Do You Choose the Red Pill?

Do You Choose the Red Pill?
Have you watched The Matrix recently? Remember the scene
where Neo is offered the red pill or the blue pill?

For those of you who are not Matrix fans, here's the
synopsis. Computers have taken over the world and are
using humans as living batteries to power their existence.
The computers found that humans waste away without
something to live for, so they plug the humans into The
Matrix-a computer simulation of everyday life in the late
1990's, complete with cubicles, rush hour, and the endless
rat race.

The only problem with the Matrix is that there are a small
percentage of people who feel in their soul that this
existence is a lie. Neo, the main character, is one of
these, and starts searching for answers.The pivotal scene
unfolds. Neo must choose whether to take the blue pill,
and wake up in his bed the next morning to blindly continue
his life in the Matrix, or take the red pill, and learn the
truth.

My oldest son is finishing his junior year in high school,
and he will soon be facing that same pivotal choice. Life
with the blue pill is very appealing. Get a good job, start
a family, live in the suburbs, work for 45 years, and
retire comfortably. He would never be fabulously wealthy,
but he would do okay. Our educational system is designed to
mold our young people for this future. After all, we need
good workers, right?

But what Matrix would he be living under? Would he be
voluntarily conforming to the artificial boundaries of life
in corporate America?

When I was in his shoes, I didn't know there were other
options. I pursued the path of getting a good education as
an engineer, getting a good job, and...surprise, surprise!
Life was not easy. I could barely afford to buy a house in
the suburbs, commuted an hour and a half each way to work,
and never had time to spend with my kids. I felt like the
adults in my life had sold me a lie.

I grew up in a small town in Montana. My parents ran a
gift store and greenhouse, and had a small house on 40
acres of land just outside of town. They struggled trying
to make a living in a small town, but I lived the ideal
life of a small boy...fishing, hunting, and enjoying the
outdoors.

My parents wanted more for me. I dutifully set out for
life in the big city, not because I had any desire to live
there, but because I had been told this was what I should
do. My parents truly felt this was the best path.

About ten years ago, I chose to take the red pill. I
packed up my family in a U-Haul, and moved across the state
to define my own existence. I gave up the long commute and
big city life for a something else. Now, I work from my
home office, and have the freedom to structure my life how
I want to live. Instead of heading out for the freeway, I
spent this morning with my youngest son, having morning
Donuts with Dad at his elementary school. I've been to
every one of my kids' basketball games, band concerts, and
track meets this year. I hunt and fish with my boys, and
camp with the Boy Scouts. Life is good.

If there is one gift I want to give my son, it is this
truth. He does not need to be contained by someone else's
Matrix. He does not need to conform to another person's
ideal of how he should live his life. He can choose.

If you have a teenager, make sure you talk to him or her
about how they want to live their life. Instead of asking
them what they want to do, help them figure out how they
want to live.

Do they want to live in the city, country, or somewhere
in-between? Would they prefer an 8-to-5 job, with weekends
and holidays off, or do they want a little more
flexibility? Are they willing to work for themselves, and
possibly give up vacations and holidays for a while in
order to have more later? What kind of house do they want
to live in? What car do they want to drive?

Now, once these questions are answered, what kind of income
do they need to create in order to live their life how they
want to live? What education will they need to get to make
this happen? What skills do they need to learn? What
contacts do they need to make?

Before your teenager succumbs to the pull of the blue pill,
give them a wake up call. The truth is that he or she has
more opportunities and options now than ever before. They
can have the life of their dreams.

Don't get me wrong. Choosing the red pill has its price.
The blue pill goes down ever so much easier. After all, the
blue pill is the normal path. Following in the footsteps
of the mindless masses is such a no-brainer. A small part
of me knows that life could be easier for my children if
they did not know they have other options. Conformity
could be rewarded by comfort and ease.

But the possibilities of the red pill...

----------------------------------------------------
Todd Jensen, "The Profit Engineer", has helped hundreds of
business owners make their business more successful and
profitable. For tips and strategies on how to boost your
business success as well as increase your profits,
visit http://www.theprofitengineer.com or
http://www.freebusinessstartupinfo.com

Officer, I'd Like To Report A Missing Sales Department

Officer, I'd Like To Report A Missing Sales Department
We were doing a small seminar last week when we noticed
that only one company in the room actually had a sales
department. The rest thought they did and probably would
say they did but when we analyzed the situation, they
realized they actually had misplaced their sales department
a few years ago and hadn't noticed.

This led us to the realization that sales departments can
be inadvertently misplaced and closed. This is extremely
detrimental to the business because a business without a
sales department is just a ghost of what it could be.

Has your Sales department disappeared or been misplaced?
Here are a few ways to find out.

Percentage Of Time Analysis

One of the companies at the seminar was composed of the
owner and 4 salespeople. Sounds like a large sales force.
However, a time analysis revealed that all but one spent
10% of their time (about 4 hours per week) on sales. The
rest of their time, they did service and sales of other
products, paperwork, service calls etc.. Counting heads is
not as accurate as counting hours. We suggest you take an
accurate count of the amount of time each employee spends
on actual sales activities - prospecting and doing demos.
The result may surprise you. How much time is your sales
department actually selling?

Number Of Sales Presentations

Another way to measure the size of your sales department is
a game we call "Count The Presentations". Take an accurate
count with customer names of the presentations or sales
visits performed last week. First, calculate how many
presentations is a day's work in your industry. If you sell
complex products to businesses, it could be one per day. If
you sell in-home to consumers, it could be two per day. If
you sell by phone, it could be 30 per day. Take your total
presentation that should be done each day and divide by the
number of presentations per day that should be done. The
quotient you calculate represents the number of active
salespeople on your team. If it is less than you expected,
you need to hire or refocus your current team on sales.

Hours Of Operation

It is a proven fact that customers prefer to buy when they
are too busy. Consumers don't want to take time off to meet
the sales guy. So for most consumers that means evenings
and weekends are the prime selling time. Business people
don't want visitors at their busiest times and restaurants
want no salespeople during their peak traffic periods. Does
your sales staff work these prime selling hours or are the
stuck with the nine to five mentality?

One way to estimate the "force" in your sales force is to
see what percentage of the golden selling time your team is
in the field. If you set the "golden selling time" as 5 to
9 Monday to Thursday and Saturday, that is a total of 24
hours per week. Measure what percentage of those hours your
staff is out selling and you have a good measure of the
percentage of a sales force you actually have. If you have
4 salespeople who are in the field 50% of those hours, we
believe you will find you should discount the size of your
sales force by 50%.

It is also interesting to me that many companies who
struggle in sales have new recruits and part timers working
the best sales hours. This is a serious handicap to
success. It just doesn't pay to have your experienced and
talented staff in when fewer customers come by and your
least experienced and successful team on the floor when
most buyers come in.

Call Back Success

Another measurement of sales success is the number of sales
generated each week from calling prospects who did not buy
at their initial appointment and getting another chance to
get the sale get the sale. Good companies add about 15% to
total sales from call backs. If your percentage is less,
you are leaving money on the table that could be in your
pocket. For example, my wife and I visited a large
furniture store yesterday but did not buy. Could a call
from a manager asking why, get us back in? Yes it could.
Further, they would find out from the call why we did not
buy. This would allow them to make decisions from actual
(and valuable) customer feed back.

Focus & Importance

Another interesting measure of your sales department is the
focus of your company and the importance of sales. If you
company believes that anything other than presentations and
sales is important today, you don't have a sales
department. If the first question on everyone's mind today
is how many did we present and sell last yesterday, how
many will we do today, you have a sales department. If that
is the last thing on the minds of your staff, you do not.
Ask each of your staff members what is the most important
thing on their minds today. The result may surprise you. If
the answer is anything but presenting and selling, you will
benefit from changes.

Sales Or Customer Dis-Service?

Another interesting measurement of your sales department,
is its membership. Is anyone a full time salesperson? Just
as important, is EVERYONE focused on selling? Do you keep
track of the number of appointments generated per call-in?
Do you train your entire staff on how to use calls to
generate sales? Does your delivery staff call on neighbors
of your customers to see if they your products or services?
Do your techs ask customers if they have any other needs?
If not, these staff members are overhead when they could be
an important part of your sales department.

If you take these tests and find you have misplaced your
sales department in the years since you opened for
business, now is the time to take steps. Without sales, a
company withers and dies. You have the power to direct
every member of your team to sell every day. Remember that
your costs don't go up as you focus on sales but your
income does. No matter how many sales you make each month
without a sales department, you deserve to sell a lot more.

We suggest you keep this article and take these
measurements monthly to see if you are making progress. The
funny thing about sales departments is the moment you take
your focus of them they begin to disappear.

----------------------------------------------------
Carl Davidson looks at sales management and asks if your
sales department is actually selling. This management
training article talks about focusing on achieving sales.
For more information, visit
http://www.salesandmanagementsolutions.com

The Next Big Thing!

The Next Big Thing!
Big Cash For Big Information

Ever since the first gumshoe paid his favorite informant
$20 for the name of the doll that shot Mr. Big three times
in the head with his own .45, money has been the motivator
for getting the right information from those who have it.

Leap forward a few decades and the biggest payday was
recently made by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen who were paid
$10,000,000 bucks by the X Prize Foundation when their
private rocket made it into space. Sure the foundation also
got an event out of the money in the form of a space
flight, but make no bones about it, what they were really
paying for was the information about how to get a man into
space twice, with private money.

Such is the development of a growing trend to tap into
minds of geeks and creative entrepreneurs everywhere to
solve the riddles of today faster than normal progress
might allow, by offering an ever-increasing flow of large
amounts of money. In fact, the current X Prize Foundation
contest dangles another $10,000,000 for the winner of a
race between clean production-ready cars that exceed 100
MPG. The deadline is 2009 and 2010 and already there are 45
groups approved to at least qualify for the prize.

There are more:

$10,000,000 offered by Google and The X Prize Foundation
for a private mission to the moon, travel 500 meters, and
send data back to Earth.

$25,000,000 offered by Richard Branson to create a
commercially feasible way to remove greenhouse gasses from
Earth's atmosphere.

$10,000,000 offered by the X Prize Foundation to an
enterprise that can sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days
at a cost of $10,000 per Genome.

$1,000,000 offered by Netflix to improve automated movie
recommendations.

$1,000,000 offered by the Department of Defense to create a
lightweight garment that provides 20 watts of electric
juice for 96 hours.

$1,000,000 offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute to
solve seven unsolved math problems.

$500,000 offered by NASA to build a machine that
autonomously excavates simulated lunar rock during a timed
event.

$300,000 offered by CAFÉ Foundation, NASA to build a small
aircraft that is easy to operate as an automobile and has
an 800 mile range.

$400,000 offered by NASA to build a glove that makes it
easier for astronauts to manipulate objects.

These are just the start of the big money that will follow.
Yet, think about it. What does Sir Richard risk with
$25,000,000 if someone can give him a commercially feasible
way to eliminate greenhouse gases from earth. How many
hundreds of millions of dollars could he ultimately make
from that prize?

How to apply the big Idea.

Our goal in these pages is not to just present Big Ideas
but to present practical applications for our clients. Ask
yourself what mystery exists in your industry? How can you
use this concept of Cash for Information on a smaller scale
in your own Backyard?

Could a doctor offer a $50,000 prize for a commercially
feasible supplement to help his patients?

Could a pest control company offer a $25,000 prize for a
new non-toxic way to eliminate pests?

Could a local hospital offer a $1,000,000 prize for a cure
for Breast Cancer?

Could a Bank offer a $100,000 prize to solve a local public
service problem?

The answers are yes and the other ideas are endless.
Creating a prize particularly one with a noble cause to
help others would create great buzz for the company. Not
only would there be news articles on announcement of the
concept, but updates on the progress as well as news
coverage again at the end of the contest…particularly if
there was a winner. If the Prize was also designed around a
commercial application there would be ongoing press as well
as real profits form producing the products generated from
the discovery.

There are many real applications to this idea which you
could use on a small or large scale. You can do good, make
money, and get great PR. Not a bad triple punch.

----------------------------------------------------
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The Powerful Value of Personalized Marketing

The Powerful Value of Personalized Marketing
Web based marketing strategies are based on the trends set
by traditional broadcast advertising tools: commercials,
radio spots, billboards and print advertising. These
mediums are effective but broad ranging, which can be a
bonus or a setback. These traditional modes are akin to
having a newspaper boy stand on a corner yelling "Extra!
Extra! Read all about it!" to sell the morning newspaper to
passersby. This type of advertising will certainly reach
more people than if the gentleman stood there in silence,
but this form of marketing does not differentiate between
potential clients: it uses the same technique to reach all
customers.

The same is true for other traditional advertising and
marketing techniques. Billboards have the capacity to reach
tens of thousands of people, but only if they happen to
look up and notice the sign as they walk or drive by.
Print advertising is slightly more specialized because the
customer has already expressed an interest in the potential
subject matter that will be advertised by purchasing the
specific magazine or newspaper. Ads in each print venue
generally appeal to a wide target audience previously
identified as interested in the subject matter of the
specific magazine or newspaper in question. We all know
this instinctively: a maker of women's anti-aging wrinkle
cream is less likely to run an ad in GQ than they are in
Vogue, and a maker of men's shaving cream is less likely to
run its ad in Vogue than it is in GQ. Personalized
marketing just isn't possible in such a high volume domain.

Personalizing your advertising online

The benefit of Internet advertising is that it excels at
one to one communication. You are able to reach a much more
specialized audience than has ever been possible with
traditional forms of advertising. You can drive traffic to
your site by advertising in several different ways, at a
fraction of the cost of one television, radio, or print
advertisement.

The Internet has its own form of broadcasting, which can
occupy several different strategies. Web based advertising
allows you to reach small, targeted groups of people, or
even one person at a time, that are already likely to have
an interest in your product.

Targeting your niche customer

There are many ways of targeting specific individual groups
of people, without significant overhead cost. Placing ads
on a website that has a similar client base to your product
is a very effective marketing tool. With this strategy, the
burden of identifying a client base is alleviated, and the
owner of the web site does the work of identifying clients
in the arena where you place ads. In a sense, you piggyback
on the market research that this website has done, and they
gain revenue from your advertising—so it is an even
exchange that benefits both parties.

Direct email is a tool that allows you to market to
individuals - much like direct mail does in the traditional
marketing scheme. This is a more aggressive tactic that
reaches a client in a more personal way, and it is
accessible to the client on his own terms. A direct email
can be read and browsed when a client has time and chooses
to do so, whereas a traditional print ad will be forgotten
as soon as the magazine or newspaper is put aside.

Creating a personalized marketing strategy is what
distinguishes Internet advertising from traditional
marketing techniques. Web based advertising is a
revolutionary way to reach individuals, if you know how to
us it.

----------------------------------------------------
Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic
Collaboration Marketing consulting firm. He empowers
business owners to discover and implement Integration,
Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve
specific business challenges. He demonstrates how to create
your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your
sales, conversation rates, and repeat business.
Contact: christian@christianfea.com
http://www.christianfea.com

Do You KNOW that Your Business Is Needed?

Do You KNOW that Your Business Is Needed?
Often when first connecting with clients I'll hear basic
business blocks that sound like:

Yeah, but what gives me the right to teach others how to
[fill in service here]??

What if I'm not qualified enough?

Yeah, but I can't because of [fill in not-so-great past or
present experience].

What if no one really needs or wants what I have?

Yeah, but people see my business as a luxury - they don't
really need it ...

Most entrepreneurs get stopped because of the stories they
tell themselves that spring from these kind of questions.
These are what I call "Yeah, buts" and "What ifs". Usually
they aren't anywhere near true, but you repeat them so
often that you begin to believe that they are. And then
that's where your energy goes. When your energies aren't
aligned, you can't figure out what to do next (or if you
do, you push your way through it and then wonder why you
feel exhausted, burned-out or frustrated).

Sound familiar?

Starting right here and right now as your coach I want you
to quit thinking of yourself and your business as unneeded,
unimportant, unnecessary or undoable.

You've been called to be in business for a reason. It's
part of your divine plan. You have something to offer that
only you can offer in the way that you offer it. You have
ways of serving that make you needed.

The best way to activate this knowing for yourself is to
stop comparing yourself to others. "Oh, this is what
so-and-so is doing in their business. Why can't I be doing
that? That's what I SHOULD be doing." Honestly, you really
wouldn't want to be anyone else if you could. And,
honestly, you never could even if you really wanted to. You
are you. So, what do you sense would happen if instead you
appreciated others and their business success? What do you
sense would happen if you also appreciated yourself and
your business?

Appreciate all the wonderful powers and abilities you have
to offer. Appreciate your strengths. Appreciate your power.

I want you to think for a moment about how you have grown
through the experiences of your life, think of the
understanding and insight you've gained. All of this,
"good" and "bad" is what qualifies you to be offering the
service you offer.

Others can't recognize that they need what you have if you
don't recognize it first.

I once spoke to a woman who was telling me that the field
that she was in is very "surface oriented" so it wasn't
possible for her to really be herself. She couldn't bring
to her business her connection to Spirit. I explained to
her that by keeping this part of herself hidden was
actually a disservice to her business. Now, I wasn't saying
she needed to necessarily go to the extreme and start
shouting from the rooftops, but explained that to deny this
part of herself in her business was most likely preventing
her from connecting with her ideal clients who needed her:
those folks out there who were thinking, "Gosh, everyone in
this line of service is so surface oriented. I'd really
like to hire someone with a bit more depth. I need this."

Believe in yourself. Know that what you have is needed. And
that you must speak about it, so those that need it can
hear you.

Your Call To Action:

1. Get Clear: Where are you currently dis-believing and
dis-counting what you are here to offer?

2. Put in place a daily practice that has you shifting this
energy.

3. Find one way to begin to fuse into your business on a
daily basis the belief that what you offer is needed i.e.
keep a positive evidence journal, use a mantra, challenge
yourself to speak to just one person about your business
from your heart (even if it's the check-out person at the
grocery store!)

----------------------------------------------------
If you're not sure where to start with managing your energy
to shift beliefs to bring in financially booming results.
No worries! Join me for the special 90 MINUTE EnergyRICH
FREE Teleclass we have happening on Wednesday June 18th at
1pm, EASTERN. To register:
http://www.energyrichcoach.com/threesecrets.htm

Coaching Skills Training: Abnormal psychology and cultural differences

Coaching Skills Training: Abnormal psychology and cultural differences
When I train managers as coaches I always warn them to
respect the power of coaching questions and to recognize
the possibility that what starts as an innocuous, business
related conversation, may lead to the unveiling of a deeper
issue. Coaching managers would be advised to develop at
least a little insight into the signs of abnormal
psychology.

In this article we'll consider the significance of culture
within the study of abnormal psychology. Could it be that
the propensity, identification and treatment of mental
disorders could be affected by matters such as race,
religious conviction, etc?

Culture Bias in Diagnosis

Certainly in Britain - where I am based - there are
research statistics showing differences in the prevalence
rates for mental disorders between different ethnic or
cultural groups.

Depression

Whilst common in our own culture, depression appears almost
absent in Asian cultures, although this could be to do with
the actual numbers of reported cases. Recent research
(Rock, 1982) found that Asians tend to consult their
doctors only for physical problems, seeing emotional
distress as something to be sorted out within the family.

The symptoms of depression also vary. Whilst we might
associate depression with feelings of low self-worth and
hopelessness, Nigerians, for example would complain of
burning sensations and bloating of the stomach (Ebigno,
1986).

Schizophrenia

There is some suggestion that British psychiatry is
insensitive to cultural differences. Cochrane and
Sashidharan (1995) found that African-Caribbean immigrants
were up to 7 times more likely than white people to receive
a diagnosis of schizophrenia. This was not found to be the
case in other countries (Cardwell et al, 1996). Also, in a
study by Nazroo (1997) it was found that the rate of
schizophrenia among Caribbean men was found to be no
greater than among white men, although they were five times
more likely to be hospitalized.

Cultural Blindness

Most psychological therapists have been trained in theory
and practice which have North American or Central European
origins. There appears to be a common assumption that the
behaviours of the white population are normative and that
any deviation from this is indicative of racial or cultural
pathology (Cochrane and Sashidharan, 1995).

Although white therapists are reluctant to believe that
they may be racist, there is evidence to suggest that black
people, for example, do not respond well to traditional
methods of psychotherapy (Jones, 1985).

Cross race therapy can be very difficult and ideally
clients should be given the choice to consult a therapist
from their own cultural background if possible.

For me one conclusion to draw from all this is to question
the arrogant Western view of the so-called 'developing'
world. Developing in to what? Prozac munching, overweight
neurotics?

What then of the coaching manager who stumbles upon such
issues when coaching around workload management or time
keeping? Best advice would seem to be to keep to good
coaching principles. Ask questions designed to raise
awareness, generate responsibility and build trust then
listen carefully and attentively to the responses. This is
highly unlikely to make things worse and may actually do
quite a lot of good.

After that, it's a question of referring the coachee to the
relevant professional. For this reason I recommend that all
coaching managers familiarize themselves with their
organization's welfare procedure.

----------------------------------------------------
Matt Somers is a coaching practitioner of many years'
experience. He works with a host of clients in North East
England where his firm is based and throughout the UK and
Europe. Matt understands that people are working with their
true potential locked away. He shows how coaching provides
a simple yet elegant key to this lock. His popular
mini-guide "Coaching for an Easier Life" is available FREE
at http://www.mattsomers.com