Blue Oceans

You are much more than your past.

2013-01-26T09:10:00.001+11:00

I was recently reminded how some people can’t look beyond what they (think they) know of your past and see that as a reflection of how and who you are now, and in some cases as a gauge of what your potential is in the future. What’s worse is that they may also tarnish in their own eyes any person you know simply because of your association with them.

Personally I’ve made several bad mistakes in business and I’m not too proud to admit it. As I was being reminded of how small-minded some people can be, I thought to myself, “How would I react in the same situation?”.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely attributed as saying that “If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”, This is also a core message in the Enhancing Their Gifts System for performance leadership from Ian Berry.

Let’s take a different angle though. When dealing with professionals in the financial services industry who will manage and control our investment capital people generally accept the legal disclaimer that past performance is not a guarantee for future results. By the same token your past performance has no bearing whatsoever on what are doing now, nor can do in the future, nor who you really are.

If someone else has a problem with your past, then they are the ones with the problem. If you believe you need them in order to be able to improve your current situation, think again. They are more of a hindrance to your future than anything else.

Provided you learn from your mistakes and don’t make the same ones twice, making mistakes more than once in past business is usually a good indication that you are dealing with someone who has the fortitude to keep standing up after being knocked down repeatedly and having another go.

So my conclusion, and answer to my own question, “How would I react in the same situation?”, is that I would remain cordial at all times, and I would remove such people from any substantive interaction, or circle of influence. I suggest if you experience this behaviour in others towards you that you do the same.

Bottom line, if people are trying to put you down, most likely they see you as above them in at least some way that is significant enough to them. If they didn’t they would be above making such remarks.

Original Article Source: http://www.paullange.com.au/blue-ocean-strategy/you-are-much-more-than-your-past/

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits.

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

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Performance Leadership is Vital to Strategy Execution

2013-01-25T18:08:00.001+11:00

Strategy is an undetailed plan of action to be implemented over a broadly defined period of time with the intention of achieving a defined (sometimes high-level) goal. In other words, you want to move your business from A to B within X amount of time and decide you will achieve this through several high-level areas of activity.

But what about the people who will implement the strategy and perform the various activities, general and detailed, to help you achieve your goals? Where do they factor into the strategy equation? The answer is that in most businesses they don’t. The reason is because this has never been perceived nor taught as a part of business strategy, and arguably until the Enhancing Their Gifts System™, there was no framework to connect the business strategy and the chief executors of strategy, your employees.

Most, if not all, business strategy consulting focuses on the delivery of business improvement through strategic change, optimisation, and value innovation. The key areas of focus are usually operations, leadership, growth and innovation, and finance and performance management. The people who you will need, to utilise their talents, skills and experience, to perform the work necessary, to deliver the improvement are generally bundled together with finance, a very analytical, black and white area of the business.

The traditional approach is that employees are seen as resources, similar to financial resources and computer systems, the performance of which must be measured and managed to maximise output and ROI. Their personal values, likes, dislikes and ambitions are discounted or ignored in the strategy picture, and such things are seen as extraneous to the pursuit and achievement of the business goals and objectives. For the first time the Enhancing Their Gifts System™ enables business to give dedicated focus to talent and performance leadership as a part of strategic business growth.

Computer systems and financial resources are standardised and finite things with definable outputs on which to establish expectations and measure achievement. They work best when they are deployed in the way that they are designed to produce maximum performance or results. People however are unique creations, with infinite potential, each with their own personal and individual motivations, desires, aspirations and goals.

People give their best and maximum performance when they do things that will help them achieve whatever is highest on and most aligned with their values and therefore whatever is most important to them. This is as true in the workplace as it is in personal life.

Many systems talk about the need for employees to feel valued. That is a good starting point and there are many good techniques and activities that can be used to help achieve this. There is a significant difference however between an employee feeling valued as the result of some external influence (motivation) and aligning their professional performance with what is highest on their values to create internal influence (inspiration). The Enhancing Their Gifts System™ is the only system that I know of that makes this connection between employee business performance and the employees’ individual value system to achieve the best outcome for both the business and the person.

Business owners and leaders must come to accept that strategic change, optimisation, and value innovation is also needed in respect of the people who will execute their strategies. Performance management as an area of business strategy should not be bundled with financial management. It should in fact be discarded entirely and businesses should establish in its place a new and separate area of talent and performance leadership.

Enhancing Their Gifts moves the focus from performance management, as a sidebar of the overall strategy program, to talent and performance leadership, as an integral and important part of deploying a strategy and achieving the goals defined by it.

In every organisation employees are key to how well the business strategy is executed. They are the technicians and the managers at the coalface daily. Whether in customer facing roles or back-of-house, the employees are the ones to execute tactically what you as the business owner or corporate leader decided upon strategically with your employees. Motivation will take you as the leader only so far. Money and other financial tools like stock options are no longer the only, and in some cases no longer the most important currency in the transaction between employer and employee to elicit best performance. Key is what leads to employees feeling valued.

Phil Libin, Chief Executive of Evernote was on the mark when he said “Happy workers make better products …. the output we care about has everything to do with your state of mind”. Evernote is well known for its advocacy of work-life integration and the benefits achieved by the business valuing what is important to the employee.

If you wish to achieve the maximum output from your employees, it is no longer about giving them a job, a periodical pay-rise, possibly stock options, a mobile phone, company car, portable computing device, and a health plan if you operate your business in a country without a national health scheme. It’s about understanding what is important to the individuals and finding ways to align what they do for you with what they want to do themselves.

The process is not a tactical activity down the track of strategy implementation. It is also not something for which you establish measurement tools to determine the individuals performance based on what the business wants in order to determine what level of perk or pay-rise the employee will receive. It starts with a decision in the boardroom that acknowledges the need for work-life integration and the need to lead your employees’ talent and performance for mutual benefit rather than simply trying to manage their performance which is a hangover from the industrial revolution and not fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Original Article Source: http://www.paullange.com.au/blue-ocean-strategy/performance-leadership-vital-strategy-execution/

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

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The Secret Colours of Marketing & Communicating Your Message - Part 1

2012-11-19T11:28:00.001+11:00

Choosing the right colours to accurately convey your message or create the right perception in your marketing materials is as much an art as it is a science. Colours impact the emotions and actions of your target audience so it is important to make the right colour choices to maximise these impacts.

Here are a few things for you to consider, so that the colours you choose support your marketing message, and don’t disadvantage you or even work against you.

Why should consider colour in respect of marketing?

Colour is part of our inner take on the world. It's an instinctive thing, it’s fundamentally linked to our nature and intrinsic to the person we project. Every one of us has an emotional response to the different colours of the spectrum; more often than not this response is an unconscious one. It is this unconscious emotional response that matters in creating successful marketing campaigns, and colour is a key piece in the marketing puzzle.

Logos and websites - colour plays an important initial role with regard to the initial reaction.

There has been much scientific research into colours, and science offers us ways of thinking about colours in marketing to elicit a desired, or undesired, response. Take a colour wheel as an example. A colour wheel contains both warm and cool colours, each provoking a different emotional response. A warm toned colour will elicit an active response whilst a cool tone colour will elicit a calming response.

So before you start ask yourself what type of response do you want your message to elicit? The warm colours we find in nature, such as reds and yellows indicate action. Why? Think of the sun and fire. When you see fire or feel the heat of the flames, you will either be drawn in by it or you will take it as a clear indication to remove yourself from a dangerous situation. Irrespective of which camp you are in, unconsciously the message is that you should "act now!".

Cool colour tones however are different. They don't elicit action but instead they invoke serenity or calm, and stability. Think of things like our earth and a clear or slight cloud dusted sky. The message therefore with cool tone colours is "steady as she goes there" and "all good, we're stable". If you're objective is to calm the viewer, or to impart to the viewer an inner sense of timelessness, blues and the cooler colour tones are best.

Then of course there are the many different variations; the combinations of the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) and these are very complex when talking about unconscious or subconscious responses to colours in our marketing. Take the example in some prisons, and this is quite interesting, where pink is used to evoke a more human response from otherwise aggressive inmates.

In the next part of this series i will go into more detailed analysis of colours and their use in marketing. I trust you have found this helpful thus far.

Be sure to return soon to read the remaining two parts to this series.

I trust this was valuable.

Original Article Source: http://www.paullange.com.au/blue-ocean-strategy/secret-colours-marketing-communicating-message-part-1/

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

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Creating Excellence in Your Restaurant

2012-11-17T09:44:00.001+11:00

Dine America is one of the premier restaurant and food service industry conferences globally and one that all leaders in this industry should put on their agenda to attend. This is not just another trade show! I mention this because it is where I first heard Horst Schulze speak.

Horst Schulze was recognised as the ‘corporate hotelier of the world’ by HOTELS Magazine in 1991. He was the president and COO of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company from 1988 until 2001 and served as Vice-Chairman for a further two years before departing for other endeavours. Horst Schulze is currently the Chairman and CEO of The West Paces Hotel Group.

Mr. Schulze is an absolute legend in the service world and among the leaders of the hospitality industry and has been quoted as saying "Many companies prefer to make money by cutting costs. I prefer to do it by creating excellence.". His words are relevant across all industries but especially pertinent in the restaurant and hotel industries.

Do you have a plan, a strategy, and most importantly action points for you and your staff to create excellence in your restaurant daily?

Following are a few ideas that other restaurants and/or industries do daily to create excellence in the experience of their guests or clients. You may wish to consider how you can apply some or all of the ideas and systems in your business.

Bellmen at the Ritz Carlton will read the luggage tags of arriving guests and immediately greet the guests by their name.

Many banks use their clients name after each transaction. Now that may not be practical in all businesses but look to the signs. Phone orders, clients who use a credit card, and of course those who you already know all present excellent opportunities to use the client’s name; a word of caution though, do not presume to be able to refer to the guest by their first name. Many people are annoyed by this presumed familiarity and find it inappropriate.

Also, in situations where you have phone orders or phone based customer service interactions, the advancements in Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) and furthermore with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems allow you to provide your staff a comprehensive client profile immediately the phone rings so that your employees have all possible information to hand to be able to assist your client the second they answer the call. These systems are now very affordable and very much within the reach of even small operations.

Banish all generic and impersonal greetings such “Next”, “Who’s waiting”, “Can I help the next customer in line”, “Ready to order” etc.. You sound like every other impersonal business out there and clients have grown numb to it.

In respect of food delivery, ask for the client’s name instead of calling out “Number 888”. Again, do not subtly force the client to provide their first name by asking directly for it. Ask for their name, not their first name and let them provide whatever they are comfortable with.

When I lived in New York City my dry cleaner would see me jump out of the taxi outside and would have my clothes ready for me by the time I came through the front door and/or would have a docket ready to hand to me if I was there to drop some clothes off. She was an amazing woman, and I thought I was super special because that is how she made me feel. I later found out that she did this for all of her clients which simply confirmed how amazing she was.

Speed and efficiency of service are both key! In some restaurants whoever greets the guests upon arrival (e.g. venue manager, duty manager, restaurant manager, maitre d’hotel or host) will code the guest check, or service account in the integrated restaurant management and POS system, so when the waiter/waitress comes to the table or looks at their (handheld) service terminal, they know if it is a first-time guest, a regular customer, someone who is in a hurry and needs fast service et al. Using this system allows the waiter/waitress to customise the guests experience and contribute to making this visit at least meet and hopefully exceed the client’s expectations.

Add some buttons to the POS system that will inform the kitchen and food runners (or whatever you call your people delivery the food if not the waiter/waitress) that a guest is either a first-timer, a regular customer, in a hurry et al. Use the technology to create alerts that will allow you to more efficiently and effectively enhance the quality of your guest’s experience. You may want to give a returning customer a perk with a bounce-back voucher or a card that says "welcome to my restaurant" with a brief greeting that is hand signed by the manager, or even a visit from the manager to (additionally) personally welcome them.

Some of these ideas may sound corny, crazy, unusual, or unique. Whatever they are they are unfortunately (or fortunately for the few) different and differentiating. They are the small things that can create a viral marketing buzz about your restaurant both online and via offline word of mouth. If you monitor the restaurant review sites you will start to see these little touches come back in the customer reviews guests leave for each other online.

Go out and create excellence!

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/pauljlange

G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112131783045160620816/posts

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Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Starting with the End in Mind - Exit Strategy Series | Introduction

2012-09-13T10:24:00.001+10:00

Many SME’s have huge potential to grow into a big business. However the majority never achieve more than average results in the small business environment. Whilst the quality of the product or service and the skills of the founder are important, what makes the biggest difference is the ability of the owner to think like a large enterprise. The most fundamental way this is expressed is in the owner’s ability, and often discipline, to stop working ‘in’ the business and start working ‘on’ the business.

Most small business owners are like politicians. They have some grand scheme of the world (their business) and they do not take the time to consider what their business would look like without them in it day by day.

Whether by design or by default, all too often the founders of small businesses make themselves irreplaceable. The reality is though if they were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, the business would most likely fail. This is singularly where most (new) entrepreneurs go wrong and it is without doubt the largest obstacle to growing a business from small to medium and ultimately a large enterprise.

Most small business owners make the huge mistake of treating their business like a job. Understandable to some degree because that is what they have given themselves. If you want a company with massive growth potential you need to turn it into a saleable asset that will be attractive to potential buyers. The business of being in business is the business!

If you are one of the 70% of small business owners hoping to use the proceeds from the sale of your business to finance your retirement you may have a problem. But it is one that can be rectified. What you need to do can’t be covered in a single blog article, so there will be more articles to cover the various topics.

What you can start doing is looking at your business as a series of processes. Define each one and once defined, become more granular and define it in even more detail, i.e. break it down into more sub-processes. Document all of this in a workflow and discuss it with someone competent to understand your business. From this you will be able to start to create systems around your products, services, and back office/internal procedures.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

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Thieving Charities Ripping off Consumers Need to be Stopped

2012-09-06T13:12:00.001+10:00

With more than 600,000 tax-exempt nonprofits in Australia, there are a lot of hands grabbing at your bank and credit card details on the hunt for donations. Beware who you give your details to because you may not be able to stop them stealing money from your account.

They say that time is the best judge of character and that is true for both people and business; especially when dealing with charities. We are all pretty much wary these days of door-to-door insurance salesmen, used car salesmen, and door-to-door bible evangelists. We should be equally cautious and wary of charities, no matter where we encounter them.

Despite huge administrative costs and even larger costs of fund-raising (in excess of 30% for many) many charities have become worse with customer service than mobile and Internet telecommunication providers. The only thing that separates them is that most of the charities don’t have call centers based out of some far-away land.

For the rest as soon as you call them or have a problem they will try every delaying tactic in the book to keep from resolving your issue. Nothing is more true when it comes to repatriating funds that have been illegally deducted from your account. I can assure I know, this has recently happened to me with a charity in Australia.

If this happens to you, you are able to take action. In Australia your first calls and communications should be the Office of Fair Trading, CTTT (Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal), and the Department of Justice. There is also a new Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission launching to act as an industry watchdog and amongst other things to stop these rogue charities from ripping off people.

For the record, I am all for giving to people in need. Only as with every opportunity in society there will always be some who demonstrate the worst attributes of human nature; the thieving grubs who hide behind their charity status and alleged doing-good banner, whose real goal is simply to rip people off in the name of charity. These people need to be stopped!!

In fact, the entire concept of charity needs to change and in creating that change address issues like this so as to bring a halt to the immoral and illegal practices of these offenders. More to follow as y personal encounter with one organisation in Australia unfolds.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Working in Your Business or Working on Your Business

2012-05-31T13:28:00.001+10:00

Yesterday I was asked to be the guest speaker at a networking event. The topic I was asked to talk about was “what it looks like when small business owners are working in their business and not on their business”.

I was also interviewed this morning by a journalist for one of Australia’s leading national business publications in relation to the same subject. As I discussed with him, unless you as a business owner can remove yourself from the day-to-day operations, you don’t have a business, you have given yourself a job. The key difference is that the boss won’t complain if you arrive late, leave early or take a day off. That is not entirely a good difference as it touches on one of the main challenges business owners face, namely ACCOUNTABILITY!!!

The focus of the interview however was mainly around processes and systems and I found one of the questions particularly interesting. The question was whether accountants are one of the best advisors for small business to help them with their processes, systems, and working on not in their business more generally. My experience is this:

By looking at the business processes strategically it is possible to double company profits of most SME's within 12 months.
You can generate more profits by either saving on costs (a finite approach but definitely worth doing) or generating more revenue (infinite possibilities) .... or both, and it is this third way that has the potential for exponential growth due to the synergistic effect of the two at once.
More efficiency creates opportunity for both more effectiveness and more productivity (more income with the same resources) and the systems that deliver that efficiency provide for rapid integration of new resources to increase revenue even further.

This is partly why accountants are not the best to advise business owners in this way. They are good at strategic financial processes! But that is only one aspect of the business; an important one but back-office and not front-line.

CFO's (the accountants of big business) are taking on more important roles in large companies and in SME's external accountants are riding this wave. The key difference is that CFO's are focused on what they do best, critical evaluation of numbers, creative manipulation of those numbers within the relevant frameworks (e.g. tax, compliance, governance) and risk analysis in terms of financial exposure. Accountants try to be more and the average small business owner working in his business not on it, like a man dying of thirst in the dessert will gladly accept a drink from the first person to pass.

But a tiger cannot change his stripes, and whilst every bit as regal as a lion, a tiger will never be a lion. If he does he was probably always a lion who at one point walked through tar-soaked underbrush. The same can be said for accountants and entrepreneurs.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Your Immediate Business Potential is the Average of Your Inbox

2012-05-15T05:11:00.001+10:00

I made a startling discovery the other day as I reviewed my sent items and looked through my email archives.

We’ve all heard the concept that you become a product of your environment, and that your income will be the average of your five closest friends; or is it business associates?

Revenue had taken a bit of a dip in recent months and I was contemplating why. This wasn’t the reason I went searching through my email program. It simply struck me, as I looked at the recipients, the number of email threads with specific people, and the number of emails per thread with those people, that I was spending a lot of time talking to the same people with no outcome.

So I invested some more time in looking back historically and without being too analytical, working off memory instead of comparing bank accounts and running complex formulas in a spreadsheet, I compared income during different periods to the type, volume and complexity of the email traffic. Here’s what I discovered.

I earned more money when I sent less emails to more people. The overall volume of emails during times of higher revenue generation was approximately 23.5% of the total and generated more than 87.3% of the revenue for the period reviewed. BTW I looked back over a period of almost 9.5 years. Also the ration of revenue in for effort expended in delivery plus hard COGS (cost of goods sold) was much higher … i.e. more profitable.

I earned less money, worked longer hours, and was generally unhealthier (later reflection) when I sent more emails to less people. Upon further reflection I realised I was a lot less happy and this rubbed off on my family.

What does all of this mean? Well I’ll leave that to your own individual interpretation. What’s clear to me is that less is certainly more. The clue though is to recognise what you are doing, interpret it in the context of the situation, and lead yourself out of what could become a very self destructive parttern of behaviour. It is very easy to become wrapped up in a cycle of business busyness with the same people and delude oneself that the outcomes will follow. There is a time when it is appropriate to cut your losses and change direction. One of the greatest challenges is having the perspective to be able to do that at the right moment!

I encourage everyone to look at their email communications or whatever medium it is you use primarily for your business communications and unless you are very specialised in your field with less than a handful of other people with whom you need to communicate regularly you may find similar patterns. If the patters are the good ones (i.e. lead to high revenue and profitability) keep doing what you are doing. If they are the negative ones, consider adapting your approach to the way you conduct your business immediately.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Become a better networker!? No!! Improve your Business

2012-05-10T22:55:00.001+10:00

Purpose is lost in the noise

Since when has ‘become a better networker’ been the point to going to networking functions? It seems that most of the ‘networking experts’ out there are stuck in the features and benefits mode of business networking events. Almost every general business networking event I have attended in the last six years had someone spruiking the ultimate goal that you should ‘become a better networker’.

This approach misses the mark by miles and from what I have observed commonly creates ‘business networker’ drones. People focused on improving their profile as ‘networker’ rather than learning inter-personal skills and leveraging business networking events to add value to their business. Traditional ‘networking experts’ miss the “Why?” and the “Value”.

Think for a moment about how many networking functions have you attended? How about how many of those networking events had a ‘networking expert’ speaker. Someone at the front of the room giving you tips on how to ‘become a better networker’.

Personally I’ve been to loads of them!

The objection I have in respect of the greater majority of these ‘networking experts’ is that they are no better than the average person in the room. They are teaching what they would like to learn the most; not an unknown thing in any industry. Most have bought into their own propaganda about how good they are.

It’s been said that “The only reason to give a speech is to change the world”. I believe that this is true. On the micro scale of a business networking event, I translate this to ‘the only reason to give a speech is to make a difference and have an impact on the lives of the people in the room’.

So next time you attend a business networking event with speaker profiled as a ‘networking expert’ filter out the noise of why you should ‘become a better networker’. Instead focus on the little gems of inter-personal relationship and communication skills that will help you to improve your business. Most of the time they will be there. If you can learn one more skill at each event you attend, you and your business will grow.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Become a better networker!? No!! Improve your Business

2012-05-10T22:45:00.001+10:00

Purpose is lost in the noise

Personally I’ve been to loads of them!

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Are Private Bankers Poor at Describing What They Do or Simply Just Anti-Social by Nature?

2011-11-11T11:20:00.001+11:00

Last night I attended a private reception for Financial Services Professionals (FSP) specifically focused on private bankers, investment bankers, hedge fund managers et al and a few of the companies that service them. As I moved around the room I’d ask ...

Me: “What do you do?”

... to which I received the response either

FSP: “eh ... what do you mean?”

... or they proceeded to recite the entire glossy corporate brochure by heart. Every one was wearing name tags with their name and the company so you knew where they were from and unless you were a complete industry outsider (in which case you wouldn’t be at the reception anyway) you knew what the company did. So I’d ask again,

Me: “Yes, but what do YOU do?”

FSP: “eh ... what do you mean?”

... I remained tight lipped and allowed a pregnant pause to ensue ...

FSP: “eh ... well I’m a XYZ Manager” or “I work in the XYZ department”

Me: “Let me ask it differently; what do ***YOU*** do that adds value to your clients?”

The majority of the responses to this were along the lines of ...

FSP: “What do I what?”

In all fairness there were the occasional good ones, possibly proving the 5% 95% rule.

For now forget the question about value though and go back to the original question, ‘what do you do?’. What I found amazing was that these people all seemed to identify themselves as part of a corporate machine that does ‘something’, as opposed to being able to articulate what it is that they do within that environment that differentiates them as a person, an expert in their field, or a professional who makes a difference.

Remember that this was an industry reception so there was no need to tell peers what their company does ... everyone in the room pretty much knew what each of the companies did. I would have thought it more important to tell your peers what makes you the big swinging dick of your company or your department, blow your own trumpet, beat your own drum, and don’t bore me to tears with your corporate slogans.

Certainly this type of reaction is not exclusive to the financial services industry; I have seen it at other more generic neworking events and receptions. What stood out for me on this occassion was the number of people who seemed firewalled from the reality that they work in a service industry and that their right to survive (at least should) depend(s) upon the value they bring to their clients. Clearly the financial services companies they all work for are not creating a work environment that fosters this understanding; or am I simply over-reacting?

Warmest regards,

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

11 Key Leadership Attributes for Restaurant Managers

2011-08-25T08:01:00.001+10:00

Much of the following can be applied to almost any industry. In this article though I’ll use the restaurant and hospitality industry as an example, as it is one in which the lessons are particularly pertinent.

Your value to your brand as a leader in the restaurant and hospitality industry is derived from your ability to manage various metrics that contribute to excellence in service and profitability of the venue. These metrics include but are not limited to costs for food and labour, and table turnover. Staff engagement and training, and production efficiency also form part of your commercial brief. All of these are areas you are expected to manage and monitor, and improve!

Note above that I have not said you are responsible for managing the staff, but you are responsible for staff engagement and training. Some restaurant managers believe that they are responsible for the day to day management of the personnel; however effective managers know that their brief is to manage processes and things and to lead the people in their charge. The following points offer some important traits of good leadership that every manager who seeks to improve themselves, their people and their venue should master:

1. BE STEADFASTLY COURAGOUS - A leader’s courage is based upon their knowledge of their subject matter, confidence in their abilities, and understanding of their functional role within the venue. You will find that the venue personnel will not tolerate being told what to do by a manager who does not possess self-confidence and courage. Employees are intelligent and will cease to follow such a leader, even work against a weak leader, quite rapidly.

2. ALWAYS MAINTAIN SELF-CONTROL - A restaurant manager must always be in control of his/her actions, especially in pressure filled situations. Without self-control you cannot hope to lead your staff effectively. Good self-control sets a shining example for your personnel and you will find that they will start to emulate you. This is a case of do as I say AND do as I do!

3. BE CONSISTENTLY FAIR & JUST - All employees expect to be treated fairly. If they do not have a sense that their treatment, indeed the treatment of the staff generally, is measured, fair, and just they will not pay you the respect you need to be able to lead through either difficult or good times. Good restaurants will have an operational manual and policy handbook for personnel. The policy handbook provides you with a reference guide that is known to the employees what they may expect when an infraction occurs.

The policy handbook will be helpful in maintaining consistency in respect of the consequences of unacceptable behaviours, and consistency is the key. Also remember that an effective leader must not ever play favourites. At the same time, you will forge relationships that could lead to the perception of favouritism. If the need arises to redress an infraction with someone where the perception of favouritism is likely, be on your guard to also not over react in a kind of affirmative action in an attempt to set an example that you are not playing favourites. If you do you will weaken your powerbase and circle of influence even more .

4. CLEAR AND DECISIVE DECISION MAKING - The restaurant manager who is unable to take decisions and wavers when a decision is required broadcasts to the staff that he or she is not sure of themself. Such a manager will find it challenging to obtain buy-in from his staff. Be clear, be decisive, take a decision and stick with it. You may not always make the correct decision, but you will be respected for your strength of character in taking the decision without hesitation and following through. Staff who smell weakness will quickly lose respect and an indecisive approach will lose you respect very quickly. If your motto is ‘I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure’ then be a follower and don’t aspire to leading.

5. EFFECTIVE PLANNING - You’ve probably heard the famous quote “The failure to plan is planning to fail. “. Although this is attributed to a great many people it is originally from Joe Paterno, a famous American football coach born in 1926. Any leader wishing to succeed in his role of restaurant manager must plan his work, and then work his plan. A restaurant manager who works reactively and predominantly by guesswork (most of the time delusional and calling it instinctively) without practical and definite plans, is comparable to a plane without landing gear. It will land but the result will be everything from bumpy to disastrous and fatal. Every restaurant should use systems that assist and structure the planning process.

6. OVER DELIVER ON EXPECTATIONS - A good leader will always lead by example. People don’t care as much about what you say as they care about what you do and how you go about doing it. A leader must be willing to do more than he demands of his staff if and when required. As a restaurant manager you must you be able to manage staff training on top of being able to step into and perform any of the functions in the restaurant, at least to an adequate level. This is different to some industries where the leader can remain above the operational aspects of the business but in a restaurant or hotel the leader must be able to lead by example and assist when necessary.

7. PLEASANT DEMEANOUR - Being rude and overbearing is not a quality or trait anyone should have at the best of times. As a restaurant manager this type of behaviour will contribute to your failing quite rapidly. Leadership demands respect, both of others and of you. Staff will not respect a leader who does conduct himself in a socially acceptable manner and exhibiting a pleasant personality.

8. BE FIRM BUT BE EMPATHETIC AND UNDERSTANDING - If you wish to be successful as a restaurant manager you must have empathy for your staff. How your personnel perform has a lot to do with the success of the restaurant. A leader must understand his people and their problems; if necessary he/she must also be ready to come to their rescue, for example with a difficult guest. Remember the guest is always right, except on those occasions when they are WRONG. As their leader there will be times when you must step in and defend your staff. A good leader will recognise such occasions.

9. ATTENTION TO DETAIL - The successful leader of a restaurant must pay attention to detail and more to the point have a keen eye for it. In the restaurant and hotel industry, perhaps more than any other, it is important for you (and your staff for that matter) to see the restaurant through the eyes of the guests. You as the leader also need to see the restaurant through the eyes of your staff. Remain vigilant and look for ways you can both improve the guest's experience and make the functions and roles for your staff easier to perform.

10. THE BUCK STOPS WITH YOU - ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY - To be successful as a restaurant manager you must assume full responsibility for the mistakes and the shortcomings of your staff. Do not try to move responsibility or you will very rapidly be deposed as leader either actually or effectively as you will lose the respect of the people working for you. If one of your followers does make a mistake and/or shows himself to be incompetent, as the leader you must consider how you can prevent the situation from happening again. This is of course referring to genuine mistakes and not wilful acts with malicious intent.

11. COOPERATION IS KEY- A good leader is in service of his people. You have probably heard this before but may not be quite sure what to make of it. If you think the concept is rubbish then you are probably not yet ready to lead. A successful restaurant leader understands the principle of cooperation and applies this consistently. He uses cooperation as part of his standard operating procedure and through his example causes his followers do the same willingly.

Do not confuse cooperation with weak command and control. On the contrary, a leader who is a strong commander and in control of his people will have the cooperation of his people without force. A weak leader will only ever gain cooperation begrudgingly.

In Conclusion

As a restaurant manager you should continue to invest in yourself and attend leadership training and leadership development courses. There are many great courses to take including from Dale Carnegie Institute and Franklin Covey as well as a large number of more boutique training programmes offered by exceptional individuals. Look in your city and I am sure you will find them. These course and continued education will prove invaluable to your effectiveness as a leader. If you are serious about developing yourself as a leader, whether to continue in the restaurant and hotel industry or to branch out into other industries, consider also finding yourself a good mentor and/or coach to be a guiding light and to assist you with your career path.

Although the above list is not intended to be exhaustive, nor is it, it provides a solid basis on which you can successfully develop your own style of leadership as a restaurant manager that your staff will respect and follow. If you do not have the ability to lead, you will rapidly discover that there is no one following you. As my grandfather used to say, if you are leading but there nobody is following, we call that taking a hike.

I trust this has been valuable.

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

An Entrepreneurs Insights into Family Office Data Base Trends

2011-08-24T14:08:00.001+10:00

The fast growing and rapidly evolving Family Office space as a separate vertical industry is a phenomenon not to be underestimated. This article is intended to highlight some of the top trends that affect the creation, use, and expansion of Family Office data base resources. Whereas this space was hitherto below the mainstream radar, there are daily more competitors jockeying for position and for the attention of Family Offices so that they might gain access to the very large pools of concentrated wealth that these organisations manage.

Some of the top trending items within the Family Office space include:

Trend #1

Frequently more fund managers from large fund management companies and middle to large investment banks are committing to monthly or annual subscriptions to ensure they regularly receive the latest updates to their Family Office data base resources. Given the amount of money involved for these people and organisations, they clearly have prioritised the need to have the most up-to-date information possible, the instant it is available.

Trend #2

I discussed in a recent article that spamming of any kind is never a good thing, especially not with Family Office lists that you purchase. Clearly that message hasn’t yet filtered down to some hedge funds that are still making the mistake of sending spam, or mass emails, to ultra high net worth (UHNW) wealth management firms. What’s surprising is that they are still not surprised by the low rate of response they receive from their canon full of buckshot campaign. Ultimately this will only serve to hurt (what is left of) their reputation within the industry.

Trend #3

The Family Office database product has almost become a mainstream list product. It’s not quite as mainstream yet as buying a list of people who are in the market for a holiday within 12 months, but if this trend continues it will go down that route. The major difference however will remain quality. There is an increasing number of media companies and individuals who offer Family Office directories for sale on the open market. The volume is at levels never seen before. Certainly, this growth will reflect the number of ultra high net worth (UHNW) families out there but a lot of it is opportunistic and mostly not worth the pixels it is displayed on the screen with. As a result you must perform thorough due diligence before acquiring a Family Office database or list.

Trend #4

The more sophisticated hedge fund managers and private equity fund managers have turned their attention to using the contact details of multiple Family Office lists. They deploy a complex multi-modality marketing method aimed at raising more capital. The basic principle of their methodology is to send out mailings, send emails, place phone calls et al that are all sequenced strategically to maximize the response rate, and over time convert more leads to funds. I have very little doubt that more fund managers will take this up over the next few years and the practice will grow. The irony is that the concept is already outdated, and the reality is that the true innovators and early adopters within that sector of the financial services industry, which targets Family Offices, are already deploying more intelligent multi-modality marketing automation to their processes.

Trend #5

You can still find Family Office databases for less than $1,000; if you look around you may event find a couple that are worth the purchase price, or more. The simple fact is that many Family Office database sellers are increasing their prices, and that is understandable to some degree as these resources do cost a lot to maintain and keep up-to-date year-in and year-out. What can you expect to pay for a Family Office database of reasonable quality? Your budget should start somewhere around $2,000, and ultimately expect to pay anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 on the top end.

Years ago it would have take the Hubble telescope connected to a super computer to find a lot of detail on the Family Office industry and identify trends or patterns in the way the industry players are interacting with the resources that are available to them. These days it is much simpler. The information is out there if you look in the right places. The question is, with this new knowledge what are you going to do?

By watching trends and changes in specific parts of the investment industry you can discover how to use Family Office databases significantly more effectively. Who knows, as a result perhaps you will be able to fund, or be at least be a part of launching, the next great discovery that serves mankind.

Kind regards

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

How to Choose the Right Family Office Database

2011-08-22T07:59:00.001+10:00

As I have discussed in other articles there are many different Family Office list resources to choose from. Many are quite worthless, some are very good, and a few are outstanding. I trust the following will provide you with some guidance on how to tell which family office database resources are worth your investment, if you are looking to use them to compliment your efforts to raise capital, or perhaps enhance your marketing activities, within your company.

Here are some basic criteria to watch out for when choosing a Family Office database resource:

Reject web-only resources. If you cannot export to a common spreadsheet format such as Excel or even basic CSV it will cause you a load of additional grief to be able to exploit the data. With web-only resources you lose the ability to upload the data to your customer relationship management (CRM) system. For this you will commonly need XLS(X) or CSV. Also, depending upon how solid the company is that you purchase the service from, if it is web-only you risk losing access to the data altogether in the event the vendor goes belly up without warning, or if you miss a subscription payment you will most likely find your account suspended and your access to the data is denied. For my money, why even risk it? Go with a company that provides the data for download in a common format.

Avoid companies that insist on sending you a CD or a DVD with a code that locks the use of it to one computer. Seriously, where do we find these people? This is so archaic that it should not rate a mention but I have come across a few dinosaurs like this. Information must flow freely, and frequently. CD’s & DVD’s are neither and typically anything that wants to lock use to one system can be a costly technical nightmare when you realise that this is impractical.

Always work with an organisation that displays their team publicly on their website with biographies of all of the team members; or at least the key team members. Also expect to see phone numbers, possibly email addresses, and most certainly a professional looking website. Bottom line, ask yourself whether they look like they are a real business; more specifically do they look like they are a real business that has the skills and ability to develop, maintain and update a Family Office database resource seriously?

Always consider the refund policy of each company you are evaluating. You might not expect it but the terms and conditions of refund can differ dramatically from one vendor to another.

Be quite particular and consider carefully the future update process. How will you ensure the Family Office directory you purchase today is kept up-to-date into the future? Obviously you and your team could update the list internally, but if you have chosen the right vendor, it will be much more cost effective to subscribe semi-annually, annually or bi-annually for automatic updates. Check whether your Family Office resource provider offers this service and subscribe. In reality, it isn't that you are not able to maintain and update the Family Office list yourself. It is simply that the vendor is probably better positioned to do it and if, as said, you have chosen wisely they will be expert at updating and maintaining Family Office lists. A subscription could save you and your team hundreds of hours.

I trust that you will ultimately connect with a vendor of a higher quality for your Family Office database, and when you do, and start to use it, I wish you the very best of luck in your fundraising activities.

Kind regards,

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

How to Make Hotel Investments

2011-08-21T09:20:00.003+10:00

Emerging markets such as India and China are augmenting an otherwise lack lustre global travel industry. The reality is that the upswing in recent years in the hotel industry is due mainly to travellers from these too massive regions. It should therefore not come as a surprise that hotel investment experts are excited about the trend and the potential growth it can bring with hotel owners, hotel operators and industry investors all being prompt to pounce on new acquisitions.

At the same time though, investment in the hotel industry is still plagued with all of the normal complications and commercial risk. There is always very large amount of capital at stake, and this requires meticulous planning and considerable expertise by and of the investor. Investors should upon expert opinion, and often do, before finalising a decision for an intended investment. Several points that should be considered, and indeed re-considered, prior to outlaying any investment funds in a hotel are outlined below.

Always Inspect, or Have the Property Inspected

The property may be useless for the purpose you intended upon completion of the deal; this can occur, and does occur often, despite the hotel displaying all of its best attributes during the negotiation and paper due diligence process. The most common reasons are often:

underground environment pollution
interior mould infestation, and
structural damage from termites and rodents.

You should only ever finalise a deal once you have completed a thorough physical investigation of the property yourself or by your trusted advisors and professional service providers. Remember though in the case of the latter they too can ‘get it wrong’ and their contracts with you will indemnify them if they do, so you are still left holding the bag. That said you should certainly engage an engineer to check for the conditions mentioned above and authenticate that the property does not present any of these problems. Such authentication will usually be something you can rely on at law and is necessary for you to be sure that the investment property complies with all building codes.

Familiarise Yourself with Your Hotel Management Company

If you are contemplating engaging a specialised hotel management firm to oversee the operations of your hotel business, reassure yourself of that company’s capabilities via several sources. Look into and consider its operational performance, and also run some cross-checks with other properties that it has under management. Look closely at and analyse its track record with regard to maximising revenues and managing expenses responsibly.

Analyse Where Your Visitors Come From

The hotel should have a good mix of visitors across various market segments including commercial, group travel, business travellers, and leisure or vacation travellers. If the hotel depends on a single segment, unless you have a very specific and focused niche you should reconsider your investment as such properties rarely do well throughout the entire year. Properties that attract visitors from across several or all segments of travellers are able to bridge slow periods in one segment with increased traffic in another.

DO NOT Depend Upon a Single Business for Your Hotel

Amazing as it seems this happens a lot. Hotels cater to a single client and when that client takes a dive, so too does the hotel. If your hotel exists to service visitors from one company, you are relying on that company’s ability to perform and grow. Frankly you would be better putting your money into the S&P500 or similar. Properties that depend upon obtaining visitors from an airport, another company, a business park, or an amusement park, can go crazy when these businesses cease to generate the income they once did, or worse they shut the doors completely.

For example, with airports, when less people travel by air and the airlines are hurting; your business will suffer the knock on. In regional areas an airport might be relocated or a new larger regional airport may be created elsewhere. Either way if your hotel is relying on traffic from the airport you will feel the pinch very quickly. Similarly if the business on which you are relying for your visitors decides to change its headquarters, or the business park starts to lose clients, or the amusement park is hit with heavy competition from a better, your business will fall. It is important that you look at your revenue sources so that if one segment hits on hard times, it does not impact you to the point of distinction and you can progress through the tough times keeping the hotel fires burning.

When is the Hotel In-Season?

Your new hotel should have an in-season of at least eight months of every year. If it doesn’t then, unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances, it simply is not an option worth your consideration. If the in-season is shorter than eight months your hotel will need to have premium rate occupancy during the in-season to cope up with annual operational costs. The in-season months should also be consecutive lest you will most likely experience lower than potential revenue.

Some Obstacles You May Face

Some markets already have extensive land allocations that are zoned for hotel development and acquiring land in these markets can be relatively simple. Subsequently, when requirements for obtaining finance are made easier through pre-zoning and pre-development approval, these markets will experience overcrowding with a large amount of competition going up around your hotel. If a market has barriers that make entry for the hospitality trade difficult, the possibility of over-population and/or overcrowding of other hotels is less likely.

In general, it will more often be preferable to invest in a market where the barriers of entry are higher than average. A word of caution though, do approach this carefully. You do not want to be the trail-blazer who did all of the hard yards at exorbitant expense to enable a market to be opened for your competitors to flock to and reap the reward of your hard labour.

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid ... ‘it’ in this case are the Terms

Every investment should have an exit strategy. Hotels are no different. Always consider the eventuality that you will sell the hotel at some point in the future. Your hotel acquisition should be planned with this or some other exit strategy in mind. The Management Contract and Franchise Agreement should be designed with clauses that permit termination without having to jump through hoops. There are a number of ways you can maintain a more dynamic and flexible capability with your hotel investment. For example, assign or prepay the mortgage, buy out existing partners and use a good industry experienced chartered accountant to assist you to minimise your tax exposure.

Take Care to Choose the Brand for Your Hotel Wisely

Like with any business, how you brand your hotel will have major implications on the type of visitors you attract. In the hotel industry most people don’t invent new brands but reach an agreement with an existing brand subject to a variety of pre-conditions, quality and other control parameters. The established brands are generally safer than newer brands seeking to establish an identity and a footprint in the market. However newer brands may be more dynamic, and easier to deal with than the more established brands. Irrespective of whether you choose an established brand or one of the new kids on the block, look to the visitor demographic attracts.

Are the visitors to your hotel more likely to be travelling for business or leisure?
Is the brand better known as a business hotel or vacation lodging?
How does the brand fit in the area where you are considering your hotel investment?

These are just a few of the questions you should consider.

In Conclusion

The above is simply a guide to assist and is by no means a complete plan on how to ensure your hotel investment is a successful one. I do suggest that if you consider the above and take action on at least these areas before any funds change hands, you will certainly be better positioned to expect a better outcome and realise dividends from your investment.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

How to Value a Family Office Database Resource - What to look for before you buy

2011-05-24T21:30:00.001+10:00

I’ve discussed these elements before in other articles but a recent stream of questions from people in my network has prompted me to reiterate these points in a more summarised way and all in one place ... eh ... blog. I trust this blog will help you to establish a value for a Family Office database resource you are considering purchasing, and also hope that as you explore family office databases you will quickly learn what makes them worth acquiring or not. More specifically I hope to provide in this summary basic insights into how to value specific Family Office lists and database resources.

Here are some of the components that make a Family Office database worth the asking price. Ask yourself and/or the vendor these questions:

How often is the Family Office database updated? It should be at least semi-annually. If not what is the reason behind it and does the reason make sense to you?

Is the vendor active in the industry? e.g. does the vendor have a consulting business for Family Offices, or do they operate a Family Office association, an online or offline Family Office social network or networking group? If not, what qualifies them to create, maintain, and update a Family Office list?

Does the vendor offer a refund and what is their refund policy in respect of the Family Office list resource you are considering? At the very least there should be an accommodation for bad data. The best firms in the Family Office industry will gladly offer between a double and quadruple pro-rated refund for bad date in the Family Office resource. This keeps them honest and on top of their game.

What level of work and effort went into the creation of the Family Office list? Okay, so this is tricky ground. How can you determine that? Well, use a couple of basic pointers to the level of seriousness both of the company and the information they offer about the database resource.

What does their website look like?
How detailed is their FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section?
What level of statistics do they give you in respect of the list?
What do they say about their methodologies for creating, maintaining, and updating the Family Office database?

This next one is crucial to your productivity. Even if everything else is great this one can cause more frustration than it is worth.

In what format does the vendor supply the Family Office database to you? Here’s the thing. If the list is web-only, i.e. you can only access it via the web then you could lose access, for example, if the company goes belly up or if your subscription payment does not go through. How often does it happen that a credit card is nearing its limit because the accounts department hasn’t processed the expense reports? Or even more basic, the expiry date lapses, you forget to update it in the system, and the vendor doesn’t have an early warning system to remind you.

Make sure that you have a resource that can be downloaded (i.e. avoid CD & DVD based resources if you can) and where the format in which it is supplied is at least Microsoft Excel (.XLSX), or Comma Separated Value (.CSV) These formats are the most flexible and allow you to quickly and easily integrate the new data into your customer relationship management (CRM) system, for example Salesforce.com.

Value is a tricky thing and like beauty it is in the eye of the beholder. If you use the above suggestions to assess for yourself the value of the resource I hope you will make some good decisions. Ultimately the proof will be in the quality of the relationships you are able to build with the Family Offices listed in the database resource that you purchase. Until you have the list though you need to use your gut, some good common sense, and the above tips to figure out whether or not your money to purchase the list is about to be invested wisely or simply spent.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Positioning Your Start-up Using Blue Ocean Strategy - Part 1

2011-05-22T10:58:00.001+10:00

By using Blue Ocean Strategy innovative start-ups can identify market spaces that have no competition, and in doing so render their traditional industry competition irrelevant.

The basic premise of Blue Ocean Strategy is that every market can be segregated into both a red ocean and a blue ocean.

Red oceans are consensus driven; more specifically a consensus that defines a default customer, the vendors and their expected behaviours and characteristics, and the type of product the market has to offer. You end up with a situation where everyone is doing the same thing with the same stuff, selling it to the same people; the result, commercial carnage with massive competition and paper thin profit margins.

Uncontested Market Space - the New Frontier

Blue Ocean Strategy is about breaking free from the bonds of traditional market thinking and realising new vast blue oceans of untapped resources. The first realisation of understanding Blue Ocean Strategy is like standing inside a large box leaning against the wall and suddenly there are no walls. You realise there is no box. Blue Ocean Strategy focuses entrepreneurs and business leaders in the direction of a new uncontested market space for their industry. They create a market niche where the venture is so uniquely positioned that competition is rendered irrelevant.

How does that work? How can one recognise these new market niches?

The answer: Value Innovation

Identifying market niches requires a thing called "Value Innovation". Value innovation involves seeing the values and desires behind peoples’ spending decisions. When you witness these patterns you can take a decision yourself to restructure your business resources to provide an alternative that is significantly better and which remains consistent with the values you have witnessed.

Let’s look again at Cirque Du Soleil. It seems to be the one that everyone quotes from the book Blue Ocean Strategy and it is an example I myself have referred to before in articles, blogs, and speeches. When Cirque du Soleil began the circus industry was on its tail. It had stagnated itself into virtual oblivion. Not exactly an industry one would imagine entering if profit had anything to do with the equation. Rather than creating yet another big top, or little top, circus, the founders of Cirque du Soleil looked at the overall value system of circus goers and the live entertainment industry more broadly so that they might understand what the people, who went out for the evening of entertainment, were looking for.

What motivates or persuades people to go to the theatre or the cinema, instead of going to the circus?

What they found was that the circus was viewed generally as low-brow, juvenile, even crude level of entertainment. The founders of Cirque Du Soleil found that the concept of the traditional three ring circus distracting, annoying, and off-putting to the majority of the public.

Also, public opinion was swaying away from the use of animals in circus. This was pretty dramatic as animals have always been a centrepiece of the circus experience. Driving this was the sensitivity to the possible abuse of the animals behind scenes.

Take Out the Trash: Remove That Which People Don’t Value

The result is Cirque Du Soleil, an experience that is world renowned for being very different to anything else that is out there; indeed since Cirque du Soleil start nothing has even come close to knocking them off their number one spot. The recipe was simple for the founders. They eliminated the three rings; they presented the entertainment more theatrically, more sophisticated and in the form of a narrative; and they removed the animals from the equation – which probably saved them a bundle as well.

By combining the popular and most valued fundamental elements of what people sought from live entertainment, more specifically from both the theatre and circus perspectives, and removing everything that was seen by the public as a negative of both, the founders of Cirque Du Soleil were able to create an alternative far superior to the original; an alternative that neither other circuses nor the theatre industry can contend with directly.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Some Basic Tips on How Not to Use a Family Office List

2011-05-20T16:25:00.001+10:00

Many people make some very basic mistakes when interacting with Family Offices and lists of Family Offices that they acquire. It is as if by simply having these lists they feel connected, empowered, and invulnerable, and end up making some often irreparable mistakes. The reality is that you should conduct yourself with the same level of decency and integrity as you would with any other human being.

Hopefully the following will provide you with some basic tips on what not to do with a Family Office list, so that you can avoid making common mistakes often made by people seeking to raise capital via a Family Office. Obviously the best way to raise capital via a Family Office or individual Ultra High-Net Worth (UNHW) person is through personal relationships founded on trust and confidence. If you, like most others, are in the situation that you have to start out by buying a list as a first step, strive to achieve such a relationship over the long term and if your enterprises are good you may one day join their ranks.

Here are IMHO the top five Family Office list mistakes you should avoid:

After you buy a family office list you cannot simply send an unsolicited email or snail mail to them with your offer to them. This is still considered spam, and you are not permitted to spam, even after buying the list. This is not like a double opt-in list of people interested in blue widgets. You must first develop relationships with each group on the list and they must opt-in to receive communications from you; double opt-in if by email.
Don’t delude yourself that you have unearthed the Holy Grail and that henceforth capital-raising is going to be a walk in the park because you have bought THE list. Certainly, by obtaining a resource such as a Family Office List will make your capital raising efforts and processes more efficient. If used correctly it will save you an immense amount of time. But how effective you are will rely on other criteria. Capital-raising is essentially a challenge at the best of times. It can be a wonderful challenge that people such as myself thrive on, we love the process and every step in it. Realise that you have increased your chances by obtaining a Family Office list and accept that it will require real work and genuine effort. There is simply too much money at stake and too much competition for the investment dollars for the process to be a cakewalk.
Once you purchase a Family Office list, do not assume that you will receive a lifetime of free updates. These lists are expensive to update, maintain, and they take considerable time and patience to complete. Ask your list provider to see if they are included or not within your package.
Snatching up the first offer of a Family Office directory that you come across, just because it looks good enough is not really a good strategy. Be sure that you source the list from a legitimate company that has a phone number you can call and talk to real people. You know the ones. They have a pair of lips and a voice connected to a brain that gives real responses. Unless you have come across someone with terminal cancer and 30 days to live, do not believe people who tell you they have a boutique private list that they have worked with for the last 40 years or more. Such people exist, but unless the last item on their bucket list is to donate the list to some lucky schmuck you will not gain access to them. Go through a company that is reputable and has a real website. Before you buy anything do whatever you need to do to gain sufficient confidence that what you are buying is something of value.
Don't think you are smarter than the rest and use their list to create and sell your own Family Office list product. Apart from illegal (check the terms and conditions of your purchase) it is morally wrong and UHNW individuals have a way of smelling bullshit in the proximity. If you only have half a brain and do decide to take someone else’s list(s) to create your own, unless you are going for a smash and grab type of sale, how on earth will you ever maintain it? Be respectful, be ethical and use the list as the seller intended; hopefully to launch some great (new) product or service that will benefit many people and (at least by extension) society as a whole.

Hopefully these tips will help you know what not do once you have obtained your database or Family Office list. I am sure you will realise that this is all pretty common sense, but as the saying goes, there is nothing common about common sense.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

The BDSM of Business – Part 1: Introduction

2011-03-07T20:24:00.001+11:00

The BDSM of business for most people is Business Development Sales & Marketing. This is at least what most people would have guessed. However my exposure to the Adult industry through some unique clients has opened up other discussions as to whether there is another BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sado, Masochism) that is relevant to business, and how the principles of this might be applied.

After all there is the S&M of wealth and happiness from Your Money Mistress, Larissa Zed Zimmerman (www.yourmoneymistress.com). As ‘Your Money Mistress’ Larissa discusses openly the strategies and path to how to have sizzling sex and more money. This is not some fly by night get rich quick book attempt. It is actually solid stuff that every … well … secondary student (at least) should learn.

Larissa’s methodologies and processes are based on years of developing her own courses and coaching under a vanilla brand. These vanilla courses and her coaching have been delivered in both the corporate world and through the Australian government into public departments and schools et al. Larissa is now in the process of white labelling her courses for some of the larger financial services players.

Think of BDSM as an alternative SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). These map directly 1-to-1. In part two, I’ll discuss the BDSM/SWOT Analysis model and how to use it in your business for achieving greater focus and realising better results.

Be outstanding!!

Paul

PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

paulj@paullange.com.au | GSM: +61 414 317579 | URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Most Connected Management Consultant in Australia on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljlange

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au

Join my Blue Oceans Mailing List - for today's leaders and those who aspire to be
tomorrow's - http://eepurl.com/bKqO

Connect with me on Ecademy - real people, real business, real outcomes.
http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

HOWTO: Test Your Email Marketing Campaigns

2010-10-27T10:40:00.001+11:00

Have you ever sent an email marketing campaign only to discover it looks like crap when it lands in the recipients inbox?

Would it surprise you to learn that the greater majority of companies (from small to very very large) that send email marketing campaigns perform very little or even NO TESTING before they send?

I've seen it happen, time and time again.

What to do! There are many good subscription based systems out there you can use to test deliver-ability and appearance. Some of the better email marketing services include some level of inbox delivery and appearance testing.

Certainly always use tools provided as a first line of defence, however the most successful way I and my team have found to work consistently well over the last 16+ years of email marketing is to do real-life testing. Testing on real email accounts on real email services.

But do you know what to look for? Here are some handy tips for testing your email campaigns in order to improve the deliver-ability and appearance of delivered emails.

Before you send your HTML email campaign to your entire subscriber list, you should do some testing. All good email marketing systems will let you send tests to yourself.

