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Bill Bachrach: Drop Me Anywhere? | |
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What is Drop Me Anywhere? Drop Me Anywhere is an attitude. It's a way of being. It's a skill. It's confidence. It's not arrogance or cockiness. It's relaxed. It's comfortable. People are attracted to people who are drop-me-anywhere good. A person who can be dropped anywhere is a person who knows, that with very little money in their pocket, they can be 'dropped' in a town where they don't know anyone and they will figure out how to add value to the people in that community in a way that makes them money. And it won't take long. Would you like to be drop-me-anywhere good? How would being drop-me-anywhere good impact your life, personally and professionally? What does it take to be drop-me-anywhere good? First, you need a product or service that helps people. It should be something that a fair number of people in any community, in any economy would be able to afford and find valuable. Once you have such a product or service you will need the ability to strike up a conversation with just about anyone you meet in just about any situation. These are called people skills. A key people skill is the ability to ask questions during a relaxed a conversation at a social or business function to determine if your product or service would be valuable for the person you are speaking with. You will make a friend, develop a prospect, or both. If true value exists, your ability to make the connection between the value of your product or service and something the person you are speaking with cares about will be vital. Once you have helped the person with whom you are speaking discover that you can add value to their life, you will need to be effective at making an offer or proposing a next step. You'll be more successful if your next-step initial offer does not cost anything. An initial consultation or quality experience of some kind works great as the logical next step to exploring if and how you might help this person. During the step where you create a good experience for your potential customer or client, you will have to have the ability to monetize the relationship. All this means is that there comes a natural point in the relationship where it's appropriate for them to begin paying you for the value you deliver. You will want to be very good at explaining how much it costs, what they get, and how the value to them easily exceeds the cost. Last, but not least, you must deliver what you promise on time. By delivering the value you promise in a timely manner you are establishing the good reputation that will make you a long-term and welcome member of your new community. It's also your ticket to getting referrals and being warmly introduced to your customers' or clients' friends, families, and colleagues. A person with drop-me-anywhere abilities does not leave referrals and these introductions to chance. They are effective at asking for referrals and facilitating a warm introduction. As a person with drop-me-anywhere skills, you will get hired often enough to make enough money to cover your basic expenses, soon, thereafter, you will be making enough money to live a very comfortable life, and soon after that you will be making enough money to achieve all of your goals and fulfill your values. Question: What's a great drop-me-anywhere business that requires no capital to get started, helps people, and pays well? Answer: Financial Services. Make a commitment to be drop-me-anywhere good. You're already in the perfect business. Happy Holidays , ________________________________________ |
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Anne Bachrach: The Value of an Accountability Coach | |
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"If you can dream it, you can do it." It is estimated that up to ninety percent of our behavior is habitual. That means that up to ninety percent of what you do, you do the same day in and day out; often without conscious thought. This may not seem like a concern, until you consider what percentage of your behavior is sabotaging your success. While you may be aware of some of your bad habits, it takes the guidance of an accountability coach to identify and bring awareness to all of the habits that are confining you to your current reality. Most of us have a list of bad habits we keep telling ourselves we will change, but never follow through on making them. Think about all the New Year's resolutions that never happened. That's easy to do when you have no one to hold you accountable for the things you say you are going to do or would like to do. Would you be more apt to make the commitment to change bad habits if someone was holding you accountable? It's not exactly comfortable to try to make excuses to someone else and you are more likely to follow through on things you say you’re going to do when you are held accountable for your actions, or lack thereof. This is the idea behind an accountability coach. Wouldn't it be great if our good intentions worked the way that we think they should? Not even enthusiasm guarantees positive results. There's often a wide gap between our intentions and our actions. Poor follow through is a fact of life for many of us. It not only threatens our health, but it also prevents us from achieving personal, financial, and career goals that are well within our reach. Good intentions don't magically lead to good results. They are a start, but you must have the motivation to take action. Desire is unfortunately not enough and this is just the truth! We fail to take the action necessary to be in alignment with our good intentions; and while we might be frustrated, we somehow never change the negative habits. We stay in the same place, repeating the bad habits that cause us endless frustration. An Accountability Coach will hold you accountable to follow through with your good intentions and call you on it when you don't. If this happens to you, it will not feel good and you'll learn to just do what you need to do to avoid that uncomfortable 'in your face' feeling of accountability. In order to get what you don't have, you have to learn to break the habits that got you where you are now. An Accountability Coach will help you get creative and try new strategies to move to your next level. With the expertise, objectivity, creativity and insight of an Accountability Coach, you will accomplish what you used to only intend to accomplish. An Accountability Coach will help you identify the habits and thoughts that are sabotaging your success and hold you accountable for replacing the habits and thoughts that are producing your current results with improved habits that increase your level of success. None of us is perfect and each of us has bad habits and thoughts that are limiting our success. The longer we wait to change bad habits and thoughts, the longer we will continue to produce our current reality. To change your environment, you must change your habits and thoughts. It's like changing from the old vinyl album record to a new audio CD. While anyone can act as your pseudo-accountability coach, even a friend, family member or co-worker, only a professional accountability coach can offer proven strategies to increase your level of success. Friends, family members and co-workers can offer valuable feedback on their observations, but not much in the way of professional guidance. Besides, it's difficult to really take advice to heart from our friends, family or co-workers. Sometimes the people closest to us are the ones to whom we are most resistant. This process is amazingly powerful and produces great results. When you are held responsible for explaining why you didn't complete a task, this can be a very effective motivator. It doesn't feel good to make excuses- least of all to your accountability coach. While there might be very valid reasons why a task wasn't complete, these are usually rare. My personal motto is, excuses don't count unless you are dead. This may sound a bit harsh, but the point is to break the habit of making excuses. You either did it or you didn't. Why waste time with excuses? Even if you still have a tendency to procrastinate task completion until the last day, you had better bet your Thursdays will be highly productive days if your accountability session is on a Friday. While your coach will encourage you to take daily action to avoid procrastination, one highly productive day is still better than no productive days. When you have to answer to an accountability coach, you will improve your commitment, focus, follow-through, and productivity. Additionally, having an accountability coach will increase your confidence and develop successful habits. You will also see a reduction in procrastination because you will have deadlines to complete your goals, or be held accountable for their non-completion. "The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him - and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires." --J. Paul Getty Enjoy your holiday season! Anne M. Bachrach. All rights reserved. Anne M. Bachrach is the author of the book, Excuses Don't Count; Results Rule!, and her newest book Live Your Life with No Regrets; How the Choices we Make Impact Our Lives will soon be available. She has 23 years of experience training and coaching. Anne helps financial professionals keep and get more clients while maintaining balance in their life. Through her proven systems, she inspires Advisors to stay focused and take action on the highest payoff activities that lead to their ultimate professional and personal success. Take advantage of the many complimentary resources on her website (www.AccountabilityCoach.com) and subscribe to her blog (www.AccountabilityCoachBlog.com). ________________________________________________________________________ |
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Mark McKenna Little: The Dry-run Prep Meeting™ | |
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Once your Deliverables Team begins crunching numbers and putting reports in front of you at the Dry-run Prep Meeting, in preparation for a client's upcoming progress meeting, it is easy to get 'lost in the numbers' and lose sight of the client and the big issues standing in the way of actualizing their Financial Road Map®. Highly skilled Subject Matter Experts such as financial planners, tax experts and estate planning attorneys tend to be very technical people who are focused upon complex planning issues that, if you aren't careful, might lead to conversations so 'deep in the weeds' that you completely forget about the tree (the client's goal) and the forest (the client's Financial Road Map®). So what are the big objectives of the Dry-run Prep Meeting? How do you, as the Trusted Advisor, align these outcomes with a Deliverables Team Member's need to contemplate the complex details? How do we keep an awareness of the client's Financial Road Map® (big picture) without being drawn too far into the details at these prep meetings; how do we avoid stomping on ants while the elephants run by? The key is to remain focused upon the big objectives of this meeting and the best outcomes. The big objectives of The Dry-run Prep Meeting™ are for the advisor to:
The Best Outcome for the Dry-run Prep Meeting Tension can exist between Deliverables Team Members, who are trying to juggle all the elements required to deliver on these big objectives of the Dry-run Prep Meeting, and the Trusted Advisor, who is focused entirely on the best outcome. Countdown To The Client Progress Meeting (CPM) Here is a Client Progress Meeting (CPM) time-line which has worked well for others. You might find it helpful as a baseline for a discussion with your team regarding how to accomplish all the objectives and achieve the best outcome for the Dry-run Prep Meeting:
While the Deliverables Team Round-table and the Dry-run Prep Meeting prior to the FRM Update™ require all of the Deliverables Team Members' attendance, there are some Deliverables Team Members who should attend The Dry-run Prep Meeting for the Comprehensive Safety Review and the Goal Progress Outlook meetings. Remember that, for the two Dry-run Prep Meetings, only those Subject Matter Experts who are necessary to back up and defend every recommendation, report and number in the meeting prep packet are required to attend. Imagine how valuable every client progress meeting will be as you walk in with every item of meeting-prep accurate and in your possession. You will also have a crystal clear game plan of the conversation necessary to get, or keep, each client's financial house in perfect order and on-track to actualizing their Financial Road Map™. _________________________ __________ |
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Tom Voccola: Are these 21 Limiting Business Beliefs Holding You Back? | |
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One of the important exercises we take our clients through is uncovering the limiting beliefs that hold them back. There are literally hundreds of limiting beliefs, but each person and organization has their own unique set. You might ponder a few of these to see if you have them on your personal list or if they're alive and well in your company. We call them limiting beliefs because they limit personal and organizational performance by sucking the energy out of people. For example, if we believe that fire-fighting is normal, we never do anything to put an end to it. We just work harder, faster and longer. This may be seen as heroic, but in fact, it just takes us away from building the company.
2. People don't care 3. Working more hours will make a difference 4. Empowerment is the same as delegation, but with more rope 5. Managing is the same as leading 6. Bad communication is just the way things are 7. Being an entrepreneur or business owner makes you a CEO 8. The boss knows best 9. People just want to be told what to do 10. People don't change 11. Training is the same as transformation 12. Other CEOs know more than you do about your company 13. Emotions have no place in business 14. The client is more important than your people 15. The client knows what they want 16. Leadership always knows what to do 17. Business is separate from one's personal life 18. Performance and behavior can be managed 19. While business is about people, working with people and doing stuff for people; the stuff is more important than the people 20. Profit is the main reason for a business 21. Education and past experience matter more than personality Limiting beliefs in an organization are invisible,
destructive and persistent. They keep us disengaged. And the
interesting thing is, the person or situation that caused
the belief to begin with can be long gone, but the belief
will live on until called into question. If you find you
subscribe to some of these limiting beliefs, that's actually
great. Awareness is the first step toward letting go of
what no longer serves you. Now, let's take this to the next
level; how many limiting beliefs do you have about yourself,
your family and your clients? How are those limiting beliefs
holding you back? Entrepreneur, speaker, author and CEO
Guide, Tom Voccola is the CEO of CEO2, a Chief Executive Consulting Firm
specializing in the rapid transformation of corporate and organizational
cultures. Tom is the co-founder and past Chairman of the Los Angeles area CEO
Round Table for the American Electronics Association, and the author of The
Accidental CEO – A Leader’s Journey from Ego to Purpose. His life's work is
to inspire a new generation of leaders who transcend ego and its fear based
agenda. His work gives executives immediate and authentic access to new levels
of power, influence and freedom within their organizations. |
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