Maxim Behar's Blog, page 11

Maxim Behar received a honorary diploma for his contribution to the Youth Economic Forum of UNWE

The CEO of M3 Communications Group, Inc. Maxim Behar was a guest speaker at the 2020 Youth Economic Forum, organized by the Student Council at UNWE.

As one of the members of the university���s Board of Trustees, Behar received a honorary diploma on behalf of the management for his contribution to YEF 2020, presented to him by Angel Stoykov - the chairman of the Student Council.

Maxim Behar highlighted the importance of analysing leadership today. "Business is an endeavor for brave people who are not afraid to make quick decisions, take risks and be confident. Leaders need to guide people and think of the future. "Now we live a different life, we have become more pragmatic, we allocate our time better and we see the benefits of online communications," he said.

The forum was opened by Angel Stoykov and the Vice-Rector for Institutional and Business Cooperation and Student Policies Prof. Dr. Tsvetana Stoyanova.

Prof. Stoyanova congratulated Behar on the occasion of his re-election as President of the World Communication Forum in Davos.

Among the guest speakers were well-known entrepreneurs who shared their experience in business and made predictions about the "new normality" in business leadership.

The Youth Economic Forum was held on both - the MS Teams platform at the Great Conference Hall and online on Facebook.

Maxim Behar: "If public clich��s disappear, daily clich��s won���t be an issue anymore"

Maxim Behar was on Radio Sofia with Konstantin Lavsov and Alexandra Ilieva in the morning show "Wake up Sofia". The communication expert commented on the clich��s in business, politics and life, how to conduct a successful job interview and be more creative in 2020.

Host: And now we move on to something, in my opinion, quite interesting from today "Clich�� Day". We will talk about the most common clich��s in politics and somewhere else interesting, for example the job interviews in a dark room where you can find yourself with two or three more people. There is now a person on our line who sometimes does not need to be represented, but I will mention only - the communication expert Maxim Behar. Good morning, Mr. Behar!

Maxim Behar: Good morning to your listeners on Radio Sofia.

Host: Congratulations for being re-elected President of the World Communication Forum Association.

Maxim Behar: Thank you very much!

Host: You are certainly a person who understands a lot about communications and that's the reason we chose you to discuss todays topic about clich��s, because in 2020 sometimes when you hear a clich�� you just roll your eyes and you are literally tired of hearing such phrases as, I immediately remember and even wrote it down: "Not destination, but travelling is important" or "Time heals", "It takes money to make money". Are these things already irritating in 2020?

Maxim Behar: What you are talking about are rather thoughts of different people liked by people, than cliches. They irritate me as much as I can recognize them and ignore them, as my business is mainly about overcoming clich��s and inventing new interesting things. When these new interesting things also become clich��s, then we try to move on and look for new ways or new means of expression to explain to users or our listeners and readers, especially in online media, the same thing in another way. I wouldn't say that the use of clich��s is a big drama because there are words we keep repeating, like "I love you" or "What can I do for you" or other things that some people consider clich��s, but I think they don���t fall under this definition. Rather, a clich�� can be something we don't put a big thought into and something we keep repeating - it can be an action, it can be a thought, it can be words, it can be anything.

Host: This is exactly what is interesting, that it is not just something in the form of a statement or in the form of writing something. Clich��s can also be behavior, right?

Maxim Behar: Yes, absolutely! Of course! The more we try to avoid these things that we keep repeating, the more interesting I think our lives become. If we struggle with clich��s in some way, unconsciously, for example when we are alone, sometimes we are thinking in the shower or in front of the mirror in the morning, or when we go to work, by the way, I do it from time to time as I drive to the office: ���God, today I have to get away from all the things we're used to and I have to do something very interesting.���

Host: What are the most common clich��s in the Bulgarian reality? Can you give an example?

Maxim Behar: We have these clich��s every day. You know, the most dangerous clich�� remains modern politics. I'm sorry I'm switching to politics.

Host: This has been a very exciting topic lately.

Maxim Behar: The fact that we think about politics in the same way without trying to change it, is quite harmful to society, because we vote every four years and then we complain, "Why did we choose these people?" and four years later, the same thing happens, and at a time when social media gives us something new every day, an online space where we can control every day or every hour or even a minute what people do in politics. The same goes for business, by the way. However, the business is much more flexible, because the moment a product or a service becomes a clich��, the same boring thing that everyone has, with no innovation in it, then customers stop buying, the business fails and other one appears. In politics, however, this is not the case, and it is just a very long conversation. Of course, this political system is no longer working, which for some reason we still call democracy. It must be changed, and If public clich��s disappear, daily clich��s won���t be an issue anymore.

Host: You mentioned something about the elections. By the way, yes, in this case they will probably be in four years again, but the election promises are also a huge part of the clich��s that we are tired of listening - words like "reform", like "change", like "huge change and supporting teams are needed" and so on.

Maxim Behar: Well, that's why I really think that the most harmful, the most dangerous and the most worn-out clich��s are in politics and we are all in some way subject to them.

Host: Why do people still believe in them, if I may say so?

Maxim Behar: Because there is no other system.

Host: There are people who get excited hearing the word ���reform���, when we talk about the opposition again, and the very word "opposition" has also become a really worn-out clich��. People seem to forget about these things every four years and still get excited.

Maxim Behar: Yes, and somehow the voting itself is also a clich��, because we vote out of sympathy, or maybe the amount of promises that have made - also clich��s. This is directly proportional to the votes cast or received ones for a person.

Host: One of the great Hollywood directors mentioned in an interview that in fact the clich�� is what makes people feel safe, in their comfort zone. Is that another for us to choose the clich�� and somehow still following it in our lives.

Maxim Behar: That is also possible. Getting out of your comfort zone requires at least a little courage and a little creativity. Maybe a lot of people would not want to step out of their comfort zone, no matter how tiny this sauna is, no matter how cramped it is. But modern life, in my opinion, will take a huge number of people out of their comfort zone, because online media, social media are moving the world forward at high speed. The more we stand in our small comfort zones and repeat these clich��s to ourselves, and tell ourselves how good it is, the more life will throw us out and everyone else around us will succeed, while we keep saying, ���Why X, Y and Z succeeded "," Why Ivanov became a director "or" Petrov became a millionaire, and I'm not, because I'm underestimated ". That's why we have to run away from clich��s, we have to fight them, and that's probably one of the ways we can get creative and come up with something new and move forward.

Host: Mr. Behar, let's make a transition to what we will discuss in a moment here in our studio - job interviews. How should we prepare for a job interview? Aren't those clich��s worn out too, isn't it a clich�� to gather four people in front of you? And asking the question what salary do you expect to work? We have an example of my friend���s interview, who had sent a CV, they called him for an interview and he was extremely surprised that the questions he was asked were: ���What do you do in your free time? "," What are your hobbies? "," What is your favorite sport? "," Do you have a family? " and so on. Nothing to do with his CV. Is this the new job interview that an employer should actually be practicing, or do we stick to the clich��, "How much money do you want to get?"

Maxim Behar: In my opinion, every employer and every company has its own way of doing a job interview. I have had a system in the company for years and I have written a lot about it in interviews and in my books. My latest book The Morning After describes in great detail how we manage our job interviews. Yes, I have a clich��, actually there are two of them: I never ask two questions. The first one is, "Where did you graduate from?" And the other one is, "Where are you from?" And take it as a clich��, but I think it's a practice that gives more freedom to the interview itself. I really don't care where they have graduated or where they come from. I can make an amateur - a professional in 5-6 months and we've done it many times, but I can't make a lazy one - hardworking. This has never happened to me. I can't make the intriguer a team worker or a good team member.

The second clich�� is that while we do interviews, I always look the candidate in the eye and what I want to see is a little sparkle. That's not so much a clich�� anymore, because it can manifest in different ways. I feel it and I can find out if a person is ambitious, wants to succeed, develop, get better, wants to get out of his comfort zones, wants to fight the clich��s and get into a creative team, where any interesting idea could find a place and motivation. Of course, the companies for hiring people, the so-called HR agencies, they have their own questionnaires and their own clich��s, while I motivate my colleagues - directors in the company, never to have questionnaires in front of them and never to ask the same questions. On the contrary - we need to understand who is standing next to us, and not against us, and we need to make sure that he enjoys his work more, because in modern business, if a team member, a colleague, does not enjoys his work, especially in this chaos at the moment, our work together becomes meaningless. We have to feel pleasure and this is beyond any clich��s, because today at 8 in the morning you can enjoy one thing, one event, one sentence, and at 11 o'clock something else is in your head.

Host: Maxim Behar for the clich��s, for the job interviews. In general, Mr. Behar, we can really listen and listen to you, but we still have to play music. I wish you a successful day.

Maxim Behar for Forbes: "There is a huge difference between leaders and managers"

Maxim Behar comments current issues, which he also addresses in his recently published book The Morning After. The leading PR expert shares his opinion on the changes occurred in leadership in today's challenging times, as well as what is the main difference between a leader and a manager.

- Mr. Behar, what have provoked you to write your new book The Morning After?
It was more than a provocation. The world has never been in such a crisis - economic, communicational, and mostly psychological. I had to solve hundreds of new obstacles for me and my whole team, in conditions that no one was prepared for. We did great, and I had to share how we achieved it, including more global examples, or just share my thoughts about this increasingly insane and unpredictable world. I called Neiko Genchev, the owner of Faber Publishing House, who was introduced to me by Eric Weiner, the author of The Geography of Bliss, and many other bestsellers. So, I wrote the book just in two weeks, and Faber published it for one. Of course, I am more focused on business leadership, supporting the idea that it's the most important factor for a company to succeed or fail. I was even more motivated to finish writing this book when I received a message on Twitter, saying that my previous book, The Global PR Revolution, firstly published in the United States a year ago, was ranked in the top ten PR books for all time globally from the most authoritative global ranking BookAuthority, in which people such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Jack Ma, Richard Branson rate and offer books. I said to myself, 'So you can!'

- How essential is leadership in today's difficult times?
I have a good friend, a very famous person in the Bulgarian IT business, who spent years in as a sailor on ships in the past. As soon as he started, he worked hard and often was asking the boatswain if he was doing well. "Wait for the first storm to come, then I'll tell you," the boatswain replied. That can also be applied to business. Leadership means doing only two things every day, every hour - making quick decisions and creating more leaders around you. I have always said that even the worst decision is better than no decision, which is the first rule for today���s challenging days. Most leaders are afraid to enter the storm, preferring to keep boats ashore safer, however, the storm can���t be missed, and they will never be able to reach the other shore, where success and progress are. Nowadays, Leadership can be defined as professional visionary work and understanding of the huge difference between a leader and a manager, which in the Bulgarian language actually consists of only one prefix of a super important word��� The manager manages - this is his job, to apply the best models, to take care of the team, to implement the decisions of the boards or the seniors. However, the leader must lead, be a visionary, predict what could happen to the company, its customers, partners at least a few months ahead, if not for years. But now times are really turbulent and a vision for the next few months, even Plan A and Plan B "in the pocket" of every leader is a necessity.

- Really, in your book you say that the difference between a manager and a leader is that the manager manages, and the leader guides. How do you guide your employees?
Since the first day of the crisis on March, together with my colleagues from the company���s Board, we have allocated the urgent tasks, but I must admit - I took on a lot more functions in control, as well as almost all customer relations. Nowadays, being a leader in a large communications company is a huge responsibility. My most important task was to make sure that our clients understand how much they really need brilliant communication, in which mistakes are excluded. For a long time, companies have shrunk or cut their marketing budgets - whether for advertising, PR or social media, during crisis. But it must be just the opposite, and those were my messages. Especially in such unexpected and unprecedented crisis in our lives. Most of my colleagues are young - some of whom are very experienced professionals, but that not always applies in such challenging times. Therefore, since the beginning of the pandemic on March, I have had a guiding principle - everyone should feel comfortable, while working home office. If they are not in condition to work at home, or cannot adapt to such method, then you should let them work in the office at a strict distance and hygiene, or in some cozy caf��. Everyone should feel complete and calm. And of course ��� hard working, perfect organization and leadership. One of the biggest differences between "before" and "now" is that now everyone is a leader in their own place, everyone must make strategic decisions for their work, to implement them, to be precise and with a vision���. In fact, this seems to be my most important lesson from this still unpredictable crisis, which we don���t know how and when it will end.