Don't just rely on preview functions. These are at best a rough estimate of how your email would look in an ideal world. You need to actually deliver your email campaign to real email accounts to see how it works "in the real world."
Setup email accounts with as many email services as possible. There are many free ones out there. Use the most common services, like MSN, Hotmail, Live, Yahoo!, and Gmail. You might also setup an account with AOL.
Leave the default settings for those accounts as they are. Don't add yourself to the address book, or anything that would change the default configuration. You'll want to test whether or not your email campaigns are being filtered as spam to a typical setup configuration for the most common email services.
Setup a "test list" in your email marketing service. Some services will allow you to replicate your "real" list and import the test addresses.
Recruit co-workers, friends, or family to become testers for you. You need people you can rely on and trust. We use a team of Virtual Assistants (VA) that we have trained over several years. VA's are a very cost effective way for you to leverage resources. Ask me if you would like a contact to a reliable and cost effective VA service provider.
Trusted testers can tell you how your email looks across the many different email clients programs. If you have the resources, setup a testing computer in the office with multiple operating systems and email programs. Or set up a virtual computer online to do the same thing.
Do you give subscribers to your list the option to receive plain-text or a mobile version of your emails? If you do, you will need to subscribe one of your test email accounts to receive plain-text only emails and one to receive the mobile version of your campaigns.
Send as many emails as you can to your test addresses.
Did your email campaign end up in the junk folder or spam filter of any of the test email accounts?
Most email clients and online services (web mail) leave images turned off by default (i.e. you are required to click a link or button to display images). How does your email look with images turned off? That's the first impression people will have. If it looks crap, so do you.
Do you have "ALT-text" coded for your images, to persuade recipients to click the "show images" button? (ALT-text is the "alternative text" that is displayed when an image can't be seen in a web browser or email program)? By "persuade" I don't mean you should resort to sending spam-like, over-bearing sales text such as, "CHECK THIS OUT!" A really descriptive ALT-text is persuasive enough e.g. "Screenshot of our new gizmo"
Just in case people don't want to show your images (yes some people have legitimate reasons and others are simply über paranoid about everything), do you have a link at the top of your email, allowing them to view your message online, in their browser?
When you click "show images" for your email, do all the images work? Do they download and appear fast enough/in a reasonable time (a few micro-seconds would be nice but a few seconds is more realistic), or do you need to go back and optimise them?
Click on as many links as possible (yes, this is mind-numbing, but necessary). Do they all work? Are there any broken links?
Does your email marketing service provide click or open tracking? If so, enable this functionality, and then click and open some of your emails. Then log in to your email marketing service and check your campaign statistics. Is everything working properly? If yes, send!

Happy and successful email marketing

Paul

PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

paulj@paullange.com.au | GSM: +61 414 317579 | URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Google can't keep it up!

2010-10-26T08:06:00.001+11:00

Google! Analyse this!

It is understandable that new services will fall over from time to time. They may even disappear completely. Google are after all the kings of the beta release, and as we know beta software is unstable. After all of these years Gmail is still in 'beta' or have Google perhaps trademarked the term?

For the last several weeks when logging into Google Analytics the system first asks me to sign up for Google Analytics again. Crazy! What's even more crazy is that nine times out of ten if I sign up again the old accounts are still there, I just have a new account in addition. Once in a while the system collapses completely and returns an error.

From what I can see on the Net there are many people suffering but nothing substantive from Google on the matter. Seriously with all of the resources and technology you have at your disposal, you have the ability to scan peoples WiFi connections and grab their usernames and passwords as your street view car drives around our neighbourhoods, you can handle billions of web searches a second, but you can't fix an access issue and worse you lack the customer service and relationship maturity to communicate with your user base.

I love Google, I really do but this sort of crap just pisses me off.

PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Victor Mauro iPhone 4 App Trailer

2010-09-29T10:02:00.000+10:00

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

2010-07-08T10:57:00.001+10:00

Tedtalks : Simon Sinek (2009 Tedx) Audio by Ted
Download now or listen on posterous

SimonSinek_2009X.mp3 (11084 KB)

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers -- and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.

To watch the video of the attached audio, visit http://bit.ly/bUzzFU

About Simon Sinek
In 2009, Simon Sinek released the book "Start With Why" -- a synopsis of the theory he has begun using to teach others how to become effective leaders and inspire change.

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Women's Lib was a Blue Ocean Waiting to Happen

2010-02-26T16:04:00.001+11:00

Remember the traditional style Christian vows? The man would promise to love, honour, and cherish. The woman would promise to love, honour, and obey. Regardless of your standpoint, the words spoken and commitments given have changed for ever.

Now check out this newspaper article. Given this type of public indoctrination, is it any wonder that the Women's Lib movement swept the globe like a massive Tsunami; leaving not one, but several massive blue ocean opportunities in it's wake?

Enjoy!

About the author:
I am a serial entrepreneur with business interests in venture capital & private funding, social media marketing, wellness, personal development, and online services. Together with a select group of C-Level executives, I also provide an outsourced interim board service. I am passionate about helping others to achieve success, and lead Mastermind Groups of people committed to bringing about a positive change in their lifestyle.
If you have an interest in any of the above areas and are seeking advice or support for a specific issue, send me an email with an overview of what you would like to discuss and we will schedule time to talk by phone or Skype.
PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER
Assuring your success through value innovation and focused attention.
E-mail: paulj@paullange.com.au
GSM: +61 414 317579
URL: http://www.paullange.com.au
Most Connected Management Consultant in Australia on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljlange
Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au

Connect with me on Ecademy - real people, real business, real outcomes.
http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Social Media Seasonal Sewerage

2009-12-24T10:12:00.001+11:00

Are Social Media Christmas greetings the latest seasonal spam?

OK. I can understand that some people are genuinely well intentioned in their desire to wish all 1,000, 5,000, or 2 million people in their social networks all the very best for Christmas and the New Year. Personally it pisses me off!

If you intend to wish me anything, MAKE IT PERSONAL. This seems to be the main point that most people are missing in social media in general. Sure, we all let quite a number of general and generic messages from each other to our whole network slip through on a regular basis however when it comes to something like a greeting on ANY special occasion, personalise it for maximum acceptance, appreciation, and effect. Or risk being perceived as just another ignoramus social media slob wading through the social media sewerage pipes in an pathetic attempt to create awareness of YOU. Hey! Fella!! Here's a tip, it' not about YOU!!

It is the same as in the off-line world at Christmas time. The hand-written card or note, and I mean truly hand written not computer hand written like a certain network marketing company - initials S.O.C. - makes possible, is much better received than the generic cards that are sent by companies every year. If you read enough you'll discover oodles of people who have conducted surveys on this, or just simply know from the measured feedback they receive.

So do yourself and the rest of us a favour. Help reduce the noise to level ratios, and the inconvenient truth for all of the greenies out there, many of whom participate in this practice of generating as much social media seasonal sewerage as their CPU, RAM, and broadband will permit, is that you will be reducing your carbon footprint. Stop sending this crap to the network and instead invest a small amount of time in sending greetings to the people you actually know, and who you genuinely would like to know. Personalise each message and you will most likely be amazed at how much further your networking reach and influence extends in the coming year.

Now go and have a damn fine Christmas and a bloody fantastic New Year!!!

See you all on the flip side .... or sooner.

Be awesome!

Paul

About the author:

I am a serial entrepreneur with business interests in venture capital & private funding, social media marketing, wellness, personal development, and online services. Together with a select group of C-Level executives, I also provide an outsourced interim board service. I am passionate about helping others to achieve success, and lead Mastermind Groups of people committed to bringing about a positive change in their lifestyle.

If you have an interest in any of the above areas and are seeking advice or support for a specific issue, send me an email with an overview of what you would like to discuss and we will schedule time to talk by phone or Skype.

PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER
Assuring your success through value innovation and focused attention.
E-mail: paulj@paullange.com.au
GSM: +61 414 317579
URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Most Connected Management Consultant in Australia on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljlange

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au

Connect with me on Ecademy - real people, real business, real outcomes.
http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans