know where your next customer may come from, you don’t ever want to get caught behaving inappropriately. Below is a story that illustrates my point. While this story is a little long it is well worth the read and may even make you chuckle a little bit. The names have been changed to protect the (and not so) innocent...LOL

Rocky was a great electrician and was always considered one of the top guys at Electric Co. where he worked. While Rocky enjoyed working at Electric Co., he always wanted to have his own business. He spent tireless nights and weekends studying for his master’s test and after more than a year of giving up all of his free time to achieve this goal, he finally passed his master’s exam. He was finally qualified to contract electrical work on his own.

Rocky turned in his notice to Electric Co. and ventured down the entrepreneurial road. He spent several years struggling with the business end. Since he had only worked as an electrician, he wasn’t ready for all the stresses and demands that come with owning your own business. However, thanks to the help of some really great mentors he was able to institute a strong financial and operations structure and started having some success.

Over the next year he was making decent money on small contracts and service work. However he hadn’t had that big break through job yet. He knew that at some point it would come along and would forever change his company. Finally one day, after many months of marketing to the better companies, he got his big break. Pinnacle Construction invited him to bid on a large $30-Million-Dollar project for which they had already won the contract. Well at least in his mind a $30-Million-Dollar project was huge!

Pinnacle Construction was a very reputable general contractor. They were known for building relationships and they were not only interested in who had the lowest price, they were interested in the best value and working with subcontractors that understood what relationships are all about. This would be a perfect fit for Rocky’s company, since he had built a ‘quality first’ minded company and was more interested in providing quality than quantity.

Rocky spent the next week estimating this project night and day. He took the time to really understand the overall design, and had come up with many ‘value engineered’ ideas that he knew the customer would love, and he hoped would give him a competitive edge. Rocky called Mr. Thornton, who was the lead for this project, and asked to set up a meeting for him to hand deliver his proposal and a short presentation of who he was and some money saving ideas he had for the project. Mr. Thornton agreed and they set a time up for 9:00am on Friday morning.

Over the next few days Rocky was so excited that he couldn’t sleep. In his head, he ran over and over his presentation a thousand times, and Friday couldn’t come fast enough. Rocky woke up on Friday morning and got ready for his meeting. He took extra time to make sure that he was groomed to the nines and put on his best suit. Rocky was diligent in every detail. He made sure his shoes had a high shine and his tie was straight with a perfectly tied Windsor knot. He put on his Rolex watch and was ready for the meeting that would take his business to the next level and forever change his life.

Rocky knew his meeting wasn’t until 9:00 am but he left an hour early. Rocky always wanted to make sure he was punctual, so it was a habit of his to get to the place early then park nearby and prepare.

As he headed out, he noticed that traffic was quite heavy that morning, much heavier than he had ever seen it in the past. Oh well, he said to himself, that is why I leave early, right? As he continued on, he merged onto the local turnpike. It was gridlock! Rocky then turn on the radio to see if he could get any information on why the traffic was so atrocious. Then, he heard the announcer say that the President was in town today and many roads would be closed.

Rocky shouted at himself, “you idiot! The most important meeting of your life and you didn’t even watch the news last night which could have helped you avoid this mess”. Rocky started to panic. The time was flying by and 9:00am was fast approaching. He kept jumping on and off the turnpike trying back roads, but it was no use, the traffic was horrible.

Finally, back on the turnpike, things were starting to move a little quicker. He could see the toll booth up ahead and knew his exit was soon after that toll. As he approached the toll, he noticed a red sports car pull out from many cars back and shoot up the merge lane to try and avoid traffic. Rocky was furious. He thought to himself, who does this idiot think they are? Why are they so much more important than everyone else? As the little red sports car approached they put their blinker on to try and merge back in, right in front of Rocky and right before the toll. Rocky quickly closed the gap and blew his horn, making a gesture with his thumb, as if to say ‘back of the line’.

The man in the red sports car rolled down his window and started waving at Rocky to let him in. Rocky was increasingly frustrated. Rocky rolled down his window and exposed his middle finger at the guy in the red sports car and continued to yell obscenities at him. The man became hostile and was screaming what is your problem?

Eventually Rocky was successful at keeping the man with his fancy sports car behind him as he went through the toll. Meanwhile he could see in his rearview mirror that the man in the red sports cars was waving his arm around and still visually upset with Rocky. As Rocky came up to his exit, the man in the red car also exited. Rocky thought to himself, ok lets rock! This idiot is following me and he is going to get his. However as they came up to the intersection the red car went one way and Rocky went the other.

At this point Rocky still had about 15 minutes until his big meeting. So he decided to pull into the local gas station, compose himself and prepare for the meeting. As 9:00am neared, Rocky decided to head on over to Pinnacle’s office building. He pulled in to a parking space and headed into the building. It was a beautiful building with a very nice reception area. Rocky thought to himself, this is the first step to me have a place like this for my business. He walked up to the receptionist and told her who he was and that he was there for a meeting with Mr. Thornton. She asked him to take a seat and she would let him know Rocky was there.

