Mike Michalowicz's Blog, page 46

The Rise of Successful Female Entrepreneurs

There are more female entrepreneurs now than ever before.

Check out these magazines featuring successful female entrepreneurs on their cover – Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Fortune and Success, all heralding an era of female achievement. The ratio is changing.

In the past it seemed the media was trying to perpetuate the perception of female entrepreneurs and executives as if they were males. They were posed like men, dressed like men…but check out the cover of Inc. Magazine. They made media history by featuring Audrey Gelman, CEO of The Wing. She is the first visibly pregnant women featured on the cover of a business magazine. Blaze. That. Trail!

Look, I’m not here to mansplain. And, I know I am scratching the surface of gender in business. But as you know, I love seeing others succeed, and even better when it’s a group who statistically has had less entrepreneurs. One female entrepreneur we were lucky enough to have on Entrepreneurship Elevated podcast is Michelle Pippin. Michelle is the founder of Women Who Wow, a coaching and mentoring program for female entrepreneurs. She offered some insight regarding female entrepreneurship and women in the workplace.

One of the questions I posed to Michelle was what sets female entrepreneurs apart from their counterparts? Well, aside from the obvious?

Expectations

Successful female entrepreneurs are not that different from men, however, Michelle notes there are different expectations placed on each party. She says women, along with the rest of society, place the expectation of being all things to all people squarely on women’s shoulders. I’ve seen it in my own life. Let’s face it, when my wife and I had kids, no one asked, “Oh, what are you going to do Mike? Are you coming back to work?” But you bet just about every female in the workplace is asked this if she’s building a family.

Entrepreneurship and traditional female roles

While not every woman becomes a mother, statistically there are more female entrepreneurs who are indeed mothers. Michelle and I discussed the stigma women, and society, place on mothers. A bit of damned if you do damned if you don’t. Sometimes there’s shaming for “just” being a mom, and conversely, shaming for being a working mother. Stigma aside, what’s the best way to manage that conflict? Michelle says it’s tough to navigate balance for love of family and burning desire to follow your passion. Her fix? Flip that script and feed your own priorities vs someone else’s expectations.

Finding balance

Speaking of priorities. Michelle says don’t seek balance! Instead of the eternal search for The Holy Grail of Balance, guide yourself by priority. One day your priority may be your keynote speech or appearance on MSNBC, the next day your priority may be your family. If you truly tap into a sense of what your priorities are (again, priorities, not other’s expectations), a sense of balance will likely fall into place naturally.

Different management styles of men and women

Michelle also says women have a tendency to place standards of perfection on themselves, and feel a need to be perfect in all of the many roles they are expected to fulfill – did we mention perfectly? Let’s face it – society expects women to be strong, yet soft, professional, yet maternal, shrewd, yet kind. Michelle’s work around that? Defiance! Defy all the expectations with no excuses. Example, you don’t have to temper saying no to someone by following it up with an explanation. And that could certainly ruffle feathers.

A strong or defiant man is a leader, but a woman can be labeled a “bitch”. It’s not something I have ever believed or supported and often wondered how women deal with that. We loved Michelle’s perspective and it resonated with us deeply: not one drop of another’s opinion should affect your confidence or worth. (Repeat that if it didn’t sink in the first time.) If you are strong in that conviction, the concern of others is diminished and you can focus on your priorities. Determining what you want from your life as an entrepreneur should be your gauge for your own self esteem. It should be your measurement – not the measurement of anyone else.

Michelle has two favorite tips on how to defeat challenges of entrepreneurship and they apply to men as well as women.

Defiance

Yes, there it is again! Defiance! Entrepreneurs need to be defiant. It’s a main strategy that Michelle uses. Simply put, Michelle breaks rules to avoid blending into the masses. (Man, does this sound familiar!) 

Consistency

Michelle attributes a huge part of her success to practicing consistency. It’s a quiet strength in a loyalty to your own goals. What you do every single day gets you farther. That consistency dramatically sets you apart. Consistency makes people notice you.

Female entrepreneurship is an important topic, one that cannot be summed up in one blog post. But for now, this is me saying how grateful I am that the entrepreneurial field is leveling out. I am so excited to collaborate with more entrepreneurs across the board.

If you want more tips like this go to Mikemotorbike.com or Mikemichalowicz.com and click on Get the Tools for tons of tried and true resources for business help and how to run a truly profitable business. Let’s rock entrepreneurship!

The post The Rise of Successful Female Entrepreneurs appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

How to Use Gifting as a Marketing Channel

In this interview, Mike interviews John Ruhlin, author and founder of GIFT∙OLOGY. John has been praised as a world-class gift marketer by people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Shep Hyken, Lewis Howes, John Lee Dumas, and has been featured on places such as Inc, Forbes, Fast Company, Fox News, and the New York Times.

But before GIFT∙OLOGY was featured everywhere (literally everywhere), John’s entrepreneurship journey started from humble beginnings. In his own words: “I grew up on a farm in Ohio, milking goats. Know this: nothing is more motivating than pulling teets at 5am in negative thousand degree weather. I needed out. …but how?”

MIKE: MOST PEOPLE DON’T THINK OF GIFTING AS A MARKETING CHANNEL. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THAT?

Marketing is nothing more than starting, building, and keeping relationships. Gifting does all those things. Cynical me, of course, would smirk and tell the masses, “Keep thinking that. It gives the rest of us an unfair, ridiculously-large, competitive advantage.”

MIKE: HA. OK THEN! TELL US HOW TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT GIFTING.

Behind every business decision is a human being. Human beings are hard-wired to love (and reciprocate) great acts of kindness. Mike, think of it this way. There’s no ad campaign you can create that’ll emotionally anchor your audience the way a personalized gift will. There’s just not.

We’re all familiar with the law of reciprocity. Do nice things for others (with no ASK behind it) and people will do nice things for you. In 1985, Ethiopia sent $5,000 to Mexico after an 8.1 magnitude earthquake killed thousands. Why? Because 50 years earlier, Mexico went to bat for Ethiopia when Italy invaded. Humans are hard-wired to reciprocate kindness… without being asked.

MIKE: I’M NOT A GOOD GIFT GIVER. HOW DOES ONE GET STARTED WITH THIS?

Yes you are, Mike, and you know it. But I’ll humor your humility. MOST people say “I’m not a good gift giver.” I’m not either. But for a one-off gift, guys like us don’t need to be good gift givers. We need to be good listeners. And we need to be willing to try 25% harder than we’ve tried in the past.

Social media and the digital world make it easy to do research. There’s no excuse for you to know nothing about your dream targets. Enroll their inner circle to help you (spouses are my favorite, even if I’ve never met them). Look for clues in every interaction you have with these VIPs and, for gosh sakes, write things down. 

But here’s a big key: Gift∙ologists (as I call my tribe) don’t focus on the WHAT as much as they focus on the WHO. When you gift the right people, you open yourself up to:

Getting referrals without asking – because we always want to recommend those we love.
Affair-proofing customer, client, and employee relationships. Forever.
Differentiating ourselves as a brand – whether we’re a Fortune 500 company or a solopreneur.

MIKE: ON YOUR WEBSITE, I SEE THAT THE CHICAGO CLUBS AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS ARE YOUR CLIENTS. DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE ‘MADE IT’ IN ORDER TO IMPLEMENT STRATEGIC GIFTING?

Absolutely not. Strategic gifting is what will CAUSE YOU to ‘make it.’ When I was a Vector/Cutco sales rep (how I got my beginnings), I was a 23-year-old-kid sitting down with Fortune 500 CEOs. I had no right to be in that room. But I knew which gifts to avoid and I knew how to network up.

One high-powered executive even told me: “Umm… I was expecting somebody older. What are you here to do, kid?” And I looked him dead in the eye and said: “I’m here to teach your thousand sales reps to do exactly what I just did for you.”

You could actually see the lightbulb going off above his head. He became a client the same day. And also hired me to speak to his company.

MIKE: THAT’S PRETTY EXCEPTIONAL.

That’s the thing! It’s really not, though. It’s simple. NOT EASY. But simple. But most people don’t do it. They bring their experience of personal gifting to the world of business gifting. And it’s not the same at all.

MIKE: WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?

For starters, people need to think “gifting-at-scale.” Most people think, “buy the same cheap gift for a hundred people.” OR they think, “buy one special thing for ONE person, based on their hobbies and interests.” When instead – they need to be thinking, “buy an exceptional gift for my top 20-40 relationships.” It can be and (in most cases) should be the same type of gift. A practical luxury, that they use every day.

MIKE: TELL ME MORE. WHAT GIFTS SHOULD MARKETERS BE BUYING?

GIFT∙OLOGYgive best-in-class artifacts. That means items your recipients would love-to-have but would never buy for themselves. Example: if you have five hundred bucks to spend on a business gift, don’t buy your recipient a kinda-nice watch. Gift them a handcrafted, hand-carved, personalized coffee mug. And no, you’re not going to put your name or company logo on it, because then your gift is about you.

Buying people gifts based on their hobbies almost always fails. Think about it. You’re entering a world you know nothing about, but your recipient knows everything about. You’re not going to succeed. Example: my business partner, Rod, is a cigar-aficionado. People learn this and buy him cigars. Most of which he would never smoke (I have no idea why) and windup in the garbage. 

The first thing a Gift∙ologist receives when they sign up for my email list (shameless plug) is a TOP 10 list of the world’s worst gifts. Every single professional has purchased some of these: food, gift cards, money, alcohol, and other emotionless things that your competitors think are brilliant. And while we’re attacking the predictable? Gift randomly. Everyone expects something around Christmas. A Gift∙ologist will knock your socks off on a random Tuesday in February.

MIKE: AREN’T YOU WORRIED THAT THIS WILL COME ACROSS LIKE BRIBERY? ALMOST LIKE, “Ok. This person obviously needs something from me. What’s the catch?”

Everybody asks that. It’s every generous person’s number one fear.