- Which platforms do you use the most for business communication?
I go through all possible platforms every day, mainly depending on which customers use. In the first days of the crisis, however, I discovered Zoom, perhaps because I had worked with it before, and the more time passed, the more I liked it. As president of the World Communication Forum in Davos, I meet almost every week with people from 20-30 countries at the same time and Zoom is quite easy to manage. I've reached 350 people from 110 countries at a time online, which consumes energy and time, in a sense I had to set up a virtual space, remind them to follow the program, coordinate issues��� Zoom itself is a textbook example of dealing with a crisis, which increased its users from 10 million in January 2020 to 200 million in April. Can you imagine how such growth is managed with constant improvement of the service���?

- How can we create a good team online?
In March, I thought it���s impossible. However, life has taught me that there are no impossible things in business. I am already preparing my psychological models on how to deal with possible conflicts among colleagues, who and how to listen or where to intervene. To all those who think that in a few more months a vaccine will be inveted, and everything will be as before, I want to say out loud: nothing will be the same as before. The whole world is changing dramatically, and we must have options to unite our colleagues online, to inspire them with peace and security, to guide them. And this whole process now depends only on team leaders, no one else.

- What to expect in 2021?
Quite a different business environment, great dynamics of processes, a different way of communication��� In fact, let me put it this way - in the next years, the one who knows how to communicate quickly and effectively will be the winner. Communication between people and companies, both in business and in personal life, will be the most crucial component that will determine whether someone succeeds or fails. I still hope that the first category will have an absolute majority worldwide.

��axim Behar Re-elected President of the World Communication Forum

The PR expert Maxim Behar was re-elected President of the World Communication Forum Association, based in Davos, Switzerland, for a new 3-year mandate. The election process was conducted during a recent Online General Assembly.

Three Vice-Presidents joined the Forum���s management ��� Solly Moeng (South Africa), Ganesh Chandrasekaran (India), and Jon-Hans Coetzer (Portugal). Newly elected Global Executive Board members are Nurul Ashiqin Shamsuri (Malaysia), Cl��ra Ly-Le (Vietnam), Mina Nazari (Iran), Jacqueline Strayer (USA), Saurabh Uboweja (India) and Cesare Valli (Italy).

A key priority of the World Communication Forum will be to continue working for the development of the global communications business and for strengthening its key role for the economies, especially in the current challenging times.

���It is an honour for me to be re-elected President of the World Communication Forum for a new 3-year mandate. I am happy to continue working with prominent leaders and communications experts from all around the world, with whom we will shape the future of the business. During my first mandate as a President we achieved a lot. I believe, that the second one will be even more successful, but also challenging, as the global economies have yet to cope with the pandemics��� consequences���, commented Maxim Behar, one of the founders of the World Communication Forum in 2010.

Priceless Lessons by Maxim Behar: A Story with Hillary Clinton

"Priceless Lessons" is a series of columns by the PR expert Maxim Behar, in which he talks about his meetings with global celebrities through the prism of his business, about the lessons derived from such stories , and what he has learned in a purely PR aspect.

The first story he shared with BusinessGlobal magazine was about his meeting with Hillary Clinton.


THE MOST IMPORTANT MAN: A story with Hillary Clinton, flowers, hotels, suits and a happy ending

I was stretching out on the beach carelessly with a magazine in my hand when Neri Terzieva, the press director of President Petar Stoyanov back then, called me and told me "Max, Mrs. Stoyanova wants to see you as soon as possible." I got in the car and flew into the presidency a few hours later. I had no idea what the president might be looking for, but it was actually one of my most valuable PR and management lessons, coming from an unexpected experience, but actually remembered forever in my business.

So Hillary Clinton, the first lady of the United States back then, was coming to Bulgaria, and someone had to take care of the whole organization of the welcoming, staying, sending off, and ��� of course ��� the media. This, the last part was the easiest. America was shaken by the scandal with the incident between her husband and trainee Monica Lewinsky, and therefore, Hillary's people were absolutely explicit when they arrived about a month before her - no meetings with the media, no statements, no interviews, even with pre-asked questions.

Hillary was going to open a women's regional conference at the Ivan Vazov National Theater, so we all were focused on this place. The so-called advanced team really arrived a month earlier and included a protocol, security, people from the White House press office, 24 hour coordination by a super-professional ��� Bane from the Secret Service.

Every project, meeting, gesture or word, even with Bane and the team, was a series of lessons of incredible professionalism. Two weeks before the event we did a detailed tour of the theater and then one of the Secret Service personnel, while looking at the scheme of the event prepared by my team, said: "Max, no pots, no flowers on stage, I'm here to ensure the safety of the First Lady and I can't take any risks. " I nodded and didn't even think to argue.

The last night before the event, we spent the whole evening in the theater in exhausting rehearsals and rehearsals of sound checks, visuals and everything else. Many TV channels, including CNN, had requested live broadcasts, and the last detail had to be perfected. There was a lady on the team with the same blonde hair and height as Hillary, for hours she stood in the small chair from which the First Lady would speak the next morning, and the whole team was making sure to achieve her brilliant appearance. Bane slowly sipped a beer from a pitcher and every fifteen minutes either changed the color of the curtains behind the stage or asked the girl to change her suits. At 4am everything was set - golden curtains, and Hillary will be in stylish black suit obtaining the best contrast.

We were leaving when suddenly Bane turned to me and said, "Max, where are the flowers?" I thought he was joking, because he was a bystander in that conversation I had with the guards earlier. "I'm sorry, but I'm in charge here. I can't have the First Lady on stage without a nice flower decoration, I just can't! ��� I was shocked. I had to find flowers for Hillary Clinton's stage at 4am ��� For an event that begins in 5 hours! For a moment, however, I didn't think it was impossible. I woke up the Sheraton marketing director at the time with a request to pick flowers from the hotel. Impossible, she told me. "Hillary lives there, you can't even enter the hotel, what's left to take out flowers?" I picked up the director of Kempinski hotel. Still sleepy, she said, "Take some, but I want them back by noon, or they'll fire me."

Thank God that in those years on Macedonia Square there were athletic men with ropes and small vans and they certainly still remember it as their golden morning���

I showed up at Kempinski in the afternoon to make sure we had returned the priceless flowers, and as I drank my tenth coffee of the day, the chain's general manager, a nice Irishman, Liam, greeted me warmly for the successful event opening. "By the way, Max, I watched the CNN opening, and it was great. I found that we use the same flower company, as they were exactly the same as ours in the hotel. I nodded, I was more than calm and I knew what I still remember today - there are no impossible things in the PR business���

The next day, Bane sent me a message: ���The First Lady (the only way he was calling her) will meet you tomorrow, you have 30 minutes." And when he introduced me at the entrance, he said, "Madame Clinton, this is our PR partner for your visit. His company is part of Hill + Knowlton, you know them well. "

Hillary looked at me, then at him, and said, "Well, that's the most important person here then."

Maxim Behar: "We have five minutes to adapt"

Maxim Behar, the world-renowned PR expert and diplomat, spoke to Banker newspaper about the leadership crisis during COVID and how to deal with it to save humanity.

- Mr. Behar, your latest book is entitled The Morning After. Three-four months ago, the political scientist Ivan Krastev published his analysis of the COVID situation with the title "Is it tomorrow?" It seems you are answering him now: not yet, there are five minutes until tomorrow morning. Is there a correspondence dialogue between the two visionary books?
There is correspondence with what is happening at the moment in the world, and in particular - in Bulgaria. Both Ivan Krastev and I are trying to predict what will happen and how it will change the world. However, I���m focused on business. And I think that the changes in it will lead to gigantic shifts in the whole society. In business, entire industries are on the verge of bankruptcy - tourism, hospitality, airlines - all activities that depend on the personal presence of people. Large factories in Germany, France, Italy temporarily closed their doors, stopped the production of cars. If business suffers, our lives will change fundamentally. And it will happen. Therefore, even in the title of the book, I warn that we have five minutes to react to the changes. If these 7-8 billion people on the planet and these 6-7 million in Bulgaria do not find a way out - how to live from now on, how to earn and change, our lives will become very difficult.

- Are you saying that at 23:55 we can change what is to happen after 00:00 in historical time? Isn't the deadline too short?
The changes are developing very fast, the dynamics are exceptional. In addition, the changes in the world of the last 10 years are happening under the influence of social media and the new way of communication. We all know everything and everyone can write whatever they want.

- The technological explosion is the greatest revolution in human history.
The basis is technology, and the result is social media. In the gigantic flow of information, it is difficult to analyse what is important and what is not, especially what is true and what is untrue. Fake news creates gigantic chaos throughout the information flow. The coronavirus case clearly shows this.

- Most economic experts predict a V-shaped, not a U-shaped crisis, and a recent economic recovery. Radical solutions to the medical crisis with vaccines and drugs are also expected. Doesn't this mean that the world can go back to normal faster than expected?
The world will never return to its former state. We all reconsidered our priorities, we decided that we could live with less money and without unnecessary luxury.

- This has been the case since each of the great wars of the 20th century.
I don't want to compare it to wars, although many people in science do. Now the world is different - because of social media and the gigantic flow of information that cannot be regulated.

- Do we not also become victims of infodemia that could develop more avalanche-like than the pandemic itself?
We become victims if we do not know how to manage the flow of information. We are all victims of fake news, so their creation and dissemination must be criminalized.

- Will the censorship alarm turn on immediately? And now the Penal Code includes insult and slander laws.
We need to know the sources of information well. In this sense, my book focuses mainly on leadership. Leaders can help all of humanity.

- All of humanity is currently suffering from a deep crisis of leadership.
That's right, some leaders look like caricature. Most recently, we lived in the time of Thatcher, Cole, Mitterrand, Reagan - all visionaries. While writing the book, I discovered the simple difference between a manager and a leader. And it is that the manager manages and the leader directs. Businesses are also looking for their visionaries.

- Is it possible that the current crisis situation will finally sober up the citizens and they will start choosing strategists instead of caricatures as statesmen?
It will definitely happen. Most of the current leaders are transient, they are people of total chaos - in the morning they say one thing, in the evening the opposite. And large masses of people believe them.

- Isn't this the state of "post truth" in which emotions weigh more than arguments?
Yes, especially when shared by the mass media. Only 15-20 years ago, TV hosts, politicians, athletes, showmen were influential. That is - the faces on the TV screen and newspaper headlines. Society is now influenced by people from social media, whose audience is larger than the audiences of all newspapers and television at the same time. And people are confused about who they can trust. Very soon we will wake up and ask ourselves the question: who do we choose to rule us?

- Perhaps the role of journalism as a quality filter of information will return. One of the basic rules of the BBC is that the journalist must work with the facts in the same way as the bank clerk with the money - they pass through his hands, but are not his property.
That's right, that time will return. This also applies to influential figures on the Internet. Such people will enter politics.

- World factors in journalism, such as SPIEGEL, Le Monde, Politico, the Guardian, and The Independent, wrote sharply about high-level corruption in our country, and the government responded that it was a matter of paid publications. A boy from the corridors of the government even explained that ordering was easy and cheap. What does such behavior mean?
They think people will believe anything they say - someone paid 1000 pounds for a publication. It is impossible, these are global institutions with a huge biography. If you could buy a SPIEGEL or a Le Monde, they wouldn't be what they are now.

