June 17, 2013—Issue #195

This week’s focus point: Dropping weight enables us to rise, to run faster, to breathe easier. In our careers and lives those “weights” are often meetings, routines, habits, colleagues, tasks, and obligations. You can’t carry all your old baggage and weights, else you’re too overburdened to move–you’re pinned in place, like an insect in a museum. Marshall Goldsmith has written that “what got you here won’t get you there.” David Maister has written that “we know what to do, but still don’t do it.” I’ve written that “you must let go in order to reach out.” There are too many people who become better and better at less and less, corkscrewing themselves into the ground until they’re barely noticeable on the surface. Even some beliefs and values can become weights if they’re never examined and you never allow them to be challenged. I’m constantly surprised at how stupid I was two weeks ago.

Monday Morning Perspective: Sed quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes? (Who shall guard us from the guardians?) — Juvenal

My 52nd book–Alan Weiss on Consulting: “A guided journey with the rock star of consulting” Pre-publication discount: http://www.summitconsulting.com/store/AlanWeissOnConsulting.php

In the Buyer’s Office, Live: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/InTheBuyersOffice.php A live-streaming event about converting conversation to cash

Alan’s Common Sense World View: Five-minute videos each week on geopolitics, energy, education, personal development http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

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http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

TSA is largely symbolic. There are people who could just be waived through, but we search everyone to some extent and woe to the person who has 5 ounces instead of 3 of shampoo, because that threatens national security. Perhaps we need this symbolism to feel safer, despite the inconvenience and invasion or privacy? I can’t understand why we don’t have the means to allow 90 percent through, given the fact we can obviously listen in on most private conversations these days!

We acknowledge red lights and stop signs, even in the absence of other traffic, because we attach immediate and serious significance to them. Smoking has declined because so many people understand the real hazards. Most of don’t trust milk that smells funny or meet with a green tinge to it.

As we attempt to provide value to customers and clients in return for equitable remuneration, perhaps we should be highly sensitive to eschewing the symbolic (a workshop, a retreat, an audit, another meeting) and focus on the truly meaningful and immediately useful (an improved condition, a solved problem, reduced stress).

Too many things we do by rote, whether the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer, or the hackneyed “Have a nice day,” are merely symbolic and empty for many of us. But the actions we take to instantiate them as positive behaviors and improved interactions are the lasting impressions.

Are your life and career symbolic or meaningful?

© Alan Weiss 2013

Among all the SEO spam from India and inheritance fraud from Nigeria, here is a mailing which I can’t seem to escape, there’s no unsubscribe, and it’s all free! (Names and sites removed to avoid humiliation.) Note that it’s a group “devised of.” And there are “hidden and well guarded secrets.” (I wonder where “Million Dollar” came from? That would never work.) “Dons” brain apparently requires no possessive, but it may be referring to Spanish nobility. This illiterate mess apparently doesn’t matter to those who allow their names to be used. They called me a “jackass” when I asked not to receive any more. Perhaps they can sell me the secret and hidden jackass techniques, for free!

• A New York Times columnist wrote a piece on how many black actors won Tony Awards. When does the tribalism ever end? Can we simply see people as people and leave identify politics behind?

• Note to those who loved to write about the US as a declining Rome and the end of the “American Century”: The US is poised—in a rebounding economy, and approaching energy independence, and demise in Europe—for it’s greatest economic influence ever.

• The Tesla is a fascinating and potentially exciting car, but the future of automobiles in the US in in internal combustion engines, and the future of power in this country is oil. We will not be able to power this society on nuclear, solar, tidal, wind, or other sources, due to technological limitations and politics. And we will have the ability to seriously diminish carbon emissions from better technologies and tax disincentives. Your children’s children will be driving primarily gasoline-powered cars.

• People who constantly complain remind me of poison ivy. There must have been a cosmic plan that called for their existence, but I choose not to go near.

• Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and professional services providers who can’t return your call within 24 hours aren’t slow or disorganized. They are dumb.

• I’m tired of being asked in restaurants every 20 minutes if everything is okay. I’m capable of flagging you down if it’s not. Otherwise, serve the food, remove the used dishes, and leave me alone.

• Any idiot with $250 can choose a good $250 wine. It’s finding the good $25 wine that’s the challenge.

• You know you’re on top of your game when strangers start taking shots at you. Welcome to leadership.

• The growing use of bizarre initials after one’s name reminds me of ants invading the kitchen. I want to call an exterminator before the darn things multiply still more.

• People who “tell” and never “ask” are among the dreariest I know—smug and comfortably wrapped in their own carefully defended fortress.

• I’m always impressed when someone reaches for a check. It’s a small generosity that creates huge good will.

• The amount of people applauding THEMSELVES on Facebook and “commenting on their own photo” should dispel any notion that we have a confident, high self-worth group on social media. My dogs aren’t that needy.

© Alan Weiss 2013

June 10, 2013—Issue #194

This week’s focus point: Home schooling, alternative education, non-traditional education, and other options are dramatically increasing in the US. Meanwhile, the notion of vast campuses–where students are housed, clothed, parked, fed, and occasionally educated (and full professors rarely teach)–at the cost of mind-boggling debt becomes increasingly tenuous. That’s because we don’t focus on the customer, but on the teacher, just as airports are overwhelmingly built for planes not passengers. Education is run with a strategic “method of distribution” driving force, through highly unionized teachers. It should be run with a “markets served” driving force, for the benefit of the students (and their parents). Crops grow best in open fields and are then stored in warehouses. Are our kids in fields or warehouses?

Monday Morning Perspective: If horses and cattle did theology, horses would draw the form of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle. — Xenophanes

How to Convert Meetings to Business: Last call for the Geometry of the Sale, June 13: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/HowToGetInFrontOfBuyers.php

Alan Weiss’s Common Sense® World View: Five-minute weekly video on issues affecting our lives: http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

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http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

“Hi Alan

“After much thought and reflection I am unsubscribing from your Monday Memo because I’m dismayed at you recent attacks on education.  Education is not a commodity to be bought and sold, it is not a business, it is a life skill.  Attending school goes beyond learning how to read and write it teaches teamwork, social skills, interacting with a group and so on.

“I can only comment on my experience with the Australian education system and here we value education.  The Federal Government is overhauling the funding model to ensure that all children receive a quality education and have the ability to undertake Tertiary education if that is what they wish.  In addition to overhauling the funding model they are introducing a National Curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12.

“Your recent assertions that a people should only have to do the relevant professional entrance exam is laughable.  University equips the student with skills far beyond the scope of their Degree pattern, the ability to learn, research and problem solve.  This is a fundamental cornerstone of producing quality graduates.  I am very proud to display my education qualifications and professional associations as a post nominal on my email signature and on my business card.  It shows that I am qualified in my chosen field and am committed to continual improvement.

“In closing I have enjoyed receiving your Monday Memos over the last few years and have shared them with many friends.  Many of them in the education sector.  Sadly this will no longer occur.

“Kindest Regards

(I’ve Withheld His Name) BSc ME Dip Man Dip SIS CEnvP MEIANZ MIECA ARLF”

Aside from the fact that 36 initials after one’s name reflects either a practical joke or someone so insecure that they present you with their fourth grade report card when they meet you (sort of what they do on Facebook), can you imagine anyone so “involved” in education and learning that their reaction is to unsubscribe from a free newsletter they’ve admittedly enjoyed for years over one, single disagreement in philosophy? Geeze, I thought that was how educated people learned—they discussed and debated.

But my friend, here, has his hands over his ears and is screaming like a child (probably reciting all those initials from memory) so that he doesn’t have to tolerate any ideas that aren’t consistent with his agenda (like those trolls on Twitter who insist on debating your Tweets because they can find one exception in ten thousand to your point).

Folks, don’t worry about the competition, because if you focus on new ideas, innovation, and provocation, you’ll be hired and pass these frightened people by. Although it may take a slight detour to get around all the initials.

© Alan Weiss 2013

I’m a bachelor for the weekend—my wife and daughter and granddaughters went to a christening in New Jersey that neither my son-in-law nor I could rouse any energy for, despite the fact we both love to drive. Thus, I have great freedom.

I loaded the dogs into the truck yesterday and drove to the nearby, huge animal hospital to finally weight Bentley. (Buddy Beagle happily stays in the truck, he hates vets.) The lobby scale said “35″ and I told the desk clerk it was broken until he pointed out I had it on kilograms. (Where was I, Lichtenstein?) With the adjustment, the truth was revealed: At 8.5 months, Bentley is 78 pounds. As an adult, Koufax was 85 all his life, so it looks as though Bentley will be somewhat bigger.

I awoke this morning at 6, decided I’d go to 7:30 Mass, and took the dogs for their morning yard jaunt. Bentley is self-exercising. He runs back and forth on his own—no fetching, no chasing Buddy—for several laps over a 100-yard distance. Shepherds need a lot of exercise, especially puppies, and he makes sure he gets his every day: He has his fetching regimen, his pool visits, stalking Buddy, indoor toys, and so on.

The point is, he has great discipline. We need that, too. Every working day we should be:

• Considering our top two results priorities that day.

• Moving along our highest potential prospects in some way toward becoming clients.

• Completing current projects as rapidly as possible.

• Asking for referrals.

• Creating new intellectual property.

• Contributing published pieces for yourself or other sources.

• Developing new value offerings.

You get the idea. You can’t wait for someone to tell you, or a mastermind group, or the muse in the night. This is part of your daily business exercise. I hire a personal trainer to enforce my physical exercise, but I still have to make that decision and see him three times a week. Some people hire me as a coach to enforce their mental exercise, but they still have to do what we agree upon themselves.

And, of course, if you can get a healthy start on all this before 7 in the  morning, you can spend the rest of the day at the pool, as the boys and I intend to do with our current freedom.

© Alan Weiss 2013

“Jackson is the third Rutgers official to face public criticism for discriminatory or abusive behavior in recent months. Mike Rice, the former men’s basketball coach, was fired in April for hurling slurs and epithets at his players; Julie Hermann, the new athletic director, has been under fire amid allegations of misconduct at her previous jobs.”

Jackson is the president’s chief of staff, newly promoted by the president, even though the lawsuit was well known at the time. In fact, ALL of the abusive behavior and suspect ethics of these people were known to those doing the hiring and promoting. Vetting someone at Rutgers is merely ensuring they’re not currently in jail.

The Rutgers Board of Trustees is starting to resemble Hewlett-Packard’s: continuing dumb choices, self-absorbed cluelessness, lack of attention to the customers, rubber-stamp approval of rubber-brained leadership. Where does the buck stop, at Princeton?

Get the president out of there. Show that you’re willing to clean house and not protect the insufferably incompetent. (Where are the faculty demands now, by the way, or do they only protest when they’re asked to teach more than two classes a week?)

Either throw him out or get out yourselves, and turn this sham back into an academic institution. You don’t need the Big Ten. You need One Functioning Brain, which apparently is harder to acquire then a new football conference.

© Alan Weiss 2013

June 3, 2013—Issue #193

This week’s focus point: I’ve found in coaching individuals and consulting with organizations that citing a price to test desirability of an initiative isn’t a valid calculation of commitment. The real question is, “What would you be willing to pay to achieve this?” That’s the return on investment issue. Education today is an example, with obscene tuitions often required to gain a degree that may not even be necessary to prove competency if we were to use a different basis. (If you can pass the bar exam, must you take three years of law school? If you can sell the product, must you have a college degree?) Don’t just ask if a venture can be afforded. Ask whether the return justifies the investment. We have too many bridges that, at great expense, lead to nowhere.

Monday Morning Perspective: He which hath no stomach for this fight, let him depart. –Shakespeare, Henry V, eve of the Battle of Agincourt

Lasting Impressions: How to convert meetings into business. http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/lastingImpressions.php

Alan Weiss’s Common Sense® World View: Last opportunity to get in from first edition, coming Wednesday: http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

“Consider the Chase Fraud Prevention department. It costs a credit card company (and especially their merchants) a lot of money when fraudulent charges are made, because they often have to eat the cost. So this department of thousands of people works to make the number of fraudulent charges go down at the same time they keep expenses low. Which sounds great until you realize that the easiest way to do this is to flag false positives, annoy honest customers and provide little or no fallback when a mistake is made.

“Simple example: I regularly get an automated phone call from the bank with an urgent warning. But even when I answer the phone, the system doesn’t let me ring through to an operator. Instead, I have to write every detail down, then call, wait on hold, prove it’s me, type in all the information, and THEN explain to them that in fact, the charge was mine.

“And this department has no incentive to fix this interaction, because ‘annoying’ is not a metric that the bosses have decided to measure. Someone is busy watching one number, but it’s the wrong one.”

Here’s my blog post from December 27, 2012:

Dumb Ass Stupid Management: Chase

Yesterday I’m getting ready to hit the pool when the phone rings, and a young woman asks if I have a beagle named Buddy. Uh, oh.

The side door to our home has a storm door, as well, and we had left the regular door open. Bentley, our German Shepherd, saw the storm door ajar, pushed against it, and they both vamoosed. (This is our crime scene recreation.) With Rin Tin Tin as his idol, Bentley stuck around, chased some geese, and we found him peering in the front windows with that dopey dog smile.

Buddy, being a hound, took off for the woods. After receiving the call, I jumped into my car and had to use the GPS to find the address, a half-mile away as the crow flies, and a mile away as a Bentley drives. Two girls had him on a leash (they also own a Shepherd) and were petting Buddy when I arrived to retrieve him.

Buddy has a collar with his name and our phone number, tags on the collar with his ID and phone number, his dog license, and a chip inserted in his shoulder (not to be confused with the chip on his shoulder). These are called “contingent actions,” since the “preventive action” is that we not allow him to escape. The contingent actions are activated when preventive actions fail.

So, too, for you. We have two generators to run our home if the power goes out (which it did over the winter for two days). I have a lap top that duplicates everything on my large computer, and I have hard copy of crucial files in case I have no electronics at all. We all used to have spare tires, but many cars don’t any more in an effort to reduce both weight and expense. Not all contingent actions are in place or effective unless we check periodically.

For you (and your clients) it’s a “must” to have effective preventive actions, which save time, money, and embarrassment (no matter how excellent the sprinkler system, the fire has already begun). However, in most cases, we need contingent actions when preventive actions fail, are disregarded, or are forgotten.

You never know when a Beagle is going to make an escape, you just know that, given the opportunity, he will.

© Alan Weiss 2013

The teacher, in some mystical, arcane, deluded philosophy, decided that a lesson would somehow be taught by acceding to the girls’ demand, so that no one went to gym class, and we all had to study our history books. The only real history accomplished was a lasting enmity against the girls in a pre-raging-hormone year.

I find consultants today who don’t want to share their intellectual property through fear of theft! Invariably and ironically, these are NEVER highly successful consultants. They are people hoarding their ideas (which apparently aren’t all that hot, anyway) like money under a mattress, where neither the dollars nor the ideas serve as currency or gather interest.

The most successful thought leaders—Marshall Goldsmith, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, David Maister, Dan Pink, moi—generate ongoing IP and broadcast it at 100,000 watts: in books, audio, video, speeches, and so forth. That’s because the more you intrigue others with provocative and controversial ideas, the more others want to spend time with you and invest in their development with you.

So if you’re afraid that someone else may take your IP and make use of it without paying you, then by all means take the position that they can’t have it, and neither of you will be able to use it. Find one of those equally antiquated 50s air raid, back yard bunkers, and hide your IP in it.

But don’t expect to reach the fifth grade any time soon.

© Alan Weiss 2013

October 10, 2013

9 am to 4 pm

Venue to be announced, midtown

Lasting Impressions

How to convert appointments into business every time

My analysis is that the “conversion rate” among consultants is far too low. That is, when you are successful finding and meeting the true, economic buyer, the potential business slips away like water in a sieve.

Why doesn’t the buyer call you back? Why aren’t you immediately asked to create a proposal? Why are you sometimes given signs of great agreement, only to have subsequent calls ignored?

Can you afford to squander these opportunities, as if you’ve finally located a gold mine and then forgotten how to return to it?

In Lasting Impressions, we will use extensive role plays (every single person who volunteers and most who don’t) and examples of the language, behavior, demeanor, and nuances that will create lasting, positive, impressions.

For example:

• How do you initially greet someone?

• How do you greet someone you’ve met previously?

• What do you have with you in a meeting and how do you use it?

• How do you guarantee a next meeting or a proposal?

• How to tell if they love you or are just trying to get rid of you?

• What homework to prepare and what to ignore?

• The five steps of rapid conversion:

1. First impression
2. Orienting the conversation
3. Remaining “in the moment”
4. Directing traffic
5. The assertive close

• How to proceed from “yes” to “yes”?

• When to cut your losses?

• When to increase your expectations?

What if you could go to the proposal stage with 90 percent of your meetings with buyers, and close 80 percent of those proposals for a minimum of $50,000?

No more “What ifs.” Join me for a rapid fire, rollicking day of role plays and role reversals. I encourage you to record this conference in its entirety. Lunch is provided, but some of you will probably want to work while you eat.

Fees prior to August 1:

Public: $850

Mentor Members and/or SAC* Members: $700

Growth Cycle Discounts Apply

Roundtable members FREE

[First 8 people I will take to dinner the evening prior!!]

* Society for Advancement of Consulting

Fees August 1 and later:

All participants: $950

Live Streaming Participants: Same rates as above.

http://www.hingemarketing.com/blog/story/visible_expert_profile_alan_weiss_ph.d

On Facebook, you find a combination of dopey (often contradictory) platitudes posted by people who want to look profound by quoting something that’s not very profound. Then there are the people with “agendas” that work their way into every conversation (“Dancing with the Stars” would be better if it weren’t for the Republicans”). There are those who obsessively need to be “liked” even by complete strangers, and consistently revolving glam shots that cry out for therapy.

On Linkedin we have the perfervid job seekers and those who think endorsements from strangers will carry weight with other strangers. We have a peculiar tribe of people whose common denominator seems to be that they need to be accepted—by anyone, in any manner. Endorse me!

Twitter, which at least offers the challenge of the mental discipline of trying to post something of value in a very limited space (if you’re not one of those posting that you’re about to take a shower), has “tweet critics.” These are the people who start a tweet with “but” or “unless” or “except” to try to prove someone else imperfect in an observation. These are the equivalent of the anal-retentives who spend hours searching for typos to play “gotcha,” and believe they’ve had a productive day.

This isn’t generational, it’s common sense. If you want to stand out, move out. Out of the crowd, out of the herd mentality, out of the tribal comfort zone.

Publish the provocative. Speak of the unprecedented. Act as a leader, not a follower.

It’s easy to step away from the herd once you realize you don’t need its protection, and understand that it’s quite likely to run over a cliff or into a predator.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Air France, from Firenze to Paris to Boston, was very good. The flight attendants were charming and proactive. The food was plentiful and excellent. Priority bags arrived in Boston very promptly. The plane accommodated US electrical connections. Even the regional carrier from Firenze used by Air France served a nice breakfast on a 90-minute flight (Why can’t US carriers do that?) for the entire plane, not just first class. The Air France Lounge in Paris is excellent, with good food and a large and helpful staff. (They provide currency adapters.)

In case you have choices in the future….

May 27, 2013—Issue #192

This week’s focus point: It’s very dangerous to generalize. I’ve been in Tuscany for over a week (where I’m writing this) and you’d never know the Italian economy is in trouble. That’s because it’s not universally in trouble. We have a tendency to generalize from negative specifics. In the teeth of the great recession, some businesses did quite well. During periods or booming prosperity, some do quite poorly. I believe that the stock market and investor decisions are largely emotional. Logic makes us think, but emotion makes us act. What emotions do you bring to your business and to your life? I feel and believe there are great times ahead for me. And that’s how I behave. How about you?

Monday Morning Perspective: Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. — H.G. Wells

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

The mural on the bedroom ceiling.

Entering the bedroom.

The living room looking toward the second bath.

The detailed ceiling of the living room.

Part of the gardens from our windows.

A hidden row of closets down another hall.

From the bedroom looking into the living room.

Master bath.

The fireplace.

Looking toward the entry.

© Alan Weiss 2013

• The mountains white not with snow but with marble.

• The impossibility of getting a bad meal.

• Very friendly, confident women and very argumentative insecure men.

• Cyclists who are defiant, rude, and dangerous.

• Streets built for chariots accommodating modern cars.

• Breathtaking countryside with cities build around churches and farms built around fortresses.

• The best food in the world.

• Truly remarkable red wine and passable white.

• Fun and cheerfulness and activities that defy any reports of a troubled economy.

• Dashing carabinieri who primp in the side view mirrors of parked cars.

• The most sophisticated, intelligent, automated highway toll collection system on earth, accepting credit cards, coins or bills, and sending you away with “Arrivederci!”

• Lamps older than America.

• Fleas markets with designer merchandise (not knock-offs).

• Women who look you in the eye and don’t stare at the ground.

• Indifferent airline service.

• A sometimes shocking personal body aroma from even lovely women.

• A happy marriage of old towns and news products.

• A joyousness in the mornings as people greet the new day.

Bread as gator in Lucca

One of 70 churches in Lucca

Delivering my sermon

The fabulous restaurant Buccadisanantonio

Fabulous facades on the churches

© Alan Weiss 2013

This is still the slow season, where you can get into any restaurant and gad about without crowds.

The Tuscany postal system: a babe on a motorbike, smoking a cigarette along the way!

Carrera marble in the mountains

Part of the coast

Maria under her ancestral shopping logo

© Alan Weiss 2013

This is about one-fifth of Francesco's operation.

Part of the valleys where the Barolo, Asti, and other grapes are grown.

A typical fortress village that exist all over the area.

Jason, Maria, and me.

A village street.

Another view from one of the fortresses.

Francesco is in the middle, he's 78, and the rest of the family crowds in. That's Cousin Jimmy, immortalized in one of my signature stores, in the light blue shirt on the right.

© Alan Weiss 2013

May 20, 2013—Issue #191

This week’s focus point: I’m sitting in a villa in Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany. It is incredibly beautiful and peaceful. Instead of rushing from monument to monument and checking off historical points of interest, we’re simply spending a week immersed in the local culture and environment. We can walk or bike to shops, have some wine and espresso, and have high quality family time (there are 8 of us). You can’t find a bad meal in Italy, and cousin Jimmy and I are about to head out for morning coffee. We don’t have to go to Italy to realize that it’s important to obtain quality “down time,” which isn’t accomplished during “vacations” where we’re engaged in scavenger hunts to find every novelty and benefit possible in five days. Sometimes “domani” is a fine decision. It’s tough to live when you’re not enjoying life.

Monday Morning Perspective: Age is such a high price to pay for maturity. — Tom Stoppard (one of my favorite quotes of all time)

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

• The co-author of my first book in 1988 told me that extreme expressives have to applaud themselves if they can’t get anyone else to applaud them. Today, they are crawling all over Facebook, printing their latest clients testimonials, fan mail, and grammar school report cards.

• The next person who is a complete stranger to me and asks me to endorse his or her work seriously needs an electroshock. Can you say, “Ethics”? Only slightly dumber are the strangers who write me and would like referrals for their business.

• ”House of Cards” is at the same time intriguing, revolting, hysterical, and depressing. We have three episodes left and I don’t want it to end.

• I’ve noted some morons are now arguing that I’m wrong because at my age I don’t have the right perspective. Once it was that I was too young, occasionally because I am a male, frequently because I’m a New Yorker, and often because I was Jewish and then Catholic. The commonality, amongst all the bigotry? These are people who can’t argue an intellectual point because they have no ammunition with which to do so.

• When I look at the preponderance of comments on the social media platforms, I become seriously worried about our future, because these people have or can have children! (Imagine their rooms with wall-to-wall Successeries framed sayings….)

• Outside of the Four Seasons and Peninsula hotel chains, the next time I find a luxury hotel, with the entire management staff oriented toward the guest’s comfort and not revenue, will be the first.

• There’s a huge political dispute among the American Kennel Club, the German Shepherd Dog Club of America, and the White German Shepherd Dog Club of America over whether the white dogs are a separate breed, should be allowed to be shown in competition, and so on. Fortunately, the dogs have more brains than the club officers.

• I’m sitting in the combined Air France, Alitalia first class lounge at Logan Airport in Boston. Four members of management are doing nothing but moving furniture around, often right by us, and the woman looks at us and never smiles or acknowledges our existence. Not only is service generally worse in Europe, it’s even worse with European managers in the U.S.!

© Alan Weiss 2013

Presumably, they are training her how to sell better, and keeping her from actually selling to a very valuable client. I am not making this up.

There is your definition of bureaucracy. Stay in the training program about selling so you can sell more, and don’t take time out to go sell more. Stick to the input, ignore the output.

