Since I happen to be sitting in the middle of the mountains near Estes Park, Colorado as I write this message, it seems very appropriate to make this week’s theme - “Spend a week focused on beauty.”  Today will be the opening act, tomorrow - intermission, and Thursday - the grand finale.  After all, if we are going to focus on beauty let’s cut out all the stuff in the middle and go right for the best parts. 
 
To get you in the groove for this focus on beauty, consider this - for one meal this week - reverse the flow - start with dessert, then as you progress to the entrée if you get filled up just pass on the salad!
 
Really focus on beauty this week and see what it will do for your business life and your personal life!

“There are three things to leave behind - your photographs, your library, and your personal journals.  These things are certainly going to be more valuable to future generations that your furniture.”  - Jim Rohn 
 
Take a Pattern Interrupt From Your Multi-Tasking Focus

In the all out pursuit of growing your business, seeking more customers, streamlining expenses, layering in marketing strategies — let this week be a major pattern interrupt of your focus.  This week, let your sole focus be on beauty!  Look for it at every turn, in every moment, every conversation, every transaction, every encounter, and in every action!
 
What is absolutely beautiful about your business?  Perhaps that you had the courage many years ago to go for it; or that you live in America where starting your own business is a dream easily embarked on; or what about all the moments and memories you have created along the trail; or the great people you have served/hired/done business with; or is it as simple as being able to get up each morning and look at the boss in the mirror?
 
Are your gifts, talents, passion and purpose all in flow together in the pursuit of your business, or your daily life?  If so - that is beauty.
 
Think about the knowledge, talent, and craftsmanship involved in planning, designing and building the roads and bridges you drive on, the building you work in, the electricity, water, cool/heat, and sewer systems you use every day to enhance the comfort of your life.  Beautify!  — Not so sure about this one?  Go to a 3rd world country and re-read this paragraph.
 
What about the beauty of those that believed in you and your dreams, your business, your crazy ideas — maybe more than you believed in them yourself — talk about beauty.
 
What about the natural beauty provided by our Creator - blue sky, sunset, cool breeze, oceans, majestic mountains, brilliant moonlight, sunflowers, hummingbirds — the list of beautiful goes on for ever.  
 
What about the beauty of a new idea, a revelation, a new invention?  What about the beauty of a victory savored, or a defeat that doesn’t stop you?
 
For one week, 7 days, 168 hours, countless moments - focus on beauty - the beauty within you, the beauty within others, and the beauty all around you.  Make this week a treasure hunt for beauty within your business and your life!
 
“The shorter way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.”  - Mozart

DAILY PRAYER  
Lord, thank you for providing beauty all around us.  Help us to notice it more intently, to enjoy it more completely, and to share it more selflessly.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Eat that dessert first!  Interrupt your focus this week to solely be a ‘beauty’ treasure hunter.  Let this week be a celebration and chance to re-position your mindset, attitude and focus forever!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

Fish don’t care how good a fisherman you are,  what great equipment you have, how many years you have been going fishing, or how big a fish you caught last time.  They are only attracted to the right bait — if they are hungry.  When you use the right bait, a hungry fish will respond very quickly!
 
One more thing about fish, if there is a lot of bait in the area, then you need to be using unique, different bait from all the other fisherman that have their rods in the same pond as you.

Just like fish, customers only care about their needs - not yours.  They generally don’t care who you are, what you have, what you can do, how you do it better or how you sell it for less.  They only care about fulfilling a need, feeding a hunger pang — and to do that they are attracted to the right bait.
 
Change Your Thinking - Reframe Your Focus

The first step in changing the direction of your business is to change the way you think.  When you reframe the way you think and shift your focus from telling customers what you have, to instead present something that interests them, then you will be tapping into strategies used by the world’s most successful businesses.
 
To communicate something of value to your potential customers (to entice them with the right bait) you first have to take the time to understand exactly who they are, what they want, and why they want it.  Sometimes, they don’t know they want something until you help them see the unfulfilled need in their life.
 
When you get ahold of the fact that customers only care about what they get, you can become very comfortable in shifting away from talking about you and your company, and instead focus first and foremost on serving the customers’ interests.
 
When you start to do that - an amazing transformation will happen.  Your customers will actually begin to listen, read and pay attention to your message.  Why?  Because it is now all about them and what they want.  This is the point when you really begin to find your branding concept.
   
If you want a quick way to separate yourself from 85% of the competition - get this one right.  The right bait presented to a hungry prospect nearly always causes them to bite!

An Extraordinary Reframing - From Fishing Boat to Floating Fish Factory  
Since we started this message with fish and bait, let’s end it with fishing boats.  Take a look at the three photos below - the one on the left is what you might typically picture when you think of a commercial fishing boat.  The photo in the middle depicts a vessel with more speed, more power, more capacity, more everything — a competitive advantage over the first photo.  However, the photo on the right is an extraordinary reframing - an industry shifting - a competition busting floating fish factory!

A floating fish factory ship, also known as a fish processing vessel, is a large ocean-going vessel with extensive on-board facilities for processing and freezing caught fish.   Not only do they catch much more fish, but while they are still offshore, they are processing all of that fish and packaging it for markets.  They even process the typical waste products from the fish and make it into cat food - on board!  When they dock - the distribution channels and end users can take the product without any further processing or handling.
 
Think about it - they reframed the commercial fishing business from just catching and selling fish - to instead selling finished product.  Wow!  How do you compete with that, even if you have a nice shiny fishing boat like the middle picture?

DAILY PRAYER  
Lord help us reframe our thinking and our focus so we bring a better bait to our fishing endeavors.  Reveal to us the needs and wants of those that we serve.  Help us take bold steps to innovate a floating fish factory in our own industry.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Become fishers of men and women.  Seek the best bait, distinguish your bait from your competition, and stretch your mind to contemplate what a floating fish factory might look like for you, your business and your industry — be a breakthrough seeker!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

Yesterday, I suggested you do some homework - namely, to assess your business from new vantage points.  Those new perspectives or lens you were to view your business through included your prospects, customers, employees, competitors, and vendors/suppliers.
 
If you took that challenge you likely saw some new things, thought of some new ideas, and identified some changes that you need to make.  Today we talk about following through with action to apply the revelations from your new “Vantage Points”.

” We have the power to choose and to exercise that power without giving

control of it to situations.  We cannot change anything but our own perspective and response, yet in that changing we change the world around us by becoming an instrument of insight and awareness.” — Gail Pursell Elliott
 
The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind.”  — William James
 
Use New Vantage Points to Prompt Better Questions

In the
book “Thinkertoys” by Michael Michalko, it is explained that in the 1950s, experts proclaimed the ocean freighter industry was dying.  Costs were skyrocketing and delivery times kept getting pushed back later and later.  Executives at the shipping companies kept focusing on ways to cut costs while ships were sailing. They developed ships that went faster and needed fewer crew members to run.  It didn’t work. Costs continued to spiral out of control and it still took too long to get the merchandise shipped.
Then one day, a consultant changed the perspective. Rather than ask the question: ” In what ways might we make ships more economical while at sea?” executives asked: “In what ways can we reduce costs?”  - Presto, wham-o, change-o - a better question gives a better answer!

Ships are not big money-sucking machines when they are at sea actually doing their job, rather it is when they aren’t working - siting in port being loaded and unloaded that operating costs are huge.
 
So, the industry came up with way to preload merchandise on land. Now a ship comes in, the container carrying the cargo rolls off, a new container already loaded with cargo rolls on, and the ship heads back to sea.  That one innovation saved an entire industry. And it happened because shipping executives changed the way they viewed their problem.
 
So, how can you change your perspective and solve your business/marketing problems?
 
Try doing what the shipping industry did and change the question.  Instead of looking at a narrow part of the problem (”In what ways can we make ships more economical while at sea?”) broaden the question (”In what ways can we reduce costs in general?”)
 
Need a more relevant example for your business — Maybe your question is “how can I obtain  more customers?” What if you started broadening the question like so:
How can I obtain more customers?  becomes 
How can I grow my business? which becomes
How can I make more money from my business in less time?  which becomes
How can I make more money period and work less?  which becomes
How can I be happier in my life?
 
Maybe one of those questions is a better place to look for a solution.  Maybe one of those questions is the “real” question you want to solve, but since you never took a step back to look at the big picture, you’ve never discovered the right question to ask.  And if you don’t ask the right question, you will never come up with an answer that actually solves your real problem.
  
