Small Business Leadership and Sales Blog

Hello Marvelous People!!

This short blog can pack a huge punch when you work through the following 3 questions. (If you are not the business owner then I strongly encourage you to still work through these 3 questions and you will be able to offer valuable insights to your employer. After all, you are all on the same team, so let's pull hard in the SAME direction)

If you are experiencing frustration in your business model chances are its time to re-evaluate how you are spending your time in these 3 areas.

Grab your notebook, or your iPad and either brainstorm alone or with your team members on how you can work SMARTER by utilizing these 3 questions.

Question #1. How much time do you spend weekly working IN your business?

Question #2. How much time do you spend weekly working ON your business?

Question #3 How much time do spend weekly working on RECRUITING and INTERVIEWING high energy talent?

Your Best Client Management Tool

As a seller of products, services, ideas, and value - your clients need you to be more than a peddler. They need you to be more than a partner. They need you to be a trusted advisor in every sense of that term. Someone they can turn to for advice, insights, guidance, and structure. And perhaps even someone to hold them accountable to themselves.

The best way you can do that is also one of the simplest ways: Give your clients deadlines.

There are 4 primary benefits to starting this habit with your current clients, new clients, and even your prospects (your clients-to-be):

1. They will see you are serious and intentional with your actions.
2. They will better perceive you as the professional you are
3. Although rarely will they make their appointed deadlines, they'll appreciate your concern for their progress
4. They want to see that you provide not only the content but also the structure for their success

Let's spend a moment on each one of these benefits.

1. They will see you are serious and intentional with your actions. A deadline conveys a commitment. A commitment conveys caring. And one sales truth that has stood the test of time is "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." A deadline shows your dedication to getting things done for your client and making things happen. At the end of the day, THAT is what they're paying you for.

2. They will better perceive you as the professional you are. Amateurs don't care when things get done. Now. Later. Tomorrow. Next week. Doesn't matter. Professionals care a great deal. Amateurs take their time. Professionals know that speed costs - and that solving problems FAST is worth a lot more than solving problems slowly. Or not at all. Step up to the big leagues by showing your client your true professionalism by putting deