Larry Winget, author,
You’re Broke Because You Want To Be

This week’s Great Idea comes from Larry Winget who will be at GROW! 2012 for Friday’s VIP dinner and Saturday morning.

We all talk a pretty good game. We say the right words either to impress ourselves or others. The problem is that most people don’t follow through with the actions to make their words come to fruition. In fact, our actions often contradict our words completely. We say we want to be successful in business, yet don’t call people back immediately, don’t show up on time, don’t give service that is beyond expectations and sometimes, we aren’t even nice! How do you become successful doing that? You don’t. Your words don’t really matter much; it’s your actions that will determine your success! Get your actions in alignment with your words. Want more of the real truth about what it takes to be successful? Come to GROW 2012 and we’ll talk about it. See you there!

Marty’s note: Think about what Larry said. How do you plan on becoming successful in 2012? One way to start would be to come to Dayton from February 9-11 and see what you can learn about changing your business for the better for this year. Sign up now! Thanks, Larry; I can’t wait until we hear you speak in Dayton!

Joe Calloway, author
Becoming A Category of One

This week’s Great Idea comes from Joe Calloway who will be spending all 3 days of GROW! 2012 with us.

You’re over-thinking it. You’re banging your head against the wall trying to figure out how to “think outside the box” and come up with a “WOW Factor” that will differentiate you from your competition. “What can I do that’s really different and exotic that no one else is doing?  Hmmmmm……”

You want a WOW Factor? Here’s the ultimate WOW Factor:  deliver on the customer’s most basic expectations better than everyone else and do it every single time.

The sad, cold, hard truth is that people and companies who are chasing the wild goose of WOW Factor are doing it because they can’t win on the basics. Because they can’t differentiate on price, quality, delivery, or service, they have to find a gimmick that they hope will pull their butt out of the competitive fire and win customers.

Thinking outside the box is all well and good. But here’s the deal:  if you win INSIDE the box – if you can actually do a better job on your customers’ basic expectations – you win it all. Game over. You get all the money and you live happily ever after.

You may be thinking, “No, Joe, it can’t be that simple.”  YES!  It is that simple. The reason you’re not doing it is because it’s not easy. In fact, it’s hard as heck to be better on the basics than the other guy. But it’s where you get your greatest return.

Look at Zappos.com. Their sales are over a billion dollars a year. Their customers are wild, raving fans. And here’s where they win:  speed of delivery, free shipping, a great return policy, and fantastic customer service from their call center. They win inside the box. Nothing exotic. Nothing edgy.

B-A-S-I-C-S.

Want more?  In-N-Out Burgers (great hamburgers and sparkling clean restrooms), FedEx (dependable delivery), Southwest Airlines (low fares, friendly employees), and the list goes on and on.

List the three to five most basic things that your customers expect from you. Pick one. Improve your performance on that basic expectation by 20%. Then move on to the next expectation and improve on that by 20%. Do this constantly and forever.

You win. Game over. We’ll carry on this discussion and many more at GROW! 2012; see you there!

Marty’s note: What a great idea! You need to sign up for GROW! 2012 today and come to Dayton to spend time with Joe Calloway and Larry Winget so you’ll be prepared to make 2012 your best year ever.

At our upcoming GROW! 2012 conference, we’re going to focus on the 3 most important things we feel entrepreneurs need to work on right now. They are as follows:

• Get More Sales
• Finding the Right People
• Being More Efficient

Let’s talk briefly about each one.

Get More Sales. Sales are to a company what gasoline is to a car. You must have sales to move an entity forward. So the question becomes: how do I do that? One quick idea would be to call on your current clients, the folks who have helped you get your business where it is today and see if all their needs have been fulfilled. Chances are they have not. And, please, don’t laugh at the simplicity of this idea. I’m going to bet you my 401K, every single person reading this Great Idea, including me, could improve in this area. Call and/or visit your clients and make certain you have exhausted all opportunities for sales with them before chasing after other prospects.

Finding the Right People. We all can find people. But can you find the “RIGHT” people? That’s the challenge. Finding the right people starts with having a profile of what you are looking for. Look at your current workforce. Your best people. Where do they live? Why do you like them? What are their hobbies? And so on. Get as much insight as you can so that you are able to paint a picture of what traits all future hires could or should possess. You cannot be successful in hiring without having a clear target of what you are looking for.

Being More Efficient. Man, I could talk for days on this topic. I think companies are so busy at times finding new work they lose focus on doing the work they have the best possible way. Here’s one simple idea. Get your people together for a brainstorming session. Ask them to come to a 30-minute meeting next week with any idea that can be implemented immediately that will save the company less than $50. Tell them if they can find 10 ideas that immediately save the company $50 each, you’ll buy everyone pizzas when the items have been accomplished. The logic here is to gain some momentum. I think it’s hard to go after big things until you have covered the small things, the low-hanging fruit.

If you liked these 3 ideas, wait till you see what we do and share with you at GROW! 2012. My teachers, Matt Caruso, Joe Calloway, and Larry Winget, are not the type of talent you see at your average seminar. Most of those are full of infomercials and people who haven’t had success themselves, yet think they can teach others. I don’t know about you but I’d rather not listen to a college professor who has never run a business in their life tell me what I should do with my business and hence my money. That’s advice and everyone has advice. What we all need is the voice of experience and that’s what GROW! 2012 is.

Sign up for GROW! 2012 today before we have a complete sellout!

As we start a new year, we all should focus on what we are going to work on to make 2012 better than 2011. You will hear some say New Year’s resolutions are worthless and so on and so forth. To be blunt, I think all that talk is silly. Now, one should never think they have to wait until the start of a new year to change habits or improve things; you can do that anytime, but if the turning over of a calendar motivates you to improve and change your ways for the better, that’s a good thing!

One of the best books I read in 2011 was Patrick Lecioni’s The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family. It’s a wonderful little book that speaks to something I’ve been saying for years. That something is my belief that we should use some of the things we learn at work at home. Anyway, I’m not going to share the whole book with you; let me just say if you have a family and you feel out of control at times, the book is a must read.

My accountability group that I run, Marty’s ACEs, read the book; and they loved it too. I made everyone in the group come up with a rallying cry, something Lencioni speaks of in the book. Just like a company needs a mission statement and/or some kind of focus for the season, families are well served to do the same. So, let me share with you my family’s rallying cry:

Spend more time together.

Sure, it’s simple, to the point. It’s easy to understand. My wife and I are going to work on this in 2012. Feel free to ask me how we’re doing as the year goes on. I hope you’ll read the book and I hope you’ll come up with a rallying cry for your family and, by all means, one for your business as well.

So, from my family to yours, Happy New Year and best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2012. I am really optimistic for this year and I think it’s going to be a good year for business…..I really do.