Reframe Your Life  
“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it!”
  — Mother Teresa 

DAILY PRAYER  
Lord let us use new and different vantage points to see new, different and better questions.  Reveal truth’s that we are currently blind to.  Shine Your light on a new direction.  Please provide us with knowledge, wisdom and understanding which helps us find the best questions to ask and answer as we guide our business and lives onward and upward.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Stretch yourself to use the different vantage point insights that came about because you looked at your business through the eyes of your employees, prospects, customers, competitors or vendors.  Seek that different, broader, better question.  A profit soaring breakthrough, a revolutionary change or even an industry saving answer may await you!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

“Vantage Point” is a suspenseful action flick directed by Pete Travis, starring Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, and Forest Whitaker. The plot centers around the attempted assassination of the American President which is told and re-told from different vantage points (i.e. different people, different locations, different mindsets, different agendas, different focus’, etc.).
 
The movie provides some very interesting revelation on how to look at your business differently, and see insights, and breakthroughs for exponential increases in your profits.

” One’s life begins when they are finally able to live for something other than themselves.”  (Albert Einstein)
 
Assess Your Vantage Point
A sure way to a boring - same old thing - photograph is to take a picture from the same point of view that everyone sees as the same scene from day in and day out. For example, imagine you’re walking down your neighborhood sidewalk. If you stop on the sidewalk at any particular point and simply lift your camera up to your eye and snap, the result is something you would see every day. It could be interesting, but the point of view that the photograph was made from definitely works against it.  But kneel down and look for a new vantage point, or how about lying on your stomach and looking around - a whole different view.
 
I often wonder what kids under the age of 9 really experience on a crowded day at an amusement part - say Disneyland.  Think about the fact that their line of sight is at or below the belt line of thousands of park goers - all day long.  Do you suppose their experience of the sights and sounds differs from your adult altitude?
 
From what vantage point do you look at your business?  Are you the founder, have you been living and breathing this business from the time is was a seed of an idea, have you lived through years of good times, and years of bad times, have you hired and fired endless employees over the years, did you start the business when Internet marketing was unheard of?
 
When was the last time you took a really fresh perspective, a real long hard look at your business from a different vantage point?  Have you ever done it?
 
Look for a Fresh Vantage Point
Consider some ways to look at your business in a new, fresh way:
1.  View from your prospects vantage point - your sign, your storefront, your yellow pages ad, your website, the voice on the phone, the first person that greets them - does anybody greet them?
 
2. View from your customers vantage point - how have you recognized them, thanked them, followed up with them, communicated about new products or service to them?
 
3. View from your vendors and suppliers vantage point - do you make it easy to do business with them, how accurate is your paperwork, how quickly do you pay your bills, how do you acknowledge/thank/communicate to them?
 
4. View from your competitors vantage point - how do you threaten them, how do you make their job easy, how often do you change and improve - always looking for the edge.

5. View from your employees vantage point - how enjoyable are you to work for, is your work environment uplifting/safe/comfortable, how often do you praise vs. reprimand, what’s in it for them?
 
So, a suggested homework assignment - take the above five vantage points - and freshly look at your business through the eyes of each of these groups of people.  Then actually ask people in each of those groups what they see, feel, experience with you and your business.  How similar is your view of their vantage point with their actual vantage point.
 
Tomorrow, we will talk about what to do with your new insights and revelations.  Happy Viewing! 

DAILY PRAYER  
Lord let us see Your vantage point, open our eyes and heart to new fresh perspectives, and give us the courage to change.  Show us new truth that we need, help us to see beyond ourselves, and help us live for something beyond ourselves.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Rent and watch the movie Vantage Point - it will stretch your understanding of the impact of seeing what others see.  The experience of the same situation can be drastically different depending on your vantage point.  Learn how to work and strengthen this muscle - it will cause your business to soar!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

My alltime favorite refrigerator magnet says “If Nothing Changes, then Nothing Changes”.  What a great summation of this week’s theme about the importance and power of re-positioning - your expectations, your words, and your actions. 
 
To get a different result in your business and your life requires change.  Today we focus on re-positioning your actions.