- Do you see new leaders in today's squares of Bulgaria?
The new political leaders will come from the "millennium generation". I see many such people. But they are stopped by a system called democracy - I have been saying this for years. And the most capable to appear in the zone of power, he will be immediately suffocated by parties and officials. Something radical will happen in the world.

- Totalitarianism is also over, what could it be then?
The state could be governed on the principle of corporations - a board of directors and an executive director. The board is elected by the majority of "shareholders" - by all people. If the CEO fails, he leaves immediately - without elections. Then the parties will disappear on their own because they interfere. Everything in the world is changing, only party systems are eternal - this is not natural.

- How will this system be immune to corruption?
There must be an independent judiciary and the prosecutor's office should be in the country - the Minister of Justice to be the chief prosecutor.

- As an expert, how do you evaluate the "jeep PR" practiced by the Prime Minister?
From my point of view, it is a failure. A prime minister must address his messages in a different way. Money cannot be distributed like that. This is the opposite of the modern government we are talking about. The rulers conduct their communication in an ugly way. There are many young and intelligent people in Bulgaria who would govern the country immediately and with a vision for the future. It will happen very soon.

Maxim Behar: "The leader creates more leaders"

Maxim Behar was a guest of Diana Radeva in the morning TV show "Europe in the morning" on TV Europe. He shared his expert opinion on the new world we live in and gave advices on how to change, adapt and become better in order to develop our business and lifestyle ��� topics, which his new book "The Morning After" is focused on.

- What stands behind the name of your new book "The Morning After" - "COVID-19 brought "new normal" and business leaders must adjust their behavior. Read how it can be done.��� ?
This is the new world we all live in - no matter what is your business, what you do, whether you are unemployed or studying. The world changed completely. In my opinion, people start rethinking their values and their lifestyle. In terms of business, these are extremely important changes, as entire sectors vanish - hospitality, airlines, especially tourism sector, which includes another 300-400 occupations. Moreover, businesses and industries that require the presence of their employees will now be shut down again, without knowing when or how they will be relaunched. Such changes should be considered by any businessmen in order to adapt and develop his business.

Back in June during the first stage of this chaos, which continues even now, I decided that it would be useful to share both my business practices and thoughts - what I see and read, in a book. My publisher Faber - an excellent publishing house in Veliko Tarnovo - reacted quickly. I wrote the book The Morning After in two weeks, and they published it in a week. I believe the book is perfect for the Bulgarian market at a time when everyone is interested in how to manage his business in order to survive.

- The book has two circulations and both are sold out at the moment, right?
Both circulations were sold out within three weeks. The third is currently being printed and will be distributed not only in bookstores, but also at gas stations, supermarkets and many other places.

- Now the world has definitely changed. Hardly anyone expected that their business and their lifestyle would be so different. Are there still people who think there will be a way back and will be able to wait without changing?
There are different people. I even think the majority thinks that now a second, even a third wave will pass and we will remain the same, and live as before again. It seems to me that apart from the economic changes, the big changes are also purely psychological, and without realizing it, even the skeptics who think that this will pass and go ��way, we change while rearranging our priorities.
The business with luxury goods has also changed. I was in Switzerland last week, and most of the jewelry and watch shops there are either closed or providing discounts between 50% and 80% because such expensive products cannot be sold. Nowadays we think differently, and when we have to buy something expensive, we say, "Wait a minute, why should I pay that much on something?" We have other, more important things to consider right now.

- You have been to Switzerland recently, and these days You are probably the only one who has used a plane in a long time.
It was my first time since New Year���s Eve. In fact, the reason for my trip was to sign some documents, which required my personal presence, and I had to go there, sign the documents, and return immediately. It was a different experience because none of us had seen such empty airports, closed shops, extremely high security measures and restrictions. It is not only luxury market that changes, but also our lifestyle, in which we have to take much more care of our health, our family, and our business, if we have one. We should treat our clients, our employers, and our colleagues carefully. We should work more on the positive side of the crisis��� consequences ��� there is definitely a positive side.

- How to find the positive side and how to readjust to be successful in this new world, which continues to be an issue for many?
Let's simplify things and ask ourselves what the three most important things in our lives are, because in the last twenty years we have been flooded by a huge wave of information from social media. Go on Facebook or Instagram and you will find out a lot of people who are confused. Most of them do not know what is important, what reaction should they express, what should they write about, not to mention most of them write illiterately. In addition, hatred still has a huge impact on people on social media. We need to realize that we need to focus on the most important things, solve them one by one, keep and develop our businesses, because all that is possible. The book The Morning After contains 100 rules for modern leaders, some of which have been followed for many years.

- Could you mention some of them? Which are the most valuable to You and which of them do you follow?
I follow one rule for 12 years, since I wrote a book called 111 Rules��� How to Make It, which was first written on Facebook and then came out in a print copy. The first rule was, "The worst decision is better than no decision at all," and since I wrote it, I've been following its accuracy becoming more and more valid. We have to make decisions, we have to react super-fast, but that also requires knowledge and very good preparation and planning, in order to react quickly to a situation, without making a tragically wrong decision. However, these days business requires quick decisions, managed very efficiently, and make regular diagnostics of the outcome.

While writing my latest book, I actually discovered the very simple difference between a manager and a leader, which we have been trying to define all these years without making a difference between both definitions. We have always confused the two concepts, because we assume that a person who manages 20 or 1000 people is a leader. However, the difference is only in one elementary prefix in Bulgarian language - the manager���s job is to set rules you have to follow without asking, while the leader gives directions that helps you to make the right decisions. There is a big difference in these definitions. The leader must be a visionary, and he must anticipate as much as he can ��� something you cannot do nowadays. In my business I have always tried to think five years ahead and I was successful doing so, but now thinking five months ahead is a great achievement.

In my book The Morning After you can also find another definition for leaders - the leader creates leaders. If you are a leader, but there are people around you who just worship you, yet at the same time they are not and cannot become leaders, it means that you are simply not a leader, but just playing this role. It is very important to distinguish these two categories, or definitions - I would not say either. The leader must know how to manage and develop his/her team in order to achieve results, whether managing a grocery store or a large IT company with several thousand employees.

- Where does one learn how to be a good leader?
I share the thesis that leaders are not born to learn - they learn, but they also should have it naturally, and what I often say - they should, as a rule or as a requirement, they should have sparkle in their eyes. When I do interviews and hire people in my company, which happens all the time, even now, I am looking just for one thing: firstly, I have never asked the candidates about their education or current location. Taking the risk of offending people who are teachers and professors, I teach students myself, but it is a global trend that practice stands much higher compared to theory. If theory is moving at 20 kilometres per hour, the practice is moving at 100 kilometres per hour, creating a gap in between that grows every day. Therefore, I always look my colleagues in the eyes, and wish to see their sparkle. From there, everything is settled. In my book I also wrote that I can transform an amateur to a professional, for example in 6-8 months and this has happened many times. However, I cannot make the lazy - hardworking, or the intriguer - a good team member. Therefore, the emphasis should be on people���s personal qualities. They can become very good leaders, even without graduating from Cambridge or Harvard, or any other prestigious university. Even without solid knowledge, they must have inner senses and a desire to upgrade themselves without compromising anyone's dignity, but just the opposite - to try uniting the team and make it better. Of course, there is already a contradiction here - you have to be precise about the quality of your work, which can result in offending someone from the team on a professional basis, which often turns into a personal one. This is a leaders��� skill - being able to explain to your colleagues that they have to be the best in their job.

- Can you see leaders in politics - in Bulgaria and globally, and leadership crisis in recent years, especially now during the coronavirus pandemic?
The leadership crisis is obvious. These days you can see modern leaders with completely different criteria, at a completely different time, believing they are leaders. In my opinion, they make a major mistake by using one-way communication. By the way, this is the main difference between leadership these days and in the past. Imagine President Trump, or any other leader we follow, participating in a TV show, where he is being asked difficult questions by journalists or TV hosts. It's easy with Trump - when asked a difficult question, he says it's fake news, or ���I don't love you���, he gets up and leaves. However, the next day we see him uploading 10 posts on Twitter - this is one-way communication, and this is extremely harmful to modern politicians. The same happened in Bulgaria - one-way communication, which is very easy, and shows the unprofessional abilities that so-called leaders, or politicians, can provide. This is logical, because twenty years ago, in order to become a good politician, you had to present more qualities, except the fact that you also need the media to become famous. Nowadays, you have social media and you can become more famous than any politician, by expressing your thoughts - you have media in your hands. The big mistake of modern politics is that politicians think that once they can use social media by themselves, they can be the editors-in-chief. They are just ordinary users who can show stupidity, if they are not well prepared. Media do not always project the bright side of politicians.

- If we are talking specifically about Trump and his whole history of the coronavirus case ��� his scepticism about coronavirus at first, and then his infection and quick three day recovering afterwards, and his conflicts with Obama and his claims that Trump is a complete failure as President ��� is that a winning strategy in terms of the upcoming elections, in your opinion?
All the research shows that he will not win the elections this year. However, he earned positive points based on that unprofessional play, also called ���overcoming obstacles���. He suddenly says he has a coronavirus, but he can beat it, and millions or hundreds of thousands of people have the image of him as a man of the people who has the power to beat the virus. He tried to represent himself as a person who can beat anything, even the worst that is happening in the world right now.

We all understand that this is a new type of politics, perhaps managed, dictated and dominated by social media. We will find out if there is a future for such actions. In any case, what we currently live in, and for some reason still call democracy, no longer works. This way of governing by organising elections every four years, spend hundreds of millions on elections, run ballots without knowing whether it was bought or not - it's awful. On top of that, whoever wins this election has a mandate of four years, when he can make mistakes, take loans, give money to anyone, which has never been punished so far, just because he won the election.

- Please comment on last week events on the Bulgarian stage, more specifically President Rumen Radev, the meeting in Estonia. We just recently found out that the Polish president got covid-19, and meanwhile we can see him together with the prime-minister and three other ministers alongside Deputy Minister Nankov��� How are things developing from a PR point of view?
I cannot comment on this topic broadly, but what I know is that, if President Radev had been informed on Sunday and knew that he had been in contact with someone infected, of course he should have stayed in Bulgaria and not attended any meetings at all, no matter how important they were, because health is more important, and the international response based on that case cannot be considered positive.

- If You were currently the head of the press of this government or of the institutions responsible for complying with the measures to protect ourselves from the coronavirus, what actions would you take?
There are various comments on this topic at the moment. People do not want to wear masks, do not believe the politicians and argue whether the virus exists at all. On one hand, I think that there should be very strict rules with fines for society���s behaviour, on wearing masks and disinfection. On the other hand, there must be an extremely precise and clear government policy.

You should remember the feeling of excitement and fear we had in the beginning, while we were watching the headquarters informing us about the pandemic. However, in the last month, this feeling has diminished and at the same time different opinions have emerged, which to some extent have begun to dominate, because many people who are not prepared can speak on any issues, and there are people who deal with immunology, special sciences, people from BAS, and other serious institutions that I have not heard speaking argumentatively or give clear explanation to the masses. There has to be great transparency in everything that is happening, especially in the government, and this must be a law for every government - to act transparently with taxpayers' money, how they spend it, what actions have been taken and why.�� Most importantly, now there must be very strict measures. Yesterday I walked on Vitoshka boulevard and I saw most people not wearing masks, because they simply do not care.

-The ���new tomorrow���, which will come five minutes by tomorrow - what will it be, Mr. Behar?
Being pragmatic. This is the most valuable word that exists in my life and in my business. Being pragmatic is about focusing and really thinking about how to get things better in these difficult times. Not only how to survive, but also how to develop, how to become better, how to use the definition of being pragmatic for your sake, to have other values and completely different goals in order to achieve what you work for as quickly as possible. Of course, we have the power to beat the virus, but we need to change in order to be better.

Watch the interview here.

Maxim Behar: " The PR business during the COVID crisis is now more essential than ever"

Maxim Behar is a guest of the hosts Maria Andonova and Stefan Shterev in the morning talk show "100% awake" on BNT1. The PR expert comments on the issues he addresses in his new book The Morning After and shares important elements of the guide for modern leaders in times of crisis.

Host: In the crisis we are experiencing at the moment, we need to focus on our unsuspected qualities and be over-adaptive, not only our eyes, but ourselves. The most certain thing is the change, and today change is all we have. It is difficult for everyone, it���s understandable, and if you are a leader and dozens of other destinies depend on your decisions, it becomes even more difficult.
Host: Well-known communications and PR specialist Maxim Behar has written a book that is a kind of guide for modern leaders during COVID-19. Before he introduces us to the secrets of his book The Morning After, listen to his shocking personal family history from almost a century ago, when the crisis broke into our homes again.

Maxim Behar (TEDxPlovdiv): January 1929, a long time ago. Imagine Sofia, half empty, during winter. Cold, wind, snow. Probably a few carts, carriages in the center. Several cars of the richer. And on the yellow cobblestones my grandfather. My grandfather went from bank to bank to get a loan. The largest egg trader in Bulgaria at that time with offices in Frankfurt, Budapest, Vienna, Bucharest. And since the great crisis began in 1929, he had been looking for loans so that he could put his eggs, which are on the border, somewhere on the train, several compositions, near Vidin. And he has to take a loan, pay his taxes, place the eggs, sell them, and that's how this system has worked for years. The bankers had been looking for him because he was rich, in order to offer him loans so that they could earn good interest from his deals. Then, however, in January 1929, everyone refused him, making him feel desperate. He went back to his hotel, Central Hotel, which nowadays is on Hristo Botev Blvd. and Stamboliyski Blvd., and with one bullet he ended his life. This is the price my grandfather Moshe paid. And no one has the right to judge him, not even me. This is how the man decided to pay the price his dignity being violated. And this story has, in a sense, a happy ending, because it had brought together all the people to whom he owed money and who had been waiting to buy his goods. Together with my grandmother, they had been saving money, importing eggs, selling them and everything had been cleared. And since then, at least for as long as I can remember, my grandmother Matilda has always said, "Maxim, what can be managed with money doesn't need your attention.��� And there is a Jewish saying that if something can be done with money, then it is not a problem, but a cost.

Host: Maxim Behar is here, hello. Your grandfather chose this way of coping with life, but you write books that teach us to choose, of course, another way. Are you angry at your grandfather in any way?

Maxim Behar: First, good morning and good luck to this wonderful show.

Host: Thank you.

Maxim Behar: I am very glad to be with you. I'm very surprised, just wow. I didn't expect it, I have never seen this presentation of mine at TEDx on TV.
No, these are stories from 1929, when time was different, the business environment was completely different, relationships were different. What is the biggest change nowadays is social media - something I talk about in my previous book The Global PR Revolution. We are informed, we know everything. Of course, this crisis is huge at the moment, unpredictable, and when I wrote this book in July-August, I have always thought that sometime in September it would be obsolete, because the coronavirus would be gone, and we would not have to worry anymore.

Host: In fact, it is more and more relevant.

Maxim Behar: ... And somehow people will read it as ... Here you are, Maria.
With a special dedication to your show so that you will be always awake. Because it is necessary now, especially in business. But the media also have to keep up with everything that is happening and be the best consultants to all those people who are quarantined in their houses and do not know how to react.

Host: And why The Morning After?

Maxim Behar: This is a symbol, of course, based on the fact that tomorrow is already coming. "Tomorrow" ��� these are the new communications, and I want to tell everyone who thinks that "the coronavirus will pass and life will go on again and we will travel again and have the same relationships, without worrying anymore" to tell them that nothing can ever be the same. Personally, in business the relations are completely different, there are many negative results from what has been happening in the last 7-8 months, but there are also many positive ones. We have become much more pragmatic, we have found that there is nothing scary about communicating online, instead of spending a bag of money to go to Dubai for an hour meeting or waste time somewhere else. Suddenly we found out we can also be effective on Zoom, or other platform for video connections. The truth is that nowadays leaders have a much, much, much bigger role than before. In addition, they need to be visionaries, to run their companies, their own business, to know what is happening.

Host: And they should also readjust to the situation very quickly.

Maxim Behar: These are these five minutes. They should use them to readjust to all that is ahead, and online communications is not har - in half an hour one can get used to working in Zoom. However, how to make an online team, how to hire people you have never seen, how to train them? I have always said that I can turn an amateur into a professional in 5-6 months, but now it is not so easy, because most of these people we do not know. We don't know their characters, we don't know if they are hardworking or lazy, how they react to certain things.

Host: We can really understand this in a live meeting.

Maxim Behar: Of course, much faster.

Host: Or at least we could, now it's not possible.
Host: Yes, that's why I'm trying to understand what opportunities we have and where the danger is.

Maxim Behar: We will get used to being online. We will work it out, I am already working on this, some questionnaires, some psychological models for analysing people and teams online without seeing them live. Because this is the life ahead of us.

Host: Okay, let me just ask, since your TEDx lecture ended with money, can this situation be fixed with money or is it just a cost again?
Host: The one that came at us.

Maxim Behar: Money is a secondary factor. The most important thing is to be very focused, to make quick decisions. These five minutes ��� that���s the time we have to make a decision. In one of my books 10-15 years ago I had written some rules, and the first rule was that even the worst decision is better than no decision. I claim it, even after all these 15 years, I believe that it is even more important - to make quick decisions without worrying to make a mistake. That���s the reason I need a lot of preparation, reading, simulations, and different scenarios that can occur in my company - something I usually think about in the morning in the shower, for example, I'm sorry for the personal moment. I���m thinking about mine and my colleague���s possible reactions in certain potential cases, which was a usual everyday simulation of events in the past.�� However, now we are sitting behind our computers at home, which changes everything.�� And business colleagues need to be aware of this so that they can make decisions very quickly. Business is super important. And the leadership - the people who run companies. You can either bankrupt a company or succeed a lot.

Host: I'm going to interrupt you here because I came across something interesting. Stefan and I have such a tradition - when they give us books, we just open them on any page and read a quote.

Maxim Behar: Yes, the tradition of the awake.

Host: Now, every member of a team becomes a leader. The main change caused by the pandemic is not the lack of live face-to-face communication, but rather the fact that every member of the team is already becoming a leader.

Maxim Behar: You came across one of the most important quotes in the book. Indeed, especially in times of remote management and home office, everyone is a leader in their own right. You get up in the morning, take a shower, do everything as if you were going to the office, at least that's what I do. Including perfume and all additional accessories.

Host: The same ritual you have been doing before.

Maxim Behar: Yes. And you sit behind the computer and start working. The responsibility is much greater because there is no one to control you, no one to tell you, including me, who runs a company. It is a much bigger responsibility. We need more mobilization and of course everyone is their own leader - one of the characteristics of the social media era. Like you, by the way, you are both leaders in this studio. And it depends on you how the show will be directed, whether it will be interesting, how the guest will feel and many other things. This is part of the new life; I will be very happy. As you may know, I go very often, at least before, on various forums, I gave presentations and 5-6 years ago in Davos a western television interviewed me and asked me: "What do you expect from the forum in Davos?". And I, in order to find a short and synthesized answer, which is typical for me in general, said "One sentence". And they said to me, "How come just a sentence?" Well, for example, you stand and listen for 3-4 days, as well as read a book, a sentence, which can change your life and it can make you think in a completely different direction and help you succeed. And when I wrote this book, I tried to make it full of such sentences. So, as you open randomly and read how important it is for us to understand that everyone is a leader in their workplace, but not just the manager who gives orders to his colleagues in the office. And I'm sure readers will find their sentence, and I hope it changes their business, their lives, their teams and their families.

Host: I also found such a sentence: "If your dreams don't scare you, then they aren't big enough."

Maxim Behar: Well, of course. Everyone knows how to dream "Now I wish to meet someone or have dinner." You need to have big dreams in order to achieve them. And great self-confidence, by the way.

Host: But how to make your dreams come true during such a situation, without calling it a pandemic this time?
Host: In front of your computer, in Zoom.

Maxim Behar: We should think in short terms. While I am dreaming, I have always tried to think for my achievements in 3 to 5 years ��� the future of my company, business environment, my projects. However, we are now thinking in the short terms. For example, what I thought on March, April that could happen until the end of the year turned out to be all wrong ��� everything has changed. ��

Host: There is no such predictability as there was before.

Maxim Behar: Of course, everything is changing. Any of us cannot predict what will happen in March 2021. Will the pandemic grow even more, will more businesses be shut down...? Because one of the big global issues is that many businesses have totally died. The whole hotel industry, the airlines, the tourism businesses, which consists of even more businesses.

Host: How does PR feel now?

Maxim Behar: Public Relations, in my opinion, is now even more essential for our clients, the society. Firstly, because we are the ones who, when assigned to us, can explain exactly what is happening, make our clients have full transparency, which is super necessary in such periods. In this sense, I am extremely disappointed with what is happening now, and even in the past, more specifically about the World Health Organization. A complete failure worldwide.

Host: We're talking about communication, aren't we?

Maxim Behar: Yes, absolutely. Communication, transparency, explanation. This also applies to the Bulgarian government, too. However, when we examine what is happening in the Czech Republic, Poland, Italy, Spain, and other countries - everyone is so confused in their communications. On the one hand, they scare, scare, scare. On the other hand, many things are not even mentioned. There must be full transparency and we, the Public Relations specialists, the experts, are the ones who have to drive and pressure our clients, governments, societies to communicate better, because everyone already knows everything. In fact, each morning we learn tens of thousands of news, half of them are fake, the rest are accurate.

Host: Somewhat accurate.

Maxim Behar: Accurate or semi-true. We need to have these senses - to be able to separate the real news from the half-fake one, which are also fake. Therefore, in my opinion, our business is very important now, for societies, super important, much more than it was before. And I hope most people understand it the way they need to understand it. We are just communicators.

Host: Thank you very much. You are very inspiring whenever we communicate.

Maxim Behar: I thank you. And once again, really, stay awake, because our society needs awake people every day. 7 million Bulgarians need to be awake and stay put and do their job.

Host: As they say, the Day of the National Revival Leaders is coming very soon. Let's remember that these are not just holidays.

Watch the interview here.

The best-selling book today is Maxim Behar's ���The Morning After���

Ranked first, Maxim Behar's newest book ���The Morning After��� became a bestseller at Greenwich Book Center. Since it was published in less, the book for modern leaders received brilliant reviews and gained popularity among celebrities in the business community.

"For no time the second edition of the book is already sold out.", commented Faber Publishing House.

Maxim Behar, the PR expert, businessman and author, writes fascinatingly and captivatingly, sharing many personal experiences and stories based on his 25 years of experience, which often arouse readers' curiosity. Curiously, in his book "The Morning After", Behar answers the question how he has stabilized his company M3 Communications Group, Inc. to avoid the crisis in 2020.

Maxim Behar: "Time is the new currency now"

The PR expert Maxim Behar was a special guest on Darik Radio with Niki Kanchev to talk about his new book "The Morning After" and to comment on current topics related to the PR business, the COVID-19 pandemic and leadership.

"Everything that is happening during the pandemic since the beginning of March 2020 has turned the world upside down - it has completely changed business, and our relations. In the book "The Morning After" I decided to share my thoughts and focus on those only 5 minutes in which you have the right and opportunity to think, find yourself, and decide what are the right actions to take. If you can't make quick decisions, it will be already tomorrow, and then if you are not ready, you will not be able to overcome the new changing situation."��Maxim Behar shared.

Listen to the full interview here.