© Alan Weiss 2013

My son won this in a charity poker game, along with his and his latest squeeze’s airfare from LA. We’re all converging, including the legendary Cousin Jimmy of one of my signature stories, and his wife and daughters. The place sleeps 10 and has a staff. On Monday we visit my wife’s and Jimmy’s ancestral home in Carmagnola, outside of Torino. In the square is a monument with the names of the founders of the village, where prominently listed is “Gallo.” (And my wife’s upset with me because I put a sign along our two-acre pond, “Alan’s Lake”!)

We have about a three-hour drive from Rome, but we may take a longer detour to drive along the sea.

1. The rhetorical question. The British have a strange habit of asking a non-question, an interrogative cul-de-sac. For example, they will say, “It’s a cloudy day, isn’t it?” Now, is that a request for a comment, or simply for agreement, or is silence expected? Or is it sarcastic, as in a New Yorker’s, “Nice day!”? Do they sincerely want an answer? I don’t know, because the conversation goes like this:

“We’re in a bit of a spot, aren’t we? The traffic seems tied up for miles, doesn’t it? There’s a chance we’ll be late, won’t we? We could take the Standwith Circle Circus Rotary, couldn’t we?”

I just don’t know. Should I respond? (That was a real question.) It’s like talking to someone with hiccups. You just don’t know when to squeeze in a comment. It takes so long.

2. Addresses. Here’s the address of the last package I mailed to GreatBritain: 43 Foulward, The Baskings, Hastings on Tweed, 44 Donnelly (Near Gladstone), Pluxbury Gardens, Level 4, Flat 3, 130 Cobblestone Chuck. This is why it takes so long. Imagine making out Christmas cards, or a spread sheet of contacts. The British seem to want to capture every historical nuance in current names. (In London, there are two Tate Museums. Perhaps they’ve run out of names.)

This follows my research on why the Irish take so long, which is due to only one reason: They begin every sentence or question with: “After 800 years of British oppression….”

© Alan Weiss 2013

(Hail Britannia)

1. Eliciting and following up on leads.

You must make your way to a genuine, economic buyer, in an organization that can truly use your value. In your “pipeline,” leads should be continually entering at various stages, from short-term to long-term. Too many consultants “vacuum” out the leads and don’t replace them, with the result of spurts of intense business and then famine for even longer periods.

2. Conversion of leads to business.

You must develop a trusting relationship with the economic buyer to the point where the buyer shares professional and personal goals, and the objectives for and value of a project. Too many consultants rush this stage as if it’s a checklist to hurry through. As a result, the buyer says positive things to get you out of the office, but doesn’t call back or respond to the proposal.

3. Implementation and delivery.

You must provide a speedy and high quality improvement to the client’s condition. This should be as non-labor intensive as possible yet still meet all objectives. Too many consultants fall in love with their methodology or, worse, engage in “scope seep” and continue to deliver unnecessary value to try to validate themselves and their fees.

If you are perceived as an expert and thought leader, true buyers come to you, enter into business on your terms and for your fees, and never question the process. Do you want to be another pair of “feet on the street” or a true leader in this profession?

© Alan Weiss 2013

http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

May 13, 2013—Issue #190

This week’s focus point: I don’t believe others intimidate us. I believe we allow ourselves to be intimidated through self-limiting beliefs and lack of self-worth. My experience in board rooms is that there is present the same insecurities, emotionalism, turf battles, uncertainties, and poor judgment that exists on the factory floor or in the sales force. They are just playing with higher amounts of money (that’s not their own). Titles and position do not create character, only business cards. I’ve met professors so bigoted that they are pathetic, and CEOs so vacillating that I want to shout, “DECIDE!!” Generally, the more initials after one’s name, the more suspicious I get. We are all individuals of worth and value to others if we choose to be, and once we act that way we can stand toe-to-toe with anyone. In fact, often that’s the only position from which we can be of real help.

Monday Morning Perspective: We’re not in this to test the waters, we are in this to make waves. — Unknown

May 15 World View Deadline: Only two days left to subscribe to Alan Weiss’s Common Sense® World View Weekly Video with one-third off, a few bucks a week, for five minutes of insights about life, business, global affairs, economic trends, and relationships. Sample videos and registration: http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

Special Teleconference: The Geometry of the Sale: How to get in front of buyers and convert business–the right angle. One time only, free download, free one-hour audio “In the Buyers Office: A Case Study,” and “101 Sales Questions for Any Situation” if you sign up before May 20: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/HowToGetInFrontOfBuyers.php

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© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

I report this because Bentley (and Buddy Beagle) will play by gently nipping my fingers and hand, even though they could take a finger off rather easily. This is called the “puppy bite,” meaning that, when raised in a litter, puppies learn to play and not harm their siblings. (Dogs raised outside of a litter often do not practice that distinction and can hurt you inadvertently.)

We all need to learn the difference between productive play and self-defense and aggression. Not all disagreements need be fights, not all fights need be fatal. Sometimes in matters of principle (to paraphrase Jefferson) we need to take a stand. But in matters of taste, is it really all that important?

Bentley doesn’t care which ball we use to play fetch, nor when he goes into the yard. But he would defend us viciously and dangerously against an intruder or threat.

He learned this early, and so should we all. Proportional response is a great gift.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Sergio Garcia was tied for the lead with Tiger Woods until he put two balls into the water on the next to last hole, and one in the water on the final hole, dropping six shots back in just two holes. (Earlier in the tournament, he had complained that Woods, as his playing partner, deliberately distracted him on a shot. Why golfers need crypt-like silence to swing a stick at a ball I’ll never know.) Garcia has never won a major, and has never lived up to the potential most people believed he possesses.

Woods played extremely well, won by two strokes in a tight field, and seemed to relish the pressure. I believe he’s won four tournaments faster this year than any other, and he’s only a handful behind Snead’s record (I think that’s what Warner Wolf said this morning on Imus.) He a fearsome competitor, and is what they call in sports a “money player.” (And even he was clearly distracted during his famous marital problems and infidelity.)

Some of us cave under pressure, some of use find it nutritional. It’s a shame to get in front of a buyer and then fall apart, or to walk out on a stage and draw a blank. No one is shooting at us. Golfers walk on manicured lawns in the sun trying to win millions. We all have to put things in perspective.

Some people have legitimate, dramatic issues of health, family, and relationships. Most of us are trying to convey value, help people, and be paid for it. That’s our walk in the park.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Some assistant minion in the president’s office offered me $100 of Shell credit if I would consider remaining a customer. I said I would if my credit limit were raised from the $600 that was established 30 years ago, and if they’d stop suspending my card for fraudulent suspicion every time my son used it in California, where he’s lived for over a year and which they know.

Yesterday, the minion informed me that they’d be happy to have me back. BUT, my card was cancelled, so I’d have to reapply online and–you won’t believe this–since my card was flagged for possible fraud in the past, it probably would be again in the future (even though it was their dumb error).

So, adieu to Shell and Citi and the oafs who run these organizations. I was a 30-year customer and have a spotless credit rating, but they’re not into customer retention, they’re into squeezing profits and CYA. So, I repeat, you ought to stay away from organizations that want to take your money and give you the business, instead of provide value and earn your business.

© Alan Weiss 2013

What if you simply expressed your expertise?

I believe that writing, speaking, facilitating, training, consulting, coaching, ad nauseam, are merely transportation devices for our expertise. Some are “locals” and make a lot of stops, some are expressways, some are bullet trains, and some are a walk in the park.

Clients seek expertise which will deliver results. The particular methodology through which expertise is expressed is diverse and varied. When methodologies (approaches, technologies, etc.) become too convoluted and abstruse, they dull and dampen the expertise. Picture a wonderful lamb shank that has to be approved by three chefs and tested nine times. It’s bland and cold by the time it reaches the hungry diner, despite being certified, approved, tested, and otherwise anointed.

Stop agonizing over “pitches” and “delivery” and assorted related issues producing angst. Focus on a conversation with the buyer (and important others) which focuses on objectives and results with your expertise as the navigational system.

Sometimes you might need gyroscopes, compasses, chronometers, and celestial navigation.

But sometimes, true experts get there with dead reckoning. If you and I can see the goal, then we generally can determine what the shortest route is. Otherwise, what use is expertise?

© Alan Weiss 2013

Are you closing all the business you should? On June 11th, marketing expert Linda Popky will be offering a one-day in-depth workshop in the San Francisco Bay area, based on my materials.

I purchased all your books. I can produce receipts if required!!!!

I didn’t skim them. I ate them. If you were English you would be a Yorkshire man – straight talking – no nonsense.

I practiced saying my higher fees – thank you.

I responded with ease when my one man band was questioned – thank you.

I wrote proposals with value – thank you.

I sold value not time – thank you.

I dealt with decision makers – thank you.

I didn’t give concessions for free – thank you.

You didn’t offer me an education. You saved years off my learning curve. As life is so short, this empowering education helped me spend more precious time with my family – thank you.

I have written a book called HELLO PROFIT! Sell the Truth to Win in Business & Life.

Would you take a quick glance at it if I send it to you? I would like to acknowledge you in the book.

I want someone to write to me in a few years and say my work transformed their life the way you transformed mine.

Darren Kelly

They travel from large hatcheries to smaller ones, and then in bags 90 minutes to our place. Only three died of the 600. We own the two-acre pond, so there is no fishing allowed.

Here are three-dimensional options for marketing in order of quality of lead and probability of a meeting and business:

1. Referral business

2. Commercially published book (because it readily leads to personal meetings)

3. Speaking at major events

4. Hosted breakfasts (etc.)

5. Networking

These are examples of three dimensional marketing. If you had to choose, remove all the rest. In actuality, you can include a lot more, per my Market Gravity IP. To call speaking, web sites, newsletters and other one-dimensional options equal to these is silly.

I’m saying this so harshly, because all of us have limited time and energy.  If you did the five things above well and regularly you’d make seven figures a years without doing anything else.

© Alan Weiss 2013

“We loudly keep track of all the failures of commission around us, but never mention the countless failures of omission, all the mistakes that were made by not being bold. To track those, to remind ourselves of the projects not launched or the investments not made is to encounter our fear of forward motion. (So much easier to count typos than it is to mention the paragraphs never written.)”

http://tinyurl.com/cf4tga9

Someone’s client in Boston is looking for an onsite Harassment Training

Requirements-

Must be the trainer’s specialty (She is also considering law firms)

Must be local to Boston

Timeframe is summer

Contact me at msandro@ProEdgeSkills.com by May 15

A woman registered for the former yesterday, but informed me she wanted the $50 discount for ordering prior to August credited to her card, since my site didn’t accept the discount. I explained to her that was because the discount was for prior to August 2012 when the series began. That’s why the site had only one fee, which was only $250.

She proceeded to inform me, “one marketer to another,” that I was engaged in misrepresentation, and violation of truth in advertising. I told her of a thousand people involved in one or both of the offerings, and she was the only one to make such a statement or claim.

I then told her to take a hike. I don’t want the money of someone so self-absorbed and mean-spirited that common sense wouldn’t make a dent in that smug armor in any case. But, she said, two trusted colleagues had told her how much they received from my coaching, workshops, and materials.

That, of course, is because they have common sense and don’t attribute malice to every slight misreading, ambiguity, or even error that occurs. Some people can’t be helped. Don’t try. There are too many who truly want to be helped.

© Alan Weiss 2013

May 6, 2013—Issue #189

This week’s focus point: A “futurist” told me once that the next decade would be all about “credentialling.” He couldn’t have been more wrong. (The more initials I see after someone’s name, the more suspicious I get.) Futurists, of course, are never held accountable for their predictions. The future is about talent and competence. Home schooling has demonstrated that dumping kids into uninspiring “factories” of education isn’t mandatory (and perhaps not even desirable). Expert assessments are going to replace diplomas. Can you do this job and achieve this result? I’m not talking about standardized tests, but about demonstrations of ability. “Six years of experience” is often six years of mediocre performance. If you can pass the Bar exam, why attend law school for three years? If you can teach effectively, why spend years pursuing (usually vacuous) education degrees? If you can perform well as an insurance underwriter, why would a formal BA degree help? You get promoted in the workplace based on outstanding performance, not company-issued degrees. Too many people are educated and incompetent, and many are formally uneducated but brilliant. Let’s acknowledge that.

Monday Morning Perspective: That our national anthem is difficult to understand and hard to use should not be surprising since it was written by a lawyer. — Letter in the Wall Street Journal about Francis Scott Key

Alan Weiss’s Common Sense® Worldview: Only nine days left for 30% discount and a few bucks a week for insights into life, work, relationships, and opportunities globally. http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

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alan@summitconsulting.com

Thursday night I flew to San Francisco (where I once lived) and checked into the Ritz-Carlton. I worked the next day with one of my Growth Cycle groups, had dinner at Boulevard (which is always terrific) and worked one-on-one with Daniel Lock, a group member who flies in from Australia (the Growth Cycles have people from five countries).

Then home for a 1:00 am arrival in Boston this morning!

One of the trip highlights: Libby Wagner and Kim Wilkerson treated me to Canlis Restaurant in Seattle, which immediately vaulted into my top ten in the U.S. We had a wonderful meal, ridiculously outstanding wine (Harlan Estates Maiden 2006 followed by Opus 2009) and then the owner took us on a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar.

A wonderful trip, and it sure beats working!

The kitchen at Canlis

Part of the wine cellar. Note the Methuselahs on the left.

My wealthy good friends, Libby and Kim.

© Alan Weiss 2013

• Where are all the alarmists, fiscal cliff people, and doom and gloomers now? They should confess their sins and undertake a vow of silence.

• There’s a thin line between Paul Revere and Chicken Little, if you catch my drift.

• Carding people who are OBVIOUSLY over 21 in ballparks is just another sign of rampant bureaucracy and regulation addiction overcoming common sense and judgment.

• If you don’t believe it’s all about the writing, I saw a new play in Providence the other day so poorly and amateurishly written that even veteran, admirable members of the repertory company looked like lousy actors. I could have written something better in a weekend while watching TV.

• The route to self-esteem is not to give everyone meaningless awards and recognition, but to teach everyone the work and discipline required to win, and why that’s so important.

• Every newsreader on television is beginning to look and sound exactly alike, and is settling into a vast field of mediocrity.

• I can’t understand what goes through women’s minds, because when I buy a pair of expensive shoes I can wear them right out of the store in total comfort.

• Newsies is the best musical I’ve seen since In the Heights.

• Alas, really good Jewish delis are disappearing in New York as the older customers move to Florida or die off, and their progeny prefer fast and/or healthier food. In all of Manhattan, I only know of two outstanding places for an old-time, really good pastrami sandwich.

• TSA pre-check is fabulous, but it’s a little sad, with an entire squad of people taking care of perhaps one person every couple of minutes. (Nothing is easy, of course, and it takes a while to figure out which number you place in what area on your airline profile page.)

• You gotta love people who buy a $16 book at discount on Amazon and then send email asking the author for free consulting or coaching help! I’ve written 50 books in 11 languages, perhaps sold 450,000 over that time. If you purchase a book, you’re not a customer, you’re a book purchaser. (You can try being Amazon’s customer!)

• Except for Khaleesi and her dragons, Game of Thrones is getting self-indulgent and boring. We’re tuning in to see Tora Tora Tora, not Casablanca. The Vikings is now far better.

• Sign of the times: Carrie Ann Inaba on Dancing with the Stars feels free to utter vulgarisms on network, live TV. She ought to focus on screaming about her obsession with “lifts” and otherwise watch her mouth.

• Watching seniors play golf on TV must mean that you’ve watched everything else ever broadcast and are at the bottom of the barrel.

• People on Facebook seem obsessed with applauding themselves. Well, enough about me, what do you think of me?

• Canlis Restaurant in Seattle just made my top ten list in the U.S.

• If someone doesn’t get Lindsay Lohan psychiatric help, they are going to find her dead on a floor somewhere. How many cries for help do you ignore?

• I wouldn’t mention this to my daughter, but I’m pretty certain that my dogs view my granddaughters as peers, at best.

© Alan Weiss 2013

• We’re a large complex organization, it would be tough for a solo consultant to help us.

Response: All you need is momentum, not someone to bench press the organization. A single, small tractor, driven by one person, moves jumbo jets around the airport.

• We never utilize external consultants.

Response: You’d be surprised at how many of my best, current clients started the conversation the same way!

• You don’t know our business.

Response: That’s why people hire me. I specialize in processes and provide the fresh air of best practices so you don’t merely breathe your own exhaust.