“”Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance. The reason is simple: what you don’t do determines what you can do.  Tim Ferriss (Author of “The 4-Hour Workweek)
 
Take Smarter Actions - 10 Critical Focus Areas
The power to change your business and your life rests in your the actions - the ones you take, and the ones you don’t.  If you take SMARTER ACTIONS, you generate more POWERFUL RESULTS.  ThinkTQ - a Colorado based company that is dedicated to helping people learn, remember and master the skills necessary to produce outstanding results - both personally and professionally says that peak performance is determined by your:
1) Physical and mental ENERGY level
2) Sense of purpose and MISSION
3) Identified and written down GOALS
4) PLAN to achieve your goals
5) Unrelenting focus and ability to PRIORITIZE
6) Ability to create powerful team-building SYNERGY
7) Systematic ORGANIZATIONAL skills
8) Ability to OPTIMIZE time
9) Ability to consistently take bold ACTION to break away from the pack
10) Positive ATTITUDE - and not permitting that attitude to go negative

Your Don’t Do List - 9 Habits to Change
Here are nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate as identified by Tim Ferriss - author of “The 4-hour Workweek” (maybe we all ought to pay attention to these - who wouldn’t enjoy a 4-hour workweek). Focus on one or two at a time.
1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers
Let it go to voicemail, and consider using a service like GrandCentral (you can listen to people leaving voicemail) or Simulscribe (receive voicemails as e-mail).
2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night
The former will  tend to mess up your priorities and plans for the day, and the latter just gives you insomnia.
3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time
If the desired outcome is defined clearly with a stated objective and agenda listing topics/questions to cover, no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes. Request them in advance so you can best prepare and make good use of the time together.
4. Do not let people ramble
5. Do not check e-mail constantly — “batch” and check at set times only
6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers
There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone. Do an 80/20 analysis of your customer base in two ways — which 20% are producing 80%+ of my profit, and which 20% are consuming 80%+ of my time?
7. Do not work more to fix overwhelm - instead prioritize
If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important.  The answer to overwhelm is not spinning more plates - or doing more - it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.
8. Do not carry a cellphone or Blackberry 24/7
Take at least one day off of digital leashes per week. Turn them off or, better still, leave them in the garage or in the car. I do this on at least Saturday, and I recommend you leave the phone at home if you go out for dinner. So what if you return a phone call an hour later or the next morning?  News alert - You are not the president of the US. No one should need you at 8pm at night.  So someone doesn’t get a hold of you after hours - what bad happened?” The answer? 95% of the time - absolutely Nothing.
9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should fill
Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn’t be your only friends. Schedule life and defend it just as you would an important business meeting.  Never tell yourself “I’ll just get it done this weekend.”  E-mailing all weekend is no way to spend the little time you have on this planet.

Change your actions as a 3rd key strategy to re-position your business and your life!
 
DAILY PRAYER  
Lord let us heed your Word in James 2:14-26:  What use is it, my brothers, for a man to say he “has faith” if his actions do not correspond with it? Could that sort of faith save anyone’s soul? If a fellow man or woman has no clothes to wear and nothing to eat, and one of you say, “Good luck to you I hope you’ll keep warm and find enough to eat”, and yet give them nothing to meet their physical needs, what on earth is the good of that? Yet that is exactly what a bare faith without a corresponding life is like - useless and dead. If we only “have faith” a man could easily challenge us by saying, “you say that you have faith and I have merely good actions. Well, all you can do is to show me a faith without corresponding actions, but I can show you by my actions that I have faith as well.”  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Stop doing some of the old, change and start doing some new.  Re-position your actions - TODAY!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

The words you speak will either put you over in life or hold you captive.  Many people have been held in bondage in their circumstances by their own words.
 
If you are not happy with the direction of business - check the words that are coming out of your mouth.  Bad results, almost always means bad talk too!  Are you speaking words of worry, anxiety, fear, lack, debt, poverty, defeat?  If so, it is time to change, to be re-postioned!
 
Today we focus on re-positioning your words.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21)
 
Become Word Conscious
The power to change your business and your life rests in your words. Simple statement - but big truth!  A lot is being said about thinking. However, it’s your spoken words that get the desired results.  Words are physical “containers” of your thoughts.
 
It’s important to have your words line up with your thoughts - IF the thoughts are right!  For example, when you feel a cold or the flu coming on, what do you start speaking?  “I feel lousy!  or My head is pounding!  or I just knew I would get sick after hugging Susie - she had the flu!  or “My business is in real trouble!” or I just can never seem to get ahead.”
 
It is a universally proven law that we generally Have what we Say!  If we Say and Believe in our hearts that what we say is coming to pass, then we will Have what we Say!  The Bible powerfully communicates it in Mark 11:23-24 which tells us that whosoever shall SAY unto his mountain, (i.e. any problem, challenge, fear, negative, etc.) to be removed, and does not doubt in his heart, but Believes that what he says will come true, will have whatever he says!

Now, here’s the connection of words to thought. First, you have to make sure that your thought life is on the right path.  Your thoughts and words go hand in hand.  However, it’s not necessarily the thoughts that need to be changed first.
 
Do yourself a favor and accept this challenge: for one week be very attentive and conscious to the words flowing from your mouth.  Especially notice the automatic responses you tend to use without even thinking.  These are strong clues to what’s in your heart and mind!   This is where journaling can be a handy tool. 
 
Write down the expressions and words you use throughout the day - what do you say in high stress situations, what about in casual conversations, what about when thinking about your business?  By writing it down and then reviewing it weekly you will be able to see a pattern emerging.  Once you identify certain expressions, you can then acknowledge what your tendencies are and, therefore, can start to change your habits.
 
Speak it into Existence
Think of the difference in intensity between saying, “I feel like I am wasting my time” and “I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall”.  Invariably we use metaphors without being aware that we are using them or why we select the metaphors we do.  Something within us is picking our language, picking our symbols and communicating in exactly the right imagery for other human beings to ‘get’ what we are saying. Often the only person who is not privy to this communication is us.
 
Some of us ‘feel the weight of the world on our shoulders’ or feel at times that ‘our hands are tied’, some of us ‘work for a complete jerk’, some of us become ‘angry as a polecat’, while others are ‘as sweet as pie’, but possibly ‘bubbling just under the surface’ and ‘ready to blow’ at the ‘drop of a hat’.  We use symbols and symbolic language constantly but are seldom consciously aware of this fact, seldom conscious of how we truly feel.
 
Change your words to change your results; 6 - Steps to Help You Re-Position Your Words!
 
 1) Consider the various business situations you encounter in your daily life.  Determine those that are causing you stress or attracting unwanted results.  Ask yourself: How am I viewing this situation, with empowering or with limiting and/or dis-empowering thoughts? 
2) Replace words that disempower with words that empower.  “Should, must, and have to” become “could, want, and choose to.”
3) Pay attention to the intensity of the words you use. Are they appropriate to the situation?
Calmer words lead to a calmer state of mind, passionate words lead to a more passionate state of mind. Learn to choose the most empowering state of mind for the results you are trying to achieve. 
4) Notice the metaphors you use, they will reveal how you are choosing to approach your business.
5) Journal - write down the words and phrases you are using, the intensity and the metaphors.
6) Ask co-workers/people you trust to give you feedback on the language you use. It’s hard to be objective and often others see the bigger picture.  You can’t see your own blind spots.

Change your words as a second key strategy to re-position your business and your life!

DAILY PRAYER  
We all have treasure in our heart.  Jesus said that a good man will have a good treasure in his heart while an evil man will have an evil treasure. When we speak, we draw on that treasure and reveal to the world what is in us.  James says it this way:  “Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”  
 
Lord, help us speak out of the good treasure in our heart, help us to speak words of life, encouragement, hope, faith, prosperity, uplifitng, love, care, strength, passion, and growth.  Please bring into our lives - the people, circumstances and resources to help us re-position our words which will lead to re-postioning our business and our life.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Study the patterns in your words, think before you speak, transform your vocabulary to words of empowerment.  Re-positioning your words - TODAY!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

This week we will focus on the theme of re-positioning.  If you are not happy with the direction that your business and/or your life is headed then redesign it by re-positioning three key components. Specifically, your expectations, your words and your actions need to change if you desire a new result. 
 
Today we focus on re-positioning your expectations.

“Will Smith has made Hollywood history.  And his personal “magic formula” can accelerate your business growth, and income.  His most recent film, Hancock, brought in $107.3 million in box office receipts in the first week.  This makes him the first actor to star in eight straight movies that brought in over $100 million. 

Simply put, Will Smith is the industry’s most “bankable” man.  How does he do it?       A recent USA Today article reveals his secret:  “I study patterns,” he says. “Nine out of the top 10 biggest movies of all times have special effects; eight out of 10 have creatures in them; seven out of 10 have a love story. So if you want a hit, you might want to throw those in the mix.   I just study patterns and try to stand where lightning strikes.”

Re-Positioning
Dewitt Jones - a freelance photographer for National Geographic has a favorite credo “position yourself in the place of highest potential.”  Do you see a striking similarity with Will Smith’s strategy of studying where lightning strikes and simply move to that location in advance?
 
This sums up the essence of re-positioning.  If your business and/or life are not running as you want, not providing the results you desire, not meeting your expectations, and/or falling short of your hopes and dreams - then you need to re-position yourself in some way.  Simply doing the same things over and over, expecting a different result is madness - I think Albert Einstein was the one that said as much.
 
A critical skill in business is the ability to pause, find a vantage point that allows you to see 360 degrees - behind, ahead, and all around your current location/place.  By temporarily stopping from working in your business, and taking some time to work on your business, important revelations can come forth.
 
In fact, a previous Weekly Trio discussed three keys to creating a new, better result: 1) rest; 2) reflection; and 3) revelation.  This new, better result fits hand in glove with the concept of re-positioning.
 
Re-Position Your Expectations
The first of the applications of re-positioning is relative to your expectations.  During your time of rest/reflection/revelation - ask yourself - what expectations do you have for your business and your life?  Are they aggressive, growth oriented, positive, bold, huge, even scary BIG?
 
What you expect - you tend to get.  So if your results are not what you want, examine your expectations.  Over time, it is easy to let the world wear you down and cause you to lower your expectations, let them turn sour and/or south (neither one is good!).
 
If you are recognizing that the above description identifies current symptoms that you may have, then it is time to do something about it.  Congratulations on a first step of recognition.  Now you need to make some changes.  A good next step is to examine your association and determine if that may be part of the problem.  Hang out with others that have high expectations and you will tend to follow suit.
 
Change your expectations as a key first strategy to re-position your business and your life!

DAILY PRAYER  
The Bible and the Christian walk is all about transforming lives.  To transform or change requires a re-positioning.  Lord, help us follow Your model, Your Word and Your desire for us.  Give us the hunger and courage to truthfully examine where we are, where we need to be, and to raise our expectations, our vision and our dreams.  Bring into our lives, the people, circumstances and resources to help us re-position our business and our life.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Study the patterns in your industry - look for the lightning.  Find the location of highest potential - then get about moving that way.  Start by re-positioning your expectations!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

“Change your whole way of thinking, because the new order of the spirit is confronting and challenging you.”   (Millard Fuller, President of Habitat for Humanity).

This is a time, which calls for a critical mass of transformational leaders who will commit to creating a synergy of energy within their circle of influence so new levels of social, economic, organizational and spiritual success can be reached.  
(Erik Rees, Saddleback Church)
 
Rebuild the Broken Walls of Your City
Small businesses in the U.S. (defined by the Small Business Administration as any business with fewer than 500 employees) make up over 97% of all businesses in any given city or community.  Did you get that  - 97% -
 
Together, 97% of anything makes a dominant force.  Think of the potential of all small businesses banding together to help one another, to lift up the entire state of the economy in a city, to transform a city!
 
On the flip side, separately a small business has little power, clout, influence, or leveraging making opportunities to affect much change anywhere.
 
So my challenge to you - get a heart to change your city.  Change your identity, consider yourself as part of the marketplace transformation team. 
 
> What if you were to catch a vision to be part of the city’s small business marketplace (even though you had a single business that you own/run);
> What if you catch a vision of being on the city’s healthcare team responsible for the health and welfare of the entire city;
> What if your vision was to be a pastor for the entire city (even though you had a local venue where you led a specific congregation);
> What if you fully embraced your role of neighbor and citizen (looking beyond your fence line);
 
Just taking the concept embracing the vision of being part of the greater team of small businesses serving the city at the level of living to serve - what power could you wield to impact the whole city for good.  Think of the possibilities if you pooled resources together to help fund each other’s startups or expansions, or created a buying club to drive down costs of insurance, supplies, everything!
 
There is a better way to survive and thrive - but it is together not apart.
 
Principles of Transformational Leadership to Bring Together City Changers
Rick Warren has developed the following 7-principles of transformational leadership to create a synergy of energy within a community.  Much good stuff to consider in applying to creating a team of small businesses to change your city.
 
1. Principle of Simplification - Successful leadership begins with a vision, which reflects the shared purpose. The ability to articulate a clear, practical, transformational vision which answers the question, ‘Where are we headed?’”

2. Principle of Motivation - The ability to gain the agreement and commitment of other people to the vision. … A common way to motivate others is to challenge them, and to provide ample opportunity to join the creative process.

3. Principle of Facilitation - The ability to effectively facilitate the learning of individuals, teams. Peter Senge in Fifth Discipline says the primary job of leadership now is to facilitate the learning of others.”

4. Principle of Innovation  - The ability to boldly initiate prayerful change when needed. Team members successfully influence one another to assimilate change because the transformational leaders have built trust and fostered teamwork.”

5. Principle of Mobilization - The ability to enlist, equip and empower others to fulfill the vision. Transformational leaders desire leadership at all levels, so they find ways to invite and ignite leadership all levels.

6. Principle of Preparation - The ability to never stop learning about themselves.  It has often been said that ‘Leaders are learners.’  

7. Principle of Determination - The ability to finish the race. …  Transformational leaders have to develop spiritual, emotional, and physical disciplines to sustain their high level of commitment to their cause.
 
Back to Nehemiah’s Wall Building
Two pieces of information changed the course of Nehemiah’s life that resulted in the transformation of a community.  In Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah learned that 1) the walls and gates of Jerusalem were broken down; and 2) her people were in great distress.  These two pieces of accurate information were catalytic to Nehemiah’s prayers and plans to restore a broken wall and a broken people.  His burden to transform the city came from accurate information.  We too need correct information about the real needs of our community as well as the resources we have to meet these needs. 
 
In assessing community needs we need to identify the people in need (poor, disadvantaged, children, elderly, single parents, disabled, prisoners, sick, aliens, etc) along with the type of needs they have (physical, spiritual / moral, social, emotional or cognitive).  Most information is readily available through local human service agencies and the census bureau.  Together, these two research pieces give us a picture of our “mission field” and our “mission force.”  Armed with accurate information, we can determine best how to go forward.  

DAILY PRAYER  
“As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it (Luke 19:41).  Father, you desire us to impact the world through changing the lives of individuals locally, regionally and internationally.  Help us to catch a heart and vision to change our city by teaming together with others in the marketplace, government, education, media and church.  Together we can live to serve and transform our city.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
TEAM - Together Everyone Achieves More!
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

Currently, businesses with fewer than 10 employees, account for 70% of the private sector employers in the United States.  Small business, defined in the U.S. as companies with less than 500 employees, create 75% of the net new jobs in the U.S. economy.  Small business represents 97% of all the exporters of goods, and incredibly represents 99% of all employer firms. 
 
Small business provides 55% of all innovations and about 14 times the number of patents per employee than large patenting companies.  Small businesses are experimenters and explorers in the United States economy.  Remember it was Stephen K. Jobs, who by tinkering in his garage, created the Macintosh, which sparked home computing and empowered the masses.  Fred Smith created Federal Express.  These guys were entrepreneurs.  They started small, but went on to change our lives.
 
Every day, over 2400 hundred Americans decide to go into business for themselves, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  In a 2007 article in Fortune Small Business, it was reported that we are in the midst of the largest entrepreneurial surge this country has ever seen.  According to Small Business Administration projections, nearly 672,000 new companies with employees were created in 2007. That is the biggest business birthrate in U.S. history: 30,000 more startups than in 2006 and 12% more than at the height of dot-com hysteria in 1996.  That’s almost 700,000 businesses per year with employees. Factor in solo entrepreneurs, and you have between 12 million to 35 million more, according to various estimates. 
 
Rebuild the Broken Walls of Your Business - Why Service Matters

The success of your business rides on the wings of your customer service. Deliver more service than your customers expect, and your business will soar. Deliver less, and profits will plummet.  Unfortunately, with the 671,800 new businesses started in the US in 2007, at the same time there were 544,800 business closures.

“In today’s hyper-competitive market, the ability to identify and satisfy customer needs isn’t the key to success-it’s the key to survival,” says Chris Bogan, CEO of Best Practices, LLC.

Great customer service translates into customer loyalty. And loyalty boosts your bottom line. It’s simple: Loyal customers buy more.

Loyal customers make bigger purchases. They purchase more often. They’re less price sensitive. Loyal customers form the foundation of your small business-whether you sell products, services or both.

“At a time when customer relationships are of utmost strategic importance for service providers, customer retention is crucial, ” says Abby Pinard, vice president of marketing services at Mobius Management Systems. “And good customer service is an effective way to stem the loss of customers. The bottom line is that good customer service isn’t only about customer retention; it’s about expanding the customer relationship.”

