When it comes to growing your business, we believe in two key axioms: Whoever learns faster-and-acts- wins; and whoever taps into the most brains wins. So continually learn and innovate, and surround yourself with lots of people smarter than you and your business will thrive. In the end this will lead to greater freedom, more money, and more time.

How Many of These Books Have You Read? Don’t fall behind — Out-Read and Out-Learn Your Competition and Customers:

• Collins — Good to Great; Built to Last; How the Mighty Fall
• Lencioni — Five Dysfunctions of Team
• Godin — Purple Cow; All Marketers are Liars; etc.
• Smart — Topgrading; Who
• Buckingham — First Break All the Rules; Now Discover Your Strengths
• Arbinger — Leadership and Self-Deception; Anatomy of Peace
• Hall — Jump Start Your Marketing
• Brian 
Moore — Crossing the Chasm; Inside the Tornado; Dealing with Darwin
• Cialdini — Influence; Yes!
• Reichheld — The Ultimate Question; The Loyalty Effect
• Orfalea — Copy This
• Johnson — Emergence; Everything Bad is Good for You
• Krippendorf — Art of the Advantage
• Peters — In Search of Excellence; Liberation Management; etc.
• McKee — Primal Leadership; Resonate Leadership
• Wyly — 1000 Dollars and An Idea
• Travis — Doing Business Anywhere
• Perkowski — Managing the Dragon; How I’m Building a Billion Dollar Business in China
• Daniels — Bringing Out the Best in People; Oops
• Simon — Hidden Champions of the 21st Century; Beat the Crisis
• Allen — Getting Things Done; Ready for Anything 
Twist — Soul of Money
• Dijulius — Secret Service; What’s the Secret
• Ries — The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR; The Origin of Brands
• Schwantz — The Wedge; How to Get Your Competition Fired
• Kurlan — Baseline Selling; Mindless Selling
• Rackham — SPIN Selling; Rethinking the Sales Force; Getting Partnering Right
• Bloom — The Inside Advantage 
Gilmore — The Experience Economy; Authenticity
• Daly — Coaching Companies to Greater Sales & Profit
• Lautenslager — Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days
• Holmes — The Ultimate Sales Machine
• Scott — The New Rules of Marketing & PR; World Wide Rave
• Ferrazzi — Never Eat Alone; Who’s Got Your Back
• Alexander — Making the Numbers; Topgrading for Sales
• Burton — Pricing with Confidence
• Cecil — Nurturing Customer Relationships 
Flanagan — Now, Go Sell Somebody Something
• Cheng — The Recession-Proof Business

Contact Wayne Kurzen at KurzenGROUP (678) 632-7734 if you would like help growing your company simpler, smarter, faster.

I purchased the book after observing that some of my most successful clients seemed to lack the drive that they once had that got them to a level of success they enjoyed. I’ll be the first to admit that that “disease” sneaks up on me once in awhile as well. The activities associated with our profession as well as our personal life just don’t seem to “produce life” like they once did.

Let’s be honest and admit that business is harder than it used to be. Some find themselves tired of the fight. Others find that what once seemed important, doesn’t seem so important any more. Regardless of the circumstances, the question that comes to my mind is well articulated in the title, How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It.

So what is Mojo? It is more than motivation! As Goldsmith defines it, “Mojo is that positives spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.” It is the intangible feeling of effortless success and fulfillment which can occur when our goals, our actions, and our environment seem to align into a rhythm which allows us to be at our very best, no matter what the endeavor. He states that having corporate or personal mojo means controlling four elements:

• Identity (Who do you think you are?)
• Achievement (What have you done lately?)
• Reputation (Who do other people think you are, what do other people think you’ve done lately?)
• Acceptance (What can you change? When should you ‘let go’?)

Goldsmith outlines 14 positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming. Perhaps the best part is he believes that mojo is both cumulative and contagious, which means that it gets easier to attain the more you do it, and it elevates the attitude and execution of your peers and co-workers as well.

Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing in business and in life and communicating this experience to the world around us. A simple two-question discipline that can be applied to this theory is to ask yourself these two questions:

1. How much long-term benefit or meaning did I experience from this activity?
2. How much short-term satisfaction or happiness did I experience in this activity?

This is a great way to determine what activities you should be trying to delegate and which ones really give you “life” or mojo. Another application is to ask these questions before you do something – and maybe you will change your approach to that activity.

In a short article like this, I certainly cannot do this subject justice. Get the book if the subject intrigues you! I would like to hone in on one aspect that seems to keep us from mojo, and that is — there is a natural resistance to doing the things we know we should do…Goldsmith calls it “inertia”. In others words we have the tendency to continue to do what we’re already doing. Sometimes inertia is so powerful that we can’t hit the remote to turn-off the TV. We just keep doing what we’ve been doing.

For example, I think most of us would agree that our business is a reflection of us. If we are not growing in knowledge and understanding of business as well as growing ourselves, we shouldn’t expect our business to grow. In fact, to state it a little more bluntly, if we are not growing, we are dying!

Breaking inertia is not easy. Goldsmith says that after collecting data on more than 250,000 respondents, his conclusion is “Very few people achieve positive, lasting change without ongoing follow-up. Unless they know at the end of the day (or week or month) that someone is going to measure if they’re doing what they promised to do, most people fall prey to inertia.”

OK, I am sure that sounds self-serving on my part as a coach. But that accountability could be someone you know, your boss, a mutual friend (I don’t recommend spouses), or perhaps, even yourself if you have a system for measuring your activity and you follow-it. In fact, Goldsmith has a scorecard you can download at MoJotheBook.com.

I have seen this accountability overcome inertia with business owners and with warehouse workers. I have seen it raise revenue in a dentist office by 30% in a matter of months.

If you want some ideas on how to implement systems that will help you overcome inertia – please give me a call at 678-362-7734.

I asked myself, “Why is that?” What I have concluded is that there are two main reasons. First of all, vision seems like one of those “soft” leadership tasks that is merely nice to have. We would rather do the things that are more tactical and have immediate measurable results. The second reason is that we get caught-up and wanting to create a vision that is like some else’s.

Before we leap into these two reasons, let’s define “vision” in the context of business and establish why it is important.

What is Vision? Vision can be called many things: purpose, legacy, aspirations, dream, calling or personal agenda. Let’s also differentiate vision and mission. Vision represents the big picture and the mission represents the necessary work. Your vision is an idealized state for your life and/or business. It is the big picture of what you want for the future. Your mission is the nuts and bolts of the vision. Mission is the who, what and why of your business (or personal) existence.

Importance of Vision. Jim Collins (Good to Great) states, “Companies that enjoy enduring success have a core purpose and core values that remain fixed while their strategies and practices endlessly adapt to a changing world…Vision provides guidance about what to preserve and what to change.” (Harvard Business Review Article, Building Your Company’s Vision, by James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras)

#1 Reason Why Creating Vision is Difficult – Not Taking the Time Necessary to Work on it. The world of entrepreneurs is full of “doers” — men and women driven to succeed. That is the good news! That is also the bad news! Many companies that have failed were a beehive of activity.

Writing and effective vision statement takes time. Day-to-day tactics seem so much more “urgent” and satisfying than the strategic effort required to write a compelling vision statement.

# 2 Reason Why Creating Vision is Difficult – You have to Search Deep within to Find your Personal Passion.

Your company vision has to start with your personal vision. What are passionate about that?

An effective vision statement has to be congruent with your personal life’s purpose. Another way to look at vision – when you die, what do you want your family, business associates, and friends to say about you?

What are your thoughts?

For instance, while a store may generate a lot of business, its cash flow may be in jeopardy if it overextends credit to its customers or doesn’t monitor the age of its accounts. We have all heard that “Cash is King.” My friend, Verne Harnish (Mastering the Rockefeller Habits) says, “Profit is theory, and cash is reality.” The first score to evaluate is your Aging Report. Implementing aggressive collection practices can mean the difference between making it or not. If you would like a copy of my article “14 Tips to Improving Cash Flow,” just let me know and I’d be happy to send it to you.

The next score I encourage businesses to accurately measure is their average sales dollars for every team member. With an unbiased measurement in hand, owners and managers are better able to determine who is serving their company’s interests and where there are areas for improvement. We can identify where people are placed that might not be a good fit, and when someone is ready to advance to the next level. We even look at positioning employees to build their careers within the company and ways to encourage their best performance while setting the business up for long-term success.

Next is the customers’ score. We want to record the number of transactions for each customer and analyze buying habits including an in-depth look at what opportunities the business is missing with its customers. Can you sell your tangible goods easily but find that customers look elsewhere for installation or service? Do your competitors capture a lot of the business you are leaving on the table?