Our tribe makes fun of those people – we call them “quid-pro-quo gifters.” They are the worst kind of people. “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Look, dude, my back doesn’t itch. I see these folks all the time. Their gifting formula is “give something cheap and/or worthless and ask for something big.”

It’s the very opposite of what we teach: “Give something big and valuable. And ask for NOTHING.”

Transactional gifting is the stuff of over-dramatized political thrillers. So avoid any words in your handwritten note (yes, handwritten notes are a must) that insinuate you’re expecting anything in return.

“But where’s the ROI in that,” you ask? Just trust me. Or better yet – try it.

MIKE: OK, I’M CONVINCED. HOW DOES SOMEBODY GET STARTED WITH THEIR FIRST STRATEGIC GIFT?

You don’t have to go all-in. In fact, start small. But start. Buy one gift. Business leaders always ask about the budget. We recommend $250 per gift for a dozen reasons we won’t go into here.

If you’re currently marketing, move dollars over from a low-performing channel to a gifting test. Easy. Depending on your industry margins, you can make 30x ROI from a $3K-$5K campaign.

If you’re NOT currently marketing? Maybe you’re a solopreneur or just getting started. Step 1 is to make a gifting list of people who –if they were so inclined– could open the customer floodgates for your business.

(Last plug, I promise). If you want to get more, no-cost, education on the topic of strategic gifting, join our newsletter at TheGiversEdge.com.

The difference with gifting compared to other branding and marketing channels is that this makes you memorable. Your goal is to be gifting heirlooms. You are creating marketing artifacts that are too good to ever be thrown away.

Or you’re not. And you’re like everybody else.

GIFT∙OLOGY is the deep versus wide approach. It’s for people –like me and like YOU, Mike– that believe relationships are the number one asset any business leader can have.

Successful people aren’t generous because they’re wealthy. They’re wealthy because they’re generous. You, too, can attract the most (and best) attention by being the most generous version of yourself.

Be the type of leader that makes remarkable, unforgettable, impressions. Because it’s not the thought that counts. It’s the thoughtful thought that counts.

The post How to Use Gifting as a Marketing Channel appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

This is how to Use Gifting as a Marketing Channel

In this interview, Mike interviews John Ruhlin, author and founder of GIFT∙OLOGY. John has been praised as a world-class gift marketer by people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Shep Hyken, Lewis Howes, John Lee Dumas, and has been featured on places such as Inc, Forbes, Fast Company, Fox News, and the New York Times.

But before GIFT∙OLOGY was featured everywhere (literally everywhere), John’s entrepreneurship journey started from humble beginnings. In his own words: “I grew up on a farm in Ohio, milking goats. Know this: nothing is more motivating than pulling teets at 5am in negative thousand degree weather. I needed out. …but how?”

MIKE: MOST PEOPLE DON’T THINK OF GIFTING AS A MARKETING CHANNEL. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THAT?

Marketing is nothing more than starting, building, and keeping relationships. Gifting does all those things. Cynical me, of course, would smirk and tell the masses, “Keep thinking that. It gives the rest of us an unfair, ridiculously-large, competitive advantage.”

MIKE: HA. OK THEN! TELL US HOW TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT GIFTING.

Behind every business decision is a human being. Human beings are hard-wired to love (and reciprocate) great acts of kindness. Mike, think of it this way. There’s no ad campaign you can create that’ll emotionally anchor your audience the way a personalized gift will. There’s just not.

We’re all familiar with the law of reciprocity. Do nice things for others (with no ASK behind it) and people will do nice things for you. In 1985, Ethiopia sent $5,000 to Mexico after an 8.1 magnitude earthquake killed thousands. Why? Because 50 years earlier, Mexico went to bat for Ethiopia when Italy invaded. Humans are hard-wired to reciprocate kindness… without being asked.

MIKE: I’M NOT A GOOD GIFT GIVER. HOW DOES ONE GET STARTED WITH THIS?

Yes you are, Mike, and you know it. But I’ll humor your humility. MOST people say “I’m not a good gift giver.” I’m not either. But for a one-off gift, guys like us don’t need to be good gift givers. We need to be good listeners. And we need to be willing to try 25% harder than we’ve tried in the past.

Social media and the digital world make it easy to do research. There’s no excuse for you to know nothing about your dream targets. Enroll their inner circle to help you (spouses are my favorite, even if I’ve never met them). Look for clues in every interaction you have with these VIPs and, for gosh sakes, write things down. 

But here’s a big key: Gift∙ologists (as I call my tribe) don’t focus on the WHAT as much as they focus on the WHO. When you gift the right people, you open yourself up to:

Getting referrals without asking – because we always want to recommend those we love.
Affair-proofing customer, client, and employee relationships. Forever.
Differentiating ourselves as a brand – whether we’re a Fortune 500 company or a solopreneur.

MIKE: ON YOUR WEBSITE, I SEE THAT THE CHICAGO CLUBS AND OTHER PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS ARE YOUR CLIENTS. DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE ‘MADE IT’ IN ORDER TO IMPLEMENT STRATEGIC GIFTING?

Absolutely not. Strategic gifting is what will CAUSE YOU to ‘make it.’ When I was a Vector/Cutco sales rep (how I got my beginnings), I was a 23-year-old-kid sitting down with Fortune 500 CEOs. I had no right to be in that room. But I knew which gifts to avoid and I knew how to network up.

One high-powered executive even told me: “Umm… I was expecting somebody older. What are you here to do, kid?” And I looked him dead in the eye and said: “I’m here to teach your thousand sales reps to do exactly what I just did for you.”

You could actually see the lightbulb going off above his head. He became a client the same day. And also hired me to speak to his company.

MIKE: THAT’S PRETTY EXCEPTIONAL.

That’s the thing! It’s really not, though. It’s simple. NOT EASY. But simple. But most people don’t do it. They bring their experience of personal gifting to the world of business gifting. And it’s not the same at all.

MIKE: WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?

For starters, people need to think “gifting-at-scale.” Most people think, “buy the same cheap gift for a hundred people.” OR they think, “buy one special thing for ONE person, based on their hobbies and interests.” When instead – they need to be thinking, “buy an exceptional gift for my top 20-40 relationships.” It can be and (in most cases) should be the same type of gift. A practical luxury, that they use every day.

MIKE: TELL ME MORE. WHAT GIFTS SHOULD MARKETERS BE BUYING?

Gift∙ologists give best-in-class artifacts. That means items your recipients would love-to-have but would never buy for themselves. Example: if you have five hundred bucks to spend on a business gift, don’t buy your recipient a kinda-nice watch. Gift them a handcrafted, hand-carved, personalized coffee mug. And no, you’re not going to put your name or company logo on it, because then your gift is about you.

Buying people gifts based on their hobbies almost always fails. Think about it. You’re entering a world you know nothing about, but your recipient knows everything about. You’re not going to succeed. Example: my business partner, Rod, is a cigar-aficionado. People learn this and buy him cigars. Most of which he would never smoke (I have no idea why) and windup in the garbage. 

The first thing a Gift∙ologist receives when they sign up for my email list (shameless plug) is a TOP 10 list of the world’s worst gifts. Every single professional has purchased some of these: food, gift cards, money, alcohol, and other emotionless things that your competitors think are brilliant. And while we’re attacking the predictable? Gift randomly. Everyone expects something around Christmas. A Gift∙ologist will knock your socks off on a random Tuesday in February.

MIKE: AREN’T YOU WORRIED THAT THIS WILL COME ACROSS LIKE BRIBERY? ALMOST LIKE, “Ok. This person obviously needs something from me. What’s the catch?”

Everybody asks that. It’s every generous person’s number one fear.

Our tribe makes fun of those people – we call them “quid-pro-quo gifters.” They are the worst kind of people. “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” Look, dude, my back doesn’t itch. I see these folks all the time. Their gifting formula is “give something cheap and/or worthless and ask for something big.”

It’s the very opposite of what we teach: “Give something big and valuable. And ask for NOTHING.”

Transactional gifting is the stuff of over-dramatized political thrillers. So avoid any words in your handwritten note (yes, handwritten notes are a must) that insinuate you’re expecting anything in return.

“But where’s the ROI in that,” you ask? Just trust me. Or better yet – try it.

MIKE: OK, I’M CONVINCED. HOW DOES SOMEBODY GET STARTED WITH THEIR FIRST STRATEGIC GIFT?

You don’t have to go all-in. In fact, start small. But start. Buy one gift. Business leaders always ask about the budget. We recommend $250 per gift for a dozen reasons we won’t go into here.

If you’re currently marketing, move dollars over from a low-performing channel to a gifting test. Easy. Depending on your industry margins, you can make 30x ROI from a $3K-$5K campaign.
If you’re NOT currently marketing? Maybe you’re a solopreneur or just getting started. Step 1 is to make a gifting list of people who –if they were so inclined– could open the customer floodgates for your business.

(Last plug, I promise). If you want to get more, no-cost, education on the topic of strategic gifting, join our newsletter at TheGiversEdge.com.

The difference with gifting compared to other branding and marketing channels is that this makes you memorable. Your goal is to be gifting heirlooms. You are creating marketing artifacts that are too good to ever be thrown away.

Or you’re not. And you’re like everybody else.

GIFT∙OLOGY is the deep versus wide approach. It’s for people –like me and like YOU, Mike– that believe relationships are the number one asset any business leader can have.

Successful people aren’t generous because they’re wealthy. They’re wealthy because they’re generous. You, too, can attract the most (and best) attention by being the most generous version of yourself.

Be the type of leader that makes remarkable, unforgettable, impressions. Because it’s not the thought that counts. It’s the thoughtful thought that counts.

The post This is how to Use Gifting as a Marketing Channel appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

Coaches are AWESOME!

You have a TREMENDOUS impact on entrepreneurs and I want to serve you better!

 

The post Coaches are AWESOME! appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

Profit First Works

Profit First Works.

If you want sustainable profit in your business there is one thing that has been proven time and time again – implementing the Profit First system works. No gimmicks, no need for a business finance degree. Profit First has been saving entrepreneurs from entrepreneurial poverty and helped create profitable businesses for years.

One of my favorite Profit First success stories comes from Casey Wright, CEO of The Ninja Zone. By implementing the Profit First system, Casey was able to obtain the financial structure she required in her business in order to yield amazing profitability. Casey took what started as a gymnastics business she took over for her parents years back and created a franchise of 325 locations worldwide with over 100,000 students. In FIVE years. Talk about growth! How do you tame that monster? One of the key factors to manage that growth? Profit First.

If you’ve read Profit First you know I do not necessarily push for exponential growth. Bigger isn’t always better, it just worked for Casey. She says one of the biggest challenges she faced as an entrepreneur was understanding how much to pay herself. Sound familiar? Profit First helped her look at her business – and the numbers, differently. What also worked for Casey was learning how to implement open book management. This provided the transparency she required to comfortably take her profit. Now she can set clear expectations for her employee compensation plans going forward. She has a solid, profitable business. And, by the way, she recommends Profit First 1000%. (Hint, hint, if you’re not already on board.)

On page 33 I ask readers to email me. Entrepreneurs like Casey tell me how much Profit First has resonated with them and subsequently changed their lives. In the first chapter I share my daughter’s piggy bank story, the survival trap and how old business accounting practices kill our businesses (just to name a few points). If anything, Profit First will teach you that you are not alone in the challenges entrepreneurs face and that there is a clear cut path to a profitable business.

Over and over I meet entrepreneurs who say they wish they read Profit First before starting their businesses. They also tell me how much more profitable they are now that they have implemented the system.

So where do you start, if you haven’t already? Read Profit First and follow it! Email me to let me know you’re committed to profitability and get the free resources I offer which are impactful through your implementation journey. Complete your instant assessment, open the accounts. The method is simple. Every time you get a deposit from sales, take a predetermined percentage of that money as profit. Yes, there are a few more steps than this – simple steps that will provide financial structure and lead to profitability.

Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit. If you haven’t implemented Profit First yet, now is the time. If you have already established Profit First in your business, share the system and join me in my quest in helping fellow entrepreneurs eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.

We love success stories! We feature them on each of our Entrepreneurship Elevated podcasts. Send me an email mike@mikemichalowicz.com with your story and we will be sure to share your success with the world!

If you want more tips like this go to Mikemotorbike.com or Mikemichalowicz.com and click on Get the Tools for tons of tried and true resources for business help and how to run a truly profitable business. Let’s rock entrepreneurship!

The post Profit First Works appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

What Makes a Great Leader?

What makes a great leader? (Not the sunglasses, but nice try!)

I was on my way to a Keller Williams event and I started to think about leadership. For example, Gary Keller is very strong, authoritative leader, but so are those in his leadership team. You see where this is going, right?

It’s important to remember that leadership is never about the single person. Leadership is an exploitation of your strength and your team’s strengths. Recently our Kelsey Ayers was named President of our company. She brings a level of kindness and generosity that really bolsters other leaders in our team and allows me to what I do best. (#leadershipwin!)

Let’s delve into this concept of leadership a bit more. A couple months ago we had Gene Hammett who is a leading expert in fast growth companies and leadership on our Entrepreneurship Elevated podcast. Gene describes how as leader, you have to change as your business grows. And a big part of that is cultivating a strong team of employees – who may just be leaders as well.

I used to think that when you start a business, provide a good example and be a good leader. “What do I need to change? I’m a great leader. Offer trust, get loyalty. No need to change anything.” But as my business grew I realized it’s not that simple, and Gene said it best. If your company is growing, leadership needs to evolve in order to lead a team successfully. So how did I evolve in my leadership role?

Hiring the Best – Strong leadership means hiring the best employees. Once I thought responsible employees were best. I have learned over the years however it’s not a sense of responsibility I want to foster in an employee, but a sense of ownership. Bam. That’s the term that changes the game. Ownership. Employees with a sense of ownership make them act, well, like owners.

Cultivate a Positive Work Culture – A snack room and a pool table are nice and all, but isn’t it more fun to grow? Employees care most about growing and having value in the marketplace. And while that sounds like a bit of a conflict, it isn’t if the leadership creates a workplace an employee doesn’t want to leave. A leader has to be proactive and cultivate the right culture for their team. How? One way is to remember that strong companies are team focused, not customer focused. A leader’s job is to care about their team of employees so they take care of the customers. That’s achieved by getting acquainted with them as people and knowing what their goals are. Focusing on the areas where they want to grow will create a workplace where they are excited to bring their ideas, and that benefits everyone. Nice job, awesome leader!

Delegate – One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is becoming the bottleneck in the company by taking everything on and not delegating. The smartest thing you can do as a leader is to develop other leaders. This means you must let them think for themselves and allow them to grow.

A Team of Entrepreneurs – One last tip to create great leadership? You may not want to be the only entrepreneur in the room. Employees with an entrepreneurial spirit are more resilient, have more vision and are more proactive vs reactive. Something that can only benefit your company.

Be Courageous – A great leader doesn’t get trapped in their progress. You want to continue to move forward, not rest on your laurels. It’s important to look inward, but don’t get stuck. Be decisive. You have to have the courage to leave the comfortable place you’re in to get to someplace new. Because, say it with me, that’s what creates great leadership.

Great leaders develop other leaders. As an entrepreneur where do you really rock? That’s where you need to focus. Find where you are strong and strengthen that and bring in others who are strong where you are not.

If you want more tips like this go to Mikemotorbike.com or Mikemichalowicz.com and click on Get the Tools for tons of tried and true resources for business help and how to run a truly profitable business. Let’s rock entrepreneurship!

The post What Makes a Great Leader? appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

How to Make Your Business Stand Out

Sure you’re better than the competition, but how are you different?

This really hit home while I was walking in San Jose and came across a Tesla storefront. Yup. A retail storefront for their cars. Talk about standing out. What a different marketing strategy to increase customers. No wacky waving balloon man or salesmen in a parking lot. Just a retail storefront on a retail block. It’s intriguing. Instead of avoiding a car lot because you don’t know if you want to speak with a salesperson, there’s a sense that one would be lured into this storefront as if to ask, “What is so special about these cars you don’t even need a lot?”. Well played, Tesla, well played.

By now you know I firmly believe that different is better. Following the standard industry model may not yield the most success let alone make you the best. Challenging your industry and standing out – now, that is something we can work with.

So how can we stand out and increase customers you ask? A while back I gave a keynote called Different is Better. In this talk I shared how in grade school I learned in science class that we are wired to notice something different. Something different offers an opportunity. Now, as an entrepreneur, I have recognized actions you can take in your business that play into the hard wiring of your customers minds. Here are just a few methods I discussed:

Names are magnetic. No one likes to feel like a number. Want to increase customers? Remember their name, it is one of the most powerful things we can do in and out of business. When you remember someone’s name it makes them feel valued and connected to you. They are encouraged and feel comfortable working with you. Again and again. Foster an actual relationship between you and your customers and see customer retention increase.

Speaking of fostering customer relationships, let’s talk about reciprocity. No, not bribing! Reciprocating in kind. Reciprocity shows an investment in the customer relationship. When someone we are connected with has a life event or when I have a meaningful conversation or encounter, I try to send a little token of appreciation. Giving a thoughtful handwritten note or small personalized gift is not only a kind response, but it greases the wheels of social and business interaction – and loyalty.

Those are nice things to do right? Now what about the nuts and bolts of your business? For instance, what is the name of your company? I mentioned this before in my blog when talking about bold titles. A label that is a little different and distinguishes you, making you memorable to others has a big impact is very powerful. Come up with a unique name and logo that makes you stand out and resonate with your potential clients.

So – what are we going to do? Break out of the paradigm! Break the generic label! Ask yourself, how are you challenging your industry? What is the industry norm – and what you can do that is radically different? Better is okay, but if you want to knock it out of the park, be different!

If you want more tips like this go to Mikemotorbike.com or Mikemichalowicz.com and click on Get the Tools for tons of tried and true resources for business help and how to run a truly profitable business. Let’s rock entrepreneurship!

The post How to Make Your Business Stand Out appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

The Importance of Community Involvement

When I am asked what the top benefits of being an entrepreneur are, sometimes people are surprised by my answer. Service.

The sense of service I feel carries through everything I do. From writing to speaking to mentoring those I work with and meet, my strong sense of duty goes beyond the obvious marketing aspects of traditional corporate philanthropy. When we at home base see an opportunity to lift our community, we are all in! It doesn’t always have to be a grand international gesture. We know tending to our own backyard and growing our local community is one of the best places to start. We’ve gotten involved with local PBA fundraisers, Child Services and as of last week, we really took one for the team – ice cream at 10am!

When our brand ambassador, Diana, mentioned there was an opportunity to support a local kindergarten teacher with advanced breast cancer, the team instantly agreed to show their support – and yes, this was before realizing it involved ice cream for breakfast. The team (figures I was away for this, and no, no one brought me some!) headed over to 7 Scoops, a community focused business who donated 100% of their proceeds to the teacher. It was one small act of service that collectively, made a big impact in this teacher’s life.

Service. It comes in many forms – big, small, international and local. Volunteerism and philanthropy are immensely beneficial to all involved. Your soul and your community flourish. Do you find one of the benefits of being an entrepreneur is growing your community? Pick something to give your time or money to and watch your service flourish. You may even inspire others to do the same.

The post The Importance of Community Involvement appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

Boosting Client Confidence

One surefire way for a client to lose confidence in you is if they know about your challenges.

Every entrepreneur, every business has challenges. It’s normal and comes with the territory. One of the best ways to boost client confidence is to handle them wisely and gracefully on your end while simultaneously serving your clients beyond their expectations.

The fact is that everyone has challenges. For instance, you may oversleep and narrowly make a keynote speech for the first time, ahem. Likewise, every business has its own challenges. The best thing to do is to manage them without letting them derail you or your customers confidence in you.

If you want more tips like this go to Mikemotorbike.com or Mikemichalowicz.com and click on Get the Tools for tons of tried and true resources for business help and how to run a truly profitable business. Let’s rock entrepreneurship!

The post Boosting Client Confidence appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.

How to Hire the Best: An Interview with Dr. Sabrina Starling

Hi! My name is Dr. Sabrina Starling, owner of Tap the Potential and author of the How to Hire the Best Series. I’ve been a fan, friend and colleague of Mike for a number of years. Mike recently interviewed me about my newest book in the series, How to Hire the Best: The Contractor’s Ultimate Guide to Attracting Top Performing Employees.

In this interview, I share how Mike’s books, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, and Profit First, have contributed to the development of this book series, as well as a solid foundation for my business, and those of my clients.

MIKE: Why did you write How to Hire the Best?

SABRINA: When I wrote the first edition of How to Hire the Best, I was living in Riverton, Wyoming, a rural part of the country. Most of my clients were small business owners. They were coming to me because they wanted more work-life balance. They were working 80 or 90 hours a week. I soon realized the work-life balance issue was caused by them not being able to hire the team members they needed.

I had just become a Pumpkin Plan Strategist, and was working on Pumpkin Planning my business. When I did the wish list interviews (from The Pumpkin Plan) with my top clients, I asked, “If I could wave a magic wand and do anything to make your life better, what would it be?” The responses were very similar: “Help me hire great people”, “Make my team better”, “Turn my warm bodies into A-Players”. That was the wish. At the time when I was hearing that, I felt so challenged by it. I knew that was the issue that needed to be solved and it was a tough one!

I started using everything I had in my toolbox as a psychologist to help them. I tried teaching the business owners how to coach, so they could get better productivity out of their warm body team members. That didn’t work.

Then, I started looking around for books about hiring in small business. There wasn’t much out there. Dr. Brad Smart’s book, Topgrading is excellent. However, it’s written for a corporate environment. It’s very hard for a small business owner, wearing multiple hats and juggling so many demands on his time, to execute the Topgrading strategies. I thought, ‘There has to be something out here.’ I was totally baffled that there wasn’t.

You might recall, I asked you, what are you doing? You said, “Well, you know, it’s tough. This is hard.” I interviewed other thought leaders, and business coaches who were working with small business owners, and I just wasn’t really getting anywhere. I got some good tips, but nothing that was a solid system that I felt confident would work over and over with consistency.

I started looking for business owners who were having success with their hiring, and interviewed them. That wasn’t easy either. I couldn’t find many who felt like they had insights into hiring. I said, “You just have to have an A-Player, and that’s all I need for you to be worthy of an interview.” Even then, they didn’t want to talk to me. They felt like they didn’t know how they got that A-Player on their team. Repeatedly, they told me it was just luck or happenstance. Every time I heard that, I dug a little deeper. What I came to unearth in all of those interviews is a system. There were certain things they were doing that worked consistently to attract A-Players to their businesses.

MIKE: What happened after the book was published?

SABRINA: My business grew as I got more clients wanting help with hiring. But, something surprising also happened. I started receiving phone calls from entrepreneurs all over the country. The ones that really took me aback were the ones that came in from major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco, New Jersey, and Denver. The stories were all the same. They would say, “Sabrina, I’m not rural, but I really, really hope you can help me because the labor market here is crazy…what I have to pay to hire team members… I can’t afford it! I’m drowning over here. I’ve got more work than I can handle, I need some help. Can you help me?”

I thought, “Well, I don’t know if this is going to work, but let’s try it.” Sure enough, it worked. What I quickly discovered is, if this system works for entrepreneurs in rural, low population areas, it’s works exponentially better for entrepreneurs in major metropolitan areas just because there’s a larger population to draw from.

The thing for us entrepreneurs to wrap our heads around is that only about 10 percent of the population is A-Players. Even if you’re in a major metropolitan area, you really start to feel like you’re looking for a needle in the haystack, because you are! Furthermore, not all of those 10 percent are employable. Some people are retired, some are children, some have a disability that would keep them from being able to work for you. It’s a very small number.

Here’s the kicker: The traditional hiring practices that we follow are inconsistent with A-Player behavior. For example, we get busy, we decide we need to hire, we post a job ad. We put it out on some job boards and places like Craig’s List.

It’s the spray and pray approach. When it comes to marketing, most of us know that spray and pray doesn’t work. Yet for some reason, when it comes to recruiting, we expect that to work. The reason it doesn’t work is because most A-Players are not unemployed, reading ads on job boards, or Craig’s List. We need to have a system that follows the natural pattern of behavior of A-Players.

Mike, when you wrote Profit First, you asked what is the entrepreneur’s natural behavior around money in the business? We check our bank account, and we make decisions based on what’s in our bank account. You developed the Profit First system around the entrepreneur’s natural behavior and it works!

Similarly, I have developed the How to Hire the Best System to recruit in a way that aligns with A-Players’ natural behavior. That requires us to understand what A-Players want, what’s important to them, and what keeps them in our business, then use that knowledge to show up where A-Players hang out so they become aware of our businesses.

MIKE: What do A-Players want?

SABRINA: A-Players want a great place to work. To recruit them, we have to do more than have a good Careers page on our website and write a good job ad. We have to put effort into our culture. With this latest edition of How to Hire the Best, I’ve put much more emphasis on how to create a great place to work that is attractive to A-Players, which is what we coach our clients to do at Tap the Potential. I’ve developed the Tap the Potential Solution to creating a highly profitable, great place to work that allows an entrepreneur to scale a business, regardless of how tight the labor market is.

MIKE: What makes that important?

SABRINA: Ultimately, we have a much more sustainable and profitable business when we reduce our dependency upon people to scale. People are complex and payroll is the biggest expense. The more people we have in our business, the more complexity we introduce. The larger the payroll, the more challenging it is to be profitable.

As a Profit First Professional, I am an advocate for keeping payroll as small as possible, and instead, investing in the development of A-Player team members. A small team of A-Players working in a business with a clearly defined Sweet Spot is key. This has a significant impact on improving the profitability of a business. Many of our clients come to appreciate scaling back their teams to scale profit. We teach them to grow with lean and mighty teams.

MIKE: Why did you choose to focus on contractors for the next edition of How to Hire the Best?

SABRINA: Well, I like to joke that I like a good challenge. If there’s one thing that rural business owners have in common with those in construction, it’s that those two groups likely face the greatest challenges with respect to hiring.

All kidding aside, I was following your Surge process, and niching down even further with my work.

As the first edition of How to Hire the Best came out, I noticed the majority of the people calling me were in one industry—construction. That’s no surprise because of various forces that have come into play in the construction industry in the last 15 years or so. This industry is missing an entire generation of workers. There are very few young people coming into the industry.

To give you a sense of how severe this situation is, in 2016, the National Association of Home Builders asked 2001 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 what they wanted to do for a living. Of the 74% who knew what they wanted to do, only 3% said they wanted to go into the construction trades. Meanwhile, 93% of participants in a HomeAdvisor survey said they believed their business would grow over the following year if not for hiring challenges. What’s more, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the number of construction jobs will grow by 11% between 2016 and 2026, faster than average for all occupations. Hiring is the #1 challenge in this industry.

Entrepreneurs in this industry really don’t have a big pool of labor from which to draw. There are definitely A-Players out there in the industry. As a contractor with the opportunity to grow, this means you have to be very savvy. You need the best, sharpest tools in your toolbox to attract A-Players to your business. That’s what I’m teaching in the How to Hire the Best, Contractor’s Edition.

I’ve paid attention to what works consistently to hire A-Players, across different industries. Using the Pumpkin Plan strategy, I’ve honed in on what works repeatedly most of the time, regardless of industry and geographic location. That’s what I included in the book. Then, I went a step further and studied what works with respect to hiring in the construction industry. This industry has some creative entrepreneurs who are having success with hiring.

In Surge, you teach about watching the trends and trying to be right out in front of where the need is.

Right now, we’re at a point in the country where our unemployment rate is at its lowest. Entrepreneurs, regardless of industry, often identify hiring as their #1 challenge. In the construction industry, the unemployment rate is at the lowest it’s ever been. It is very challenging for entrepreneurs in that industry to hire the team that they need to grow. How to Hire the Best, Contractor’s Edition provides the solution.

MIKE: Dr. Sabrina, you’re very quick to emphasize that How to Hire the Best is not a quick fix. Tell us why that’s so important?

SABRINA: When the first edition of How to Hire the Best came out, I felt a lot of pressure from entrepreneurs to give them a three-step formula. Go do these one, two, three things, and it will work, and you’ll hire A-Players. That three-step formula absolutely does work. They get A-Players, and they get them pretty quickly.

Here’s the deal, though: If you don’t have a great place to work, and you’re not working on yourself as a leader, paying attention to our own blind spots, you are setting up an environment where you’re not going to be able to keep A-Players. That quickly became a big concern of mine.

I don’t want to teach you the three things you need to do to get A-Players, if we don’t back that up with having a great place to work—a good work environment where you’re going to be able to retain A-Players long-term.

At Tap the Potential, that’s our sweet spot. We are supporting business owners in our Exclusive Small Group Coaching program to be the leaders they need to be to build a highly profitable, great place to work that attracts A-Players and gets team members working together from their strengths. As this is happening, these business owners get a lot more freedom and are able to do some amazing things, like taking four-week vacations.

MIKE: That sounds amazing. Where can readers get the book?

SABRINA: It is available on Amazon and from our website at www.TapThePotential.com

References:

http://www.nahbclassic.org/fileUpload...

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/31/despe...

Cusato, Marianne. “The Skilled Labor Shortage: Where is the Next Generation of Craftsmen?” HomeAdvisor. February, 2016.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-...

The post How to Hire the Best: An Interview with Dr. Sabrina Starling appeared first on Mike Michalowicz.