Loyal customers help your company grow because they refer others to your business. And word-of-mouth advertising is gold to small businesses.
 
The Nation’s Leading Resource for Small Business
The National Association for Self-Employed (NASE) was founded in 1981 to provide day-to-day support, benefits and consolidated buying power that traditionally had been available only to large corporations. Today, the NASE represents over 250,000 entrepreneurs and small/micro-businesses, and is the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan association of its kind in the United States.   NASE has been an important partner in the explosion of micro-businesses in the United States, supporting the interests of the self-employed with benefits and advocacy initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field between these businesses and larger corporations.  If you or someone you know owns a small business checkout www.nase.org. 
 
> The survival and thriving profitability of small business is critical to us all;
> It is the responsibility of us all;
> It is a wall that we all need to help ensure gets rebuilt!

DAILY PRAYER  
Father, the walls of our community are largely made up of small businesses.  Much damage and disrepair exists there.  We seek your help, your blessing, your supernatural guidance to repair and rebuild these walls.  Help us to accept joint responsibility for the welfare of our small businesses, they directly impact the welfare of our community, which impacts the welfare of every citizen.  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Small Business health and welfare is every ones responsibility.  At the heart of health for a small business is service. If you are a business owner - make extreme service your mission. 
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis

Key to success in business and life, for that matter, is based on what level of service you are prepared to give to others, and what is your motive in rendering that service. 
 
How you motivate yourself to perform that service is important too, but it is a different issue that your motive.

Three Levels of Service
When it comes to providing service, it seems that there are three levels that describe most everyone’s approach and motive.  First, there is the level of “serving to live”.  This level is describing a situation where you are required to provide service as part of what you do.  For example your job or business depends on you serving in some way, so you associate your livelihood (paycheck or profit) as directly tied to meeting your obligation of providing some minimum level of service.
 
The second level of serving is “serving to serve”.  In this level your motive, your heart is driven by the desire to serve.  You enjoy it, you are satisfied by the act of service on its own merit (compensation is nice, but not necessary for you to serve).  However, your service here is still largely in response to a demand that exists, to a requirement that someone puts upon you.  You are largely re-active to a need placed upon you, or before you.  Your heart motive is more true in this 2nd level as compared to the 1st level, but you are re-active not pro-active.
 
The third level of serving is “living to serve”.  This level is where your personal purpose includes a component that says you must serve just as much as you must eat or breathe.  In fact, you are on the lookout of where and how to serve before a need even arises.  You are pro-active in your approach of serving.  This third level is a discriminating level of service that few people operate at. 
 
The law of sowing and reaping will ensure that operating at level three will mean you are rewarded in a significant way - as long as you are willing for the timing and method of that compensation/blessing to not be controlled by you!
 
Advice for today - honestly assess what level of service you personally are operating at now.  Check your motive.  What about key employees in your organization - what level are they at, what motive do they have?  What impact would level three service by you and other key players in your organization have on your approach, your bottom-line, your purpose, your personal fulfillment?
 
Changing your motive, changing your level of service - will yield a better future.
 
The Best is Yet to Come - So Keep Your Fork!
There was a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. As she was getting her things “in order,” she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. One of her requests was to be buried with her favorite Bible.
 
Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. “There’s one more thing,” she said excitedly. “What’s that?” came the pastor’s reply. “This is very important,” the woman continued.. “I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.” The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say. “That surprises you, doesn’t it?” the woman asked. 
 
“Well, to be honest, I’m puzzled by the request,” said the pastor. 
 
The woman explained. “In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say,”keep your fork.” It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming, like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. Something wonderful, and with substance! So, I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder ‘What’s with the fork?’ Then I want you to tell them: “Keep Your Fork. The best is yet to come”
 
The pastor’s eyes welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that the woman had a better grasp of heaven than he did. She KNEW that something better was coming.
 
At the funeral people were walking by the woman’s casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the pastor heard the question “What’s with the fork?” And over and over he smiled. 
 
During his message, the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either.
 
He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you oh so gently, that the best is yet to come.  

DAILY PRAYER  
Father, help us to check our motive, our heart.  Let us move to level three in service.  Let us be guided by Romans 12:10-11 which says “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”  In Jesus name, Amen.
 
Ratchet up your level of service, your motive for service.  The ultimate rewards will be exponential.
 
Grace and peace multiplied to you.

ShareThis