As Rocky waited, he was running though the presentation one last time in his head. Suddenly he heard a man’s voice. “So it’s you” said the booming voice. Rocky looked up and his heart fell to the floor. For standing there in front of him was the man from the little red sports car.

 “Mr. Thornton I presume?” stuttered Rocky.

“Why yes I am, and I have no interest in moving forward with this meeting. We at Pinnacle Construction only deal with professionals, and your behavior earlier was anything but professional. Good day sir”, said Mr. Thornton, and he turned and walked away.

This is a true story. I have kept the real names out of this story out of respect for those involved. While it may not be the norm, it clearly shows why you need to always be on your best behavior. As I have stated before you are always on stage and you are always being judged. 

You Gotta Wanit!

Yesterday a colleague and I were discussing internal training and processes and the effect we were having on our internal team. While the overall effect has been very positive, we were trying to figure out a way to reach more of our team and help them better understand and become more engaged during the monthly training sessions. You see, every month we bring in all of our field team members, across all of our offices, and we go through internal training on how we can get better with both, technical training and customer service training. This is to help to continue improvement in our efficiency, technical acumen, and providing our customers with the best possible experience in a uniformed and congruent fashion.

Our technicians have become very engaging and help make each training session better, by giving their input and feedback on what they are hearing in the field on the front lines. However, we have not been completely successful, since there always seems to be a few team members that are not fully engaged. That isn’t to say that they are not listening, or learning, just that they are not as engaged as some of their teammates.

It was at this point, that my colleague told me a story he had heard from back in his college days. It went something like this:

At a very well known and high level college campus, the members of the board were meeting to discuss how to attract more students to their college. They decided they were going to send out a survey to existing graduates to find out what they remembered from when they attended the college. The Board’s idea being that they would then take pictures from around the college campus based on the responses and memories of the alumni and then put them into their next year’s marketing campaign.

The results puzzled them. It seemed that the majority of responses they received, in fact more than 70%, were just the simple line, “You Gotta Wanit”. What did this mean? What are they trying to tell us? It seemed the biggest impact on the alumni was a single phrase. But where did it come from?

As it turns out that, Jeremy, the janitor for the college, would go through each class cleaning overnight and once he was done, he would write on the blackboard, “You Gotta Wanit”. (Just the way it sounds with all of the grammatical errors.) You see, Jeremy was working on going back to school to better himself, and he used this practice as a way to let every student know that you have to want it, if you are going to achieve anything in life. All the money and the best instructors in the world can’t help you, if you don’t want to learn.

Who would have guessed that with all the world class professors at this college, the person who would have the most impact on the student body was a janitor named Jeremy? It just goes to show, you never know what is going to have a huge impact on another person.

My collegue and I had a good laugh about the story, but then we also had a moment of silence. We both realized at the same time, that no matter how much we dedicate to training, and no matter how dynamic the class sessions are, it will have no effect if someone doesn’t want it to affect them. We decided that there are different type’s people who react differently to different things. So we will continue to improve the trainings, and do our best to provide interactive, fun, learning sessions and we will just hope that in the end --they will Wanit!

The Indecisive Squirrel

A story about the consequences of being dubious:

Colby was a small squirrel who lived in the city. He was born in the city but spent most his time growing up in the park. However, as Colby got older he continued to push his way towards the outermost reaches of the park. One day while sitting up in a tree, Colby heard this loud clattering noise. He climbed to the highest perch in the tree and stood in udder amazement.  He saw large buildings, people rushing around and cars speeding up and down the streets. Colby’s curious side took over and he decided he had to get a closer look. Colby crawled to the parks edge and sat on the edge of the sidewalk looking at all of the cars zooming up and down the road. Colby knew he was very fast and figured he could make it across the multiple lanes of traffic as long as he chose the right moment. He waited for just the right time and then sprinted across the street. Suddenly, a giant semi-truck appeared out of nowhere and Colby froze in fear. Colby panicked and started to scramble left then right. He couldn’t make up his mind whether he should head back to the park or press on to the other side of the street. The truck was speeding toward Colby, yet he kept scrambling right then left remaining in the middle lane right in the truck’s path. The truck swerved to try and miss the little squirrel, causing the truck to slam into the car to his right. But it was no use. The truck ran right over Colby ending his life.

This story has a sad ending, true. But the lesson in this story is solid. If Colby had made a decision and stuck with it, everyone would have been fine. However, Colby was so worried about which was the right decision; he essentially made no decision, which had dire consequences for all involved.

All of us have made bad decisions in our lifetime. However, the key point is that we made a decision. Don’t waste time worrying about what is the right decision or the wrong decision. Gather all of your information, weigh your options, and if you still can’t decide-- flip a coin and move on. As Dee Snyder said, “Make your choice now, for tomorrow may be far too late!”

 Once you have made your decision let it go and take comfort in knowing that you made the best decision you could at that time, knowing all the information you had at that moment. If time proves it was a bad decision, you have nothing to feel bad about. Henry Link put it best: “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other person is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” Make your choice now, dart for the finish and never look back.

The Big Deal

A true story, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Jerry was a young energetic manager who wanted to make a big splash in the business world. He worked hard and tirelessly. It was not uncommon for Jerry to work 18 or even 20 hours a day when he first got to the company to make sure he would accomplish his goals.

When Jerry first got to the company he made a list of his Top 5 Dream Clients in the area. Starting with the biggest client in the state, with a worldwide footprint, Jerry put this customer as number one for a reason. We will call this company Minnie Entertainment (ME) for the purposes of this story. If he could win this customer for the company it would change his career path. A customer of this size and notoriety would be a shot heard through the entire company and set the course for his rapid rise to the top.

Jerry focused a lot of energy doing research on what motivates this customer to buy, and who the real decision makers were. Over the next several months Jerry kept pounding the pavement and the internet to try and get a chance to meet with the decision makers at this company. One thing Jerry had on his side is that he really cared about his customers and developing real relationships with all of them. Then out of nowhere he was contacted by a local customer who knew, and was good friends with, the VP of ME. Because of all of the help and support that Jerry had given to this customer, he was willing to introduce Jerry’s company to the VP of ME and hopefully solidify all of Jerry’s efforts into what had now been over a year’s worth of prospecting and research. Jerry was so excited he couldn’t believe he was going to get a chance to meet with the VP of ME. You see Jerry grew up with this company. He had bought many of their toys and seen every movie they ever put out. As a kid he could remember the magical time he had visiting their parks and how much fun he had taking his own kids there as an adult. He dreamed of the impact he would make with ME by providing them with the excellent service and customer support he had built his reputation on thus far and couldn’t wait for the meeting.

The next day his phone rang and it was his corporate office. They had received word that Jerry had made headway with this customer and had a meeting with their VP. Jerry was very proud of himself, and boasted, just a little, about his tenacity in finally getting this meeting. In an instant corporate took over and started planning the presentation for this meeting. They told Jerry that all of their top brass would come down for this meeting and they would prepare a presentation that would blow away ME. Jerry was concerned. You see all the research he had done pointed to the fact that ME was interested in relationships and vendors that understood their needs. However, Jerry’s experience had been that the corporate marketing MO was to stand on the top of the mountain and pound their chest, ranting about how great they are. Jerry knew this approach would not go well and tried to help steer the presentation in the appropriate direction. But it was to no avail. When Jerry tried to help with the presentation he was told that his ideas were amateurish and would not fit the company’s brand. With Jerry’s back against the wall he had no other option but to take a back seat and allow the corporate office to run this meeting and hope everything turned out well in the end.

Finally the day had come. Jerry was so excited to finally see the backstage operations of ME and meet with the VP of what he considered one of the greatest companies in the world. As they were escorted into the conference room, Jerry noticed that not only was the VP there but so was every other decision maker for the entire ME operation. The VP, we will call him Jim, introduced himself and then proceeded to introduce each member of his team. When he finished the corporate brass went down the line introducing everyone on their team. Jerry was trying to keep his grin under control. He thought to himself, ‘this is amazing!’ When will we ever get a chance to have this many power decision makers around one table again? This was the chance of a lifetime and it was all because of the real relationships Jerry had built with one local customer.

Jill, one of the directors of Jerry’s corporate office started off the meeting stating that they had prepared a presentation that they would like to run through. Jim, the VP of ME told Jill to go ahead. Jill proceeded to give the presentation and as she did, she brought each member of the team in to discuss their role. Well, all the members except for Jerry. Jerry sat in awe of all the things Jill explained. Many of the things Jill was saying they could do, Jerry didn’t even know was a product or service his company provided. Finally, after 3 hours of the presentation Jill closed up the presentation.

The presentation was everything they promised. It was so much information it blew Jerry away. The presentation was very professional and very polished, as were the speakers that had traveled with Jill. However, as soon as the presentation was done, Jim stood up and said, “Well thanks for all the information. I was hoping that we could spend some time talking about what our needs are and what possible ideas or solutions you might have that could fit our current needs, but it seems we have run out of time. Thank you and good day!” And just like that all of the decision makers for ME shuffled out of the room. Jerry was crushed.

All too often when we want to try and win a new customer we spend our time talking at the person. When they are talking we are thinking of how we will respond and what we will say. As this story illustrates, many times it doesn’t matter what you have to say, but rather, can you listen? I have always tried to shut up and let others tell me what they need. If I think I can provide them what they need at an extremely high level, then we work together to find a solution. If I don’t think I can, I thank them for their time and then try to find someone that can help them. The moral behind this story is that you shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone and you shouldn’t waste time talking about yourself. Chances are most people have already done research on your company if they have agreed to meet with you and they are fully aware of the services or products you provide. Most of the time the best thing you can do, is shut up, listen, and then genuinely try to help everyone you meet. Only time will reveal who the customer is and how they will be presented to you. Then it is up to you to shut up and listen to that customer.