Finally, businesses need to measure the key performance indicators (KPIs) in all areas of the company. When I think of KPIs, I think of a couple of simple but profound clichés. First, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Second, “Whatever you measure automatically improves 10%.” Now I do not know the origin of those two quotes, but my experience tells me they are 100% accurate.

Start with measuring you financial numbers like revenue, profit, gross profit margin, net profit margin, overhead, and inventory. But then look for other KPIs that are not reflected on the financials. For example, “call backs,” delivery time, technical support response time, all marketing campaigns results, and sales activity (calls, contacts, appointments, and sales.

Do you know where your company’s scores land? Do you know how to increase your business’s performance? How do you take stock and develop a game plan for your operations? I’d enjoy hearing from you.

A personal trainer and business coach work along very similar lines. They each analyze circumstance, set a regimen, hold people accountable, and measure results. Now a fitness client may not technically understand how or why the exercises or instructions work, but he trusts his personal trainer to know what’s best for his body because 1) the trainer has received specialized training and 2) the trainer has produced results for other people in the same situation.

So if this New Year you want to your body in shape, you know a good place to start is with the support of a personal trainer. And if this New Year you would like to get your business in shape, it’s time to look for an ActionCOACH for the same reasons.

Most people take pride in using a personal trainer. It’s seen as a measure of commitment when people are so serious about their health and well being that they engage a trainer to whip them into shape or fine-tune and sculpt their bodies.

The same is true for your business. A series of small actions evoke big changes to your bottom line. And similar to a personal trainer, I can assess your business’s state and help with everything from major overhauls to fine-tuning. Engaging a business coach does not mean you’ve failed. It means you want to take things to the next level, streamline operations, or increase revenue by employing smart and proven tactical advice.

Have you ever hired a personal trainer? Why or why not? Have you ever considered an ActionCOACH as a way to take your business to the next level? Why or why not? I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.

I’ve posed this question to you because I often see business owners make decisions based on a perceived instant payoff. It may feel like the right thing to do at the time, but decisions like these often hinder or compromise a business’s operations and success in the long-term.

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is not planning the work and then working the plan. They operate on knee-jerk principles instead of remaining on course with well thought-out, long-term strategizing.

I believe the ActionCOACH corporation has the most powerful business formula in the world and does a remarkable job of overcoming issues like these within a business. One skill I teach people is how to take detrimental personal habits and reactionary decision-making out of their business equation. Would you believe these types of rudimentary principles when applied with a plan that teaches business owners how to work smarter can increase profits by as much as 61% for many businesses?

How can I say this? Easy. ActionCOACH’s track record and experience. But it’s not easy to trust the “seller,” right? You are not the only one who feels that way. Consumer action studies show that people are far more likely to trust a peer’s casual review over pages and pages of company literature trying to illustrate the value of certain products and services.

That’s why I would like to invite you to tell me about your business. Chances are that over the years I have coached a business that is similar to yours. I’ll give you the name and contact information of a business owner who was once in a situation similar to yours and found immense business and personal relief through business coaching. I’d like to do this to help you succeed and open the door to a conversation about how to secure your business’s future. Businesses in America are still the crux of our foundation, and we need to pull together to strengthen them in a business climate that many companies find fragile and daunting.

Where are you in business today? Succeeding? Back-sliding? At a crossroads? I can help businesses at all of these levels pull further ahead with pointed tactics and proven results. Just open your door.

Thank you for watching and I hope you enjoy.  If you need help with problems in your business, give me a call and let me show you how I can help.

Far too often in business, I come across individuals who are commitment phobes. They may be hard workers and they may have a strong desire to succeed, but they lack the fundamental practice of committing whole-heartedly to what they are doing.

I can’t say I don’t see it coming. When I hear phrases such as “I’d like to see if I can make a go of it,” or “I’m going to take a shot at it” I catch an instant glimpse into a person’s mindset and know what I am up against. It’s most often someone who is ready to offer the excuses that accompany failure.

Now I am not saying failure is bad; indeed it does help us fine-tune our skills and goals. Walt Disney filed bankruptcy early on. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, floundered much along his way to the top. But neither of them was simply taking an arbitrary shot in the dark. They pined away relentlessly, putting their lives as they knew them on the line to follow the dream of creating a niche and then exploding that niche.

Do you have that burning desire? Or are you simply ready to dabble in something new? I believe there is a direct correlation between those answers and your chances at success.

If you possess that burning desire, I want to talk to you. I know you are willing to apply reasonable, well-thought out, and proven techniques to ensure your success. If you lack commitment, there is little I can do for you except help you paint a path so desirable that you crave it and become committed to your new destiny.

I’d like to leave you with a thought and then ask you, “Do you think much in the business world happens by way of “dabbling” or someone taking a “random shot” at something new?” I believe a lot of people have great ideas and we’ll never know it because they were never committed enough to push for it in front of the rest of us.

What is your level of commitment to your business?

• Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.  Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:  That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have happened.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.  Whatever you can do – or dream you can do – commit to it.  Commitment has a boldness, genius, power and magic within it!    J.W. von Goethe

At some point we’ve all attended school, endured company training, and learned lessons through the hard knocks of life. This education helped us learn how to navigate our personal and professional lives. But the training was broad, directed to a roomful of people who were all charting different courses for themselves. What if you could have your own teacher or coach and receive the specialized training you need for the exact place you are in your life and business right now? Not a generalist, but someone who asks you relevant, pointed questions and can nail down the root of any roadblocks standing in the way of the success you desire?

Many business owners have brilliant ideas, supportive training, and talents that bring their business to fruition and get them as far as they’ve come today. They have just not received the pointed coaching it takes to manage the weaker aspects of their business. One who is standing in the middle of a hurricane often cannot see the storm in it’s entirety. The same is true for business owners in the midst of their own business, it’s tough to step back and look at the big picture when they are located at the center of the chaos.

It’s okay for professionals to employ targeting coaching to help them narrow, focus and execute their goals. It doesn’t mean they’ve failed, only that they know where to look to grow stronger. Behind all great business owners are teams they effectively utilize to refine, support, and further their goals. They hire the strongest accountant, the best customer service manager, and the most adept front line and support staff. A business coach is another member of that team, the one who hands the right tools to owners and managers to execute their jobs effectively. A good business coach will not only pay for himself by the increase in revenue a business experiences, but will leave the business owner with the tools and direction needed to continue that increased revenue stream long past his service contract.

How does an employee who pays for himself sound? Could you use a bump in revenue, smoother operations, and long term strategies that will positively affect your operation for years to come?

What are your impressions of business coaches? I’d love to hear from you

Sometimes in the face of technology and competition, we forget to stay focused on the simple basics that are the heart of why our operations are successful. I’d like to share some tips with you that can increase the strength of your operations—tips that will bring you back to basics.

Cut unnecessary costs.
This may seem like the simplest concept, yet you would be surprised by how many companies continue to overspend where they do not need to. If you’ve decreased operations, your expenses should go down proportionately, too. This includes everything from the frequency of your janitorial service to your electric bill and technical support services.

Eliminate your “C” players.
Whether you implement a hiring freeze or just let natural attrition takes it’s course, now is the time to zero in on your workforce and do some internal evaluations. Who is on their A-game on behalf of your business every day? Whom do you regret hiring? While it’s emotionally difficult to let nice employees go, it’s even tougher to sink your business to keep people employed who cannot effectively support your corporation.

Instead of hiring new people into vacant positions as you weed out your work force, consider how you can divide those jobs into your existing workforce. Offering your current employees a modest raise for taking on additional duties generally costs less than bringing on a new hire.

Streamline procedures and processes.
Slow times present a wonderful opportunity to regroup and optimize the operations you simply didn’t have time to thoroughly analyze in jollier times. Look at computerized management systems that can streamline payroll, billing, receiving, ordering, shipping, inventory, and internal operational systems. Implementing an effective system and training your workforce to work smarter is not only a beneficial use of time, but it should tighten your grip on expenditures and result in the right mechanisms to efficiently handle future changes in business flow.

Consider a four-day workweek.
Studies show that employees will accomplish comparable or greater results in four, 10-hour days per week versus five, 8-hour days. We can look at other countries who have had this system in place fore decades and learn from them. Will it benefit your U.S. based business if no one around you follows suit? Where do you stand to gain from a decision like this? We’ll explore the pros and cons of this decision on a deeper level in an upcoming blog. In the meantime, if you are giving a shorter workweek consideration, a good business coach can help you understand how the decision would truly impact your business.

What are your thoughts on the four-day workweek? Based on what you know, would you want it at your business?