• We have our human resources department get involved with all change management initiatives.

Response: Why? This is a strategic decision. Why refer it to a tactical area which may be threatened by the very concept? Would you entrust them with your financial planning?

• What can you do for us?

Response: I’m not sure. Why were you interested in speaking to me in the first place?

• We can probably do this internally.

Response: Then why hasn’t it been done? Initiating special initiatives with your own people is the most expensive and inefficient way to get things done.

• Who else have you done this for?

Response: My clients, as you would be as well, are confidential. When we get to the proposal stage, if you still need to talk to someone, I’ll be happy to provide references.

• How much will this cost?

Response: I have no idea at this point, and to quote something as a guess would be a disservice to you. But if you can answer a few questions for me over the next 20 minutes, I can have a proposal on your desk tomorrow with options, investment, and ROI. Would that be suitable?

• I’ve never heard of you.

Response: Why would you have? I only work on referrals from happy clients to their peers. I have no need to advertise or use PR.

• Would you give us a deal to secure the business right now?

Response: Do you do that for your customers? If not, why would you expect it of me? If so, you need me more than you think!

© Alan Weiss 2013

All those people  paid to find the worst possible news, and those who wanted to profit through fear, will be back, of course. They’ll say this isn’t “real” and that disaster looms, despite the fact that joblessness is down, manufacturing up, housing up, and a dozen other positive indicators. (Watch for “comments” after I publish this!)

And this is DESPITE an executive and legislative branch that are stubborn, ineffective, and in deadlock over “sequester”: Which we were told would result in a “fiscal cliff.” Imagine if they ever take their hands off the brakes? (Don’t hold your breath. Since the terrible Newtown shooting tragedy, they have been unable to pass a single gun law.)

For those of us in professional services, there is wonderful potential for growth and wealth. (And I am sensitive to the fact that many who worked in organizational America are still trying to recover and have been harmed long term.) We take the risks of working on our own without a net, and we deserve to reap the reward of providing value to our clients. We don’t rely on an ineffective, partisan government, but on our own abilities and value.

I’m launching Alan Weiss’s Common Sense® Worldview in June, where I’ll discuss issues such as this one, education, globalization, technology, debt, opportunities, and so forth. You can find sample videos below, as well as registration, with one-third discount until May 15. The total comes to a few dollars a week to hear insights that are largely positive, oriented toward your growth, and entertaining. I hope you’ll join me as good times become better.

http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

©Alan Weiss 2013

First, some guy asks me to call him, which I have neither the time nor intention to do—GoGo has already wasted enough of my time. Then l I get automated responses that, since I’m writing from a different email address, “for security reasons” they can’t respond unless I use the original address.

Honestly, what are these operations thinking about? It’s certainly not the customer.

April 29, 2013—Issue #188

This week’s focus point: When my daughter was young, she used to call “instructions” by another name: “destructions.” And watching me assemble a bike or replace flashlight batteries at times certainly merited the latter. Yet complexity was one fiftieth then of what it is now. I received a video instruction kit for my pool vacuum, and a 30-page manual for my electric toothbrush. A third of these are warnings, another third are technical specifications, and the final third are abstruse instructions that could only have been created by an engineer consulting a lawyer. We need to use our judgment, intellect, and common sense far more. I didn’t have to teach my dog, Bentley, how to fetch a ball. Learning to ride a bike is totally experiential. I could read the Bible faster than my car’s owner’s manual. Let’s give ourselves a break, exercise our brains, and not turn the simple into the complex. That applies to our relationships, help, and learning as well. It’s not “garbage in, garbage out” these days. It’s “garbage in, garbage gets stuck and clogs everything up.”

Monday Morning Perspective: Thirty percent of the people love life and fear death. Thirty percent of the people prefer death and avoid life. Thirty percent of the people fear both life and death. Only ten percent of the people have the wisdom to accept both life and death as facts, and simply enjoy the dance of existence. — The Tao of Leadership

Common Sense Worldview: One-third discount only until May 15, a couple of dollars a week for provocative views of our life and times. You can watch two videos and sign up here: http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

http://www.contrarianconsulting.com/new-marketing-program/

My doctor performed my semi-annual colonoscopy today (photo below) and I volunteered for it to be filmed by the local television cable show, Waste Matters. I’m ecstatic to be a part of health and the media.

Troy Molloy

Pictured are me and my three sons who all attended the annual Climb A Hill Slowly event in Prairie Dog, South Dakota. It’s about a 20-minute walk and the point isn’t to win but to participate. Everyone received a gold medal, but if you look closely ours has “with honors” on them because we climbed with helmets.

Gina Whiz

Changed her profile shot by taking off her sunglasses.

• 115 people like this

• Don Wrong: “Wow, I only fantasized about your eyes before!”

• Chip Dale: “What Don said.”

• Ace Whitt: You must eat like a bird!

Swiss Tyrol

Varga estoppen verst lichten appamatox verboten oy vey sur quoi ce imprimatur.

• Charlotte Russe: Ump ter vector!

• Saint Bernard: Laughing!

Nichole Napp

Sitting at home doing absolutely nothing. Well, I am typing this. But once I’m done, I’ll be doing absolutely nothing. Like now. Almost.

• 2,498 people like this

• Rory Dory: I’m going to do that!

• Mrs. Rory Dory: Oh, no you’re not!

• Saint Bernard: Laughing!

Kenny Radar

Just figured out my new Nikon DZ4000.6a camera. Wow! Photo below is of my wall.

• Lupo Valez: What setting did you use?

Jackie Rusty Baby O’Reilly

Just thinking about “Day and night, you are the one. Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.”

• Justin Pinkney: Wow! You ought to right muzic. I don’t know if those exzact lyrics would work, but the rime sounds good. Nice #%%^&$ job!

• Bland Pastel: Too late, I’m pretty sure Justin Beiber wrote that.

• Charlotte Russe: Ump ter vector!

Prince Earl

Here I am after my fourth, iron-person 400-mile run, 1,000 kilometer  bike ride, and 65-fathom ocean dive. I can’t wait to compete in Nepal.

• Horst Rider: Unbelievable! And you aren’t even perspiring!

Clair Blair

Something for all of us to remember:

“It’s not how often you compliment a friend or forgive a child, but rather that you befriend yourself and treat yourself like a child so that you never are entrapped by that inner adult. This is to have lived.”

• 45,976 people like this

Dolly Bolly

Here are the remnants of my mother’s 60^th birthday cake. I think you can see what kind of great time we had.

• Roger Andout: Wish I was there!

• Carey Knot: I wish my mom was 60!

• Rich Crisp: That looks like agar 47 dye on the candles, and that is toxic to toads. I’d be careful about how you dispose of that.

• Lupo Valez: What setting did you use?

• Saint Bernard: Laughing!

© Alan Weiss 2013

I saw this in previews with a packed house that jumped to its feet at the conclusion, and wisely done. Ignore the cop-out by Teachout, and go see this very limited, very entertaining run.

© Alan Weiss 2013

As I wandered around, I noticed a new “fad” (beyond those bizarre women who keep posting new “glam shots” to get “liked” by the same 13 guys who tell them they look good every time): People are posting testimonials and compliments they’ve purportedly received! They are applauding themselves!

“Here’s what the Association of Rodeo Clowns said about me: ‘He’s the best we’ve ever had at walking onto the stage from the right.’” And many mention some complete unknown with whom they’ve “shared a stage”: “Here is Nutso Ponzi, the famed ‘Get Rich Eating Cereal’ guru whom I had the luxury of following at the National Ergot Convention.”

I’m sorry, but someone has to start selling “How to Get A Life” because Facebook apparently sucks the life out of you.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of one hand clapping.

© Alan Weiss 2013

In April of 2015 I guess I’ll run the Tenth Anniversary Consulting College!

I always learn more than anyone, which is why I continue to run these sessions. Here is a portion of that learning from this week:

• You have to take prudent risk in professional services. No buyers look for resources in a crowd. The look for those who stand out.

• Intellectually understanding a point is insufficient. You need to emotionally embrace it and practice it.

• Most poor performance is self-inflicted by fear, guilt, low self-esteem, and inability to stand up to pressure (many of which are obviously related).

• When you coach or teach someone else you build your own skills tremendously.

• There is a tropism to make things more complex, when consultants’ value is really making the complex simple.

• We too easily become amateur psychoanalysts, a profession not even psychoanalysts are all that good at, and make the absurd assumption that the buyer is automatically the cause of the problem!

• Lack of language skills is the greatest contributor to feelings of insufficiency and the inability to take the role of a peer to the buyer.

• In our business, “research” is overrated. Look for evidence in the environment, observed behavior, and examples which prove or disprove points.

• We all need support systems and sounding boards we can trust to help us with perspective and decisions.

• This is a fantastic profession if we can stop getting in our own way.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Left to right: Stefan Voswinkel, Judith Voswinkel, Tim Burch, Kristen Putnam, Nancy Cramer, Alan Willet, Sherry Duda, Aeby Thomas, Marcie Lonich, Mark Rodgers, Urko Wood, Nick Whitenburg, Lisa Anderson, Steven Gaffney. Alan Weiss in front.

Why is it we spend so much time editing ourselves? I find too many people who immediately question every thought in their head (although apparently that doesn’t occur to people positing on Facebook), stop, waver, stop again, and then change their comment, sentence, or direction. They fear being imperfect, rejected, mocked, or challenged.

Who cares?

Write what you believe in, speak with passion, and stop worrying about what others will think or do. Take a position. Your self-editor is far worse than any editor with whom I’ve ever dealt. Fire your self-editor and stop rewriting your life.

© Alan Weiss 2013

April 22, 2013—Issue #187

This week’s focus point: The Boston tragedy demonstrated more than anything the basic goodness in people. Strangers helped others without hesitation. The requests of the authorities were accepted without whining or demands for exceptions. The capacity that we all possess to support, assist, and help others is extraordinary. Sometimes it takes trauma to highlight it, but the potential is there every day. It may be appropriate this week to think about donating time or money to a charity, coaching someone who needs help, or even giving someone a break trying to turn across traffic. We shouldn’t need catastrophe to bring out our true character.

Monday Morning Perspective: To free oneself is only the beginning. The real problem is to live in freedom. — André Gide

Alan’s Common Sense World View Weekly Video: Still time to join people all over the world to receive my weekly world view five-minute video, a great companion to Common Sense Consulting. Thirty percent discount prior to May 15: http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

“For the first time after 40 years in Asia,” he recounted, “the Chinese complained about American competition.” Labor costs in the US are stable, but have increased by 15 percent in China, annually. He estimates that about 200 companies have moved offshore locations to the U.S. mainland in the recent past. “Nine of ten companies a decade ago were thinking of building plants in China,” he points out, “today it’s about three in ten, and five in ten want to build in the U.S.”

He says that markets are emotional, not necessarily efficient, and that people are realizing  that the American market is a half-full glass, not a half-empty one.

We are surrounded by the doom and gloom patrols, who manage to find the dark cloud in an otherwise bright sky. Within a few days law enforcement, cooperating wonderfully, found and removed two terrorists no one could have anticipated. Yet “pundits,” searching for their Andy Warhol 15 minutes in the lights, are claiming, “This changes everything.”

For every uptick in housing, auto sales, manufacturing, entertainment, and other sectors, someone will find an exception and a negative. The fact is that even with the intractable, juvenile gridlock in Washington, we haven’t fallen off a cliff, fiscal or otherwise. In fact, the country has perhaps the strongest economy in a long time, and continues to have the strongest in the world.

Can we improve our schools, infrastructure, spending habits, and other problem areas? Of course. Are there people harmed by the economic volatility who need jobs and more support? Yes, and we ought to provide them. We’re far from perfect. But let’s stop creating self-inflicted misery.

To a very large extent, we are emotionally driven, and we need to stop listening to those who are actually paid to provide bad news, and find the light. I don’t know about you, but I’m weary of blown-dry reporters who have no credentials and murder the language, standing out on a street unnecessarily to be “on the scene,” who simply wind up saying, “Time will tell.” Edward R. Murrow must be rolling in his grave.

We’re fortunate to be here. Let’s start acting like it, cooperating the way we saw law enforcement cooperating, remaining optimistic, believing and acting with the confidence that we can create even better tomorrows.

© Alan Weiss 2013

1. Search for those  with a successful history of using consultants and who require your particular expertise.

2. Consider yourself an expert, not a “consultant.”

3. Expand the buyer’s objectives.

4. Present an option that includes a retainer.

5. Build dependency on your expertise so that you are the first choice.

6. Maintain relationships solely with high level people, so that they are your peers.

7. Act and appear as a success.

8. Don’t let a “one-off” piece of business divert you from the main thrust of your business and passion.

9. Attain thought leadership to attract people to you.

10. Discuss your proposals with a coach or trusted colleagues before submitting them.

11. Walk away from small, distracting work.

12. Make your marketing constant and continual, not situational. Avoid the roller coaster.

© Alan Weiss 2013

The US is going to establish total energy independence in the next decade, due to:

• Discovery of increasing oil sources on both land and at sea

• Advanced technology to capture what was previously not obtainable

• Greater and greater mileage efficiency of car fleets

• Increased taxation of “gas guzzlers” and gasoline

• Lower emissions acquired through advances in engine technology

What if we need to understand and prepare for that future, and not one of predominantly solar, or turbine, or wind, or electric, or hydrogen power? How much money, energy, and political capital are we wasting today on what won’t be used or needed?

The US will be a net exporter of petroleum, which will change the geopolitical landscape. The Gulf of Hormuz becomes unimportant, the prices will plummet in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran. I’d suspect that there will be a revolution in Saudi Arabia, with the very narrow and disliked royal family overthrown, and that other governments may radically change.

Perhaps it sounds like a novel to you, but what if we’re inured to the wrong future, the wrong warnings, the wrong possibilities, the wrong opportunities?

Sign up for Alan Weiss’s Common Sense™ World View video series. It’s only a couple of bucks a week, and produces more energy than it consumes! We start in June. You can find it here:

http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php

What if I’m right?

© Alan Weiss 2013

Some people take the rejection personally.

A guy in the San Francisco Bay Area makes the request. He has 7,500 listeners who are not my customer/recommender mix and he airs late morning on Sundays. I tell him, “No, thanks.” He tells me I’m making a “big mistake,” and he names all kinds of people he’s interviewed (I believe they include Lincoln, Gandhi, and two vampires), and apprises me that he’s called “the best interviewer anyone has ever met,” and asks me to reconsider.

When I again demur, he calls me a “jerk”! Now, I may be a jerk, albeit a successful one at that, but if not doing his show is the qualification for the epithet then I’m in really fine company in jerkdom.

Welcome to the Facebook Age of communications: Vanity and egos run amuck, pretending to be contributing members of society.

Is the Bay Area big enough for this guy’s head? Maybe he can stick it in the bay and find out.

© Alan Weiss 2013

© Alan Weiss 2013

April 15, 2013—Issue #186

This week’s focus point: Every day we write the story of our lives, a continuing autobiography. I suspect that if we took the time to read it regularly, we might choose to change the plot! Some of us are rooted in a poverty mentality, as if we’re trying merely to survive; some are in stability, feeling alive; some have an abundance mentality, feeling it’s good to arrive; and a few are in self-mastery, believing they can thrive. As we ascend, the key is to avoid sliding back, and to create water-tight, closed doors behind us. How interesting is your story? You can still change it.

Monday Morning Perspective: In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease–a terrible passing inclination to die of it. All of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. — Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

NEW: Alan’s Common Sense World View: Interested in a five-minute video weekly on the world around us, trends, opportunities, interpretations, and positive vibes? I’m shooting it every week, no matter where I am in the world. It will start in June. It’s $295 for a full year, but $175 for my Monday Morning Memo readers if you sign up by May 15. Use this page: http://summitconsulting.com/store/quick-pay.php or send a check to Box 1009, East Greenwich, RI 02818 made out to Summit Consulting Group, Inc. (This is DIFFERENT from the Common Sense Consulting® Weekly Video, which is directed at the consulting profession. This is for people who want positive, pragmatic help to thrive, no matter what their occupation or avocation.)

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

Right after coming in from fetch with him and Buddy today, I looked down from my den and saw a relatively rare (on my property) wood duck had already arrived for breakfast.

© Alan Weiss 2013

We’re watching this for dragons, battles, revenge, the creatures outside the wall, and intrigue. Last night there was so much exposition that it was like watching a Congressional subcommittee on estate taxes.

Breath some fire and stop breathing your own exhuast.

© Alan Weiss 2013

• For the love of the epicurean gods, get a book or watch a video and learn how to use cutlery and dine properly. You do not hold a knife like a dagger in a fist, you do not use your fingers to push food onto your fork, and the bread dish is on your left, unless you’re stealing from the person on your right. It’s not a sin that you don’t know, but it is that you don’t bother to learn.

• Don’t justify every opinion. State what you believe and we’ll all consider it. But the next ten minutes of quotes, ancient Greek philosophers, books, and various authorities just make our lives that much shorter. This is a sign of massive insecurity.

• If you’re in doubt, tip. If you’re in doubt about the amount, choose the top of the range. In the long term,  you won’t miss the money, and the other person will be grateful. There are two toxic personality disorders, chronic cheapness and total self-absorption. The combination of the two in a victim provides for a justifiable homicide defense at any trial.

• Stop cutting off other peoples’ sentences to insert your own views. If you are that smart as to know what they’re going to say, they you should also be smart enough to know how they will feel when you do it.

• Stop playing “gotcha.” Grow up. I have trouble accumulating deep enough disdain for people who tell me there’s a typo in my books or my web site has a wrong date on it somewhere. Ask yourself if you’re really trying to help. Informing me about a typo in a book that is the publisher’s responsibility and can’t now be changed is not for me but for you in some perverse way. (I’ve found people who track typos to be THE most boring, anal-rententive people I’ve ever encountered. And I’ll bet we get some letters here protesting that they’re providing a service.)

• If you believe it’s ethical to ask someone to endorse you—on Linkedin or anyplace else—who doesn’t know you and is completely unfamiliar with your work, then you ought to find another business, like running a Ponzi scheme (AKA: “multi-level marketing”).

• Never start a speech, conversation, or article by apologizing or denigrating what’s to come. That puts everyone off their feed.

• The only way you’re going to grow is by forming close relationships with true all-stars and people who are better at many things than you are. Stop building moats and fortifications around your ego.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Quentin Tarantino is one crazy dude, but we need him and people like him to shake up our world.

• The most valuable coaching focuses on the best performers, not the worst performers. They make the most contribution to the organization’s future success.

• Focus on excellence, and consistently discussing what constitutes excellence with those whom you trust.

• Be skeptical on the margins of technology. That is, technology is rarely a cure or magic wand. Applying it without judgment can simply hide deeper problems.

• Even in poor markets (e.g. Europe at the moment) you may possess unique value for organizations that are doing well and which are willing to invest in improvement.

• A lot of prospects are now cash-rich, having “hoarded” cash during tougher economic times. They are willing to invest it again.

• Many traditional industries are entering non-traditional pursuits to expand their markets and improve their profits. They usually need help in this endeavor.

• South America is one of the great boom markets in the world at the moment. They are not looking to the US for help, but will accept the help of those who can provide clear value addressed at specific need.

• A great deal of the sense of “overwhelm” facing both organizations and individuals stems from too many choices. Make things easier to decide.

• Organizational communications are almost always inferior to personal communications. That can be remedied if senior management is willing to listen and understand how people communicate today.

• The “average” buyer today represents a leaner, meaner, more sophisticated organization than ever before.

• The very best investment you can make—with the finest dividends and returns—in in yourself, your business, and your own development.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Lamb’s Club: A great room with terrific service, wonderful food, and impressive ambiance. I had never realized that it was open to the public. They served three courses for a dozen people starting at 5:30, and had us out by 7 to head for our 7:30 curtain. An extremely impressive wine list and sommelier on duty didn’t hurt. You don’t find Brandt Family wine on every wine list these days.

Newsies: By group uniform agreement, one of the ten best musicals we’ve ever seen. The choreography, sets, and combination of acrobatic and balletic movements were stunning. The story is true, obvious, and predictable, but these performers—most in their Broadway debut—were magnificent. Go see this.

Katz’s Deli: For my money still the best deli in New York (especially with so many old-time stalwarts closing because of changing demographics and taste). I actually had a reservation for eight of us arranged by the concierge at the Pierre, which is true power in New York! The pastrami is great, the people watching fantastic, and it’s rarer and rarer to be in any institution which hasn’t changed in decades. The mysterious tickets are still required to get in and out, and the menu advises that you’re in peril if you ask for mayonnaise with the meats.

JPMorgan Museum: We took a private tour and entered into a world of enormous personal power and prestige. The only other thing I’ve seen like it—on a much grander scale—is Hearst’s San Simeon. The main library itself is worth the price of admission, but the various exhibitions (Degas, Picasso, etc.) at any give time are terrific. Morgan’s personal study is set up as if he’s a Cardinal in the church, with other religious artifacts beneath his huge portrait.

Del Posto: This was once one of my top three restaurants in New York, way down in the meatpacking district. The main room is magnificent, one of the best anywhere. We were in a lovely private room with gracious and attentive service. They carry Jean Marc XO (as does the Pierre bar) which I believe is the best vodka in the world. But the food is too close to average for my taste these days, and I’m not going to hurry back.

© Alan Weiss 2013

• Caravaggio: I took a group of 12 people there last year and we had a great dinner. It was featured in a movie or TV show shortly thereafter. My wife was never there, so the two of us went for dinner. This time, I found the food very average and the service a matter of simply going through the paces. It was efficient, but not warm, and the pasta is far better in Rhode Island, let alone elsewhere in New York. My wife asked me, “What’s the big deal?”

• Quality Meats: I took a group of 12 there for dinner (it’s the old Oceana space) and we had a fabulous evening. The food is sensational and the service, despite a packed house, very attentive and helpful. The place is loud and bold and I’d go back in a minute.

• I’ll Eat You Last: We saw Bette Midler in the one-woman show about super-agent Sue Mengers. It’s still in previews, and occasionally the Divine Miss M would have to say “Line!” to be prompted. The amount of dialogue is enormous, and Ms. Midler is wonderful. You don’t see Bette Midler playing Sue  Mengers,  you see Sue Mengers, in all her obscene, gossipy, pot-smoking, sarcastic grandeur. It’s a limited run and I’m glad we were able to get into a sold-out performance.

More to come….

© Alan Weiss 2013

1. Select a brief, true story you often tell. It can be personal or professional, recent or dated.

2. Articulate the real moral of your story. What did you learn? Why is it a good story to tell? (Example: Always have a “Plan B” ready.)

3. Select the pragmatic lesson that others can apply from the moral. (When things are going very well is exactly when you should develop your Plan B.)

4. Develop the lesson so that others can learn the steps to competence, reinforcement for repeating it, and becoming motivated to use it consistently. (Identify vulnerability, assess probability and seriousness, identify alternative solutions, create monitoring, etc.)

5. Monetize the lesson. Put it into a teleconference, video, podcast, workshop, book, coaching approach, and so on. (The Plan B Teleconference: Planning from Strength.)

Now, choose another story.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Does Rutgers have a board of trustees, or are they just assorted “names” who take the title but never bother to actually try to govern the university?

So, who’s first in line to pay Mr. Pernetti for being grossly incompetent? Perhaps those of you who also support keeping the clueless president of the university in his job? (“I never bothered to actually watch the video.”)

— Embarrassed grad, Alan Weiss

© Alan Weiss 2013

April 8, 2013—Issue #185

This week’s focus point: Very often I say to a coaching client struggling with an obstacle, “What would you advise one of YOUR clients to do?” They respond quickly with good advice, and I ask, “Why don’t you do the same thing?” (This is why I make the big bucks!) We’re more confident advising others than making decisions for ourselves. That’s because we’re confident we can guide the client, make mid-course corrections, and reduce risk. But we see our personal decisions as world-changing and momentous. We need to trust ourselves more. Understand that most decisions are changeable, modifiable, even reversible without making headlines. After all, if you trust those drivers doing 70 miles per hour on the interstate, or the dentist with a drill in hand, or the trainer holding weights over your head–you ought to be able to trust yourself.

Monday Morning Perspective: I envy those people who truly understand that life is a fragile bargain, rescindable at any time by the other party, and live their lives accordingly. — Joseph Epstein, “A Line Out for A Walk”

Consulting College: Still time to participate in this unique growth experience: http://summitconsulting.com/consulting-college/consulting_college_2013-04.php

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking HERE.

Privacy statement: Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Contact information: info@summitconsulting.com
http://www.contrarianconsulting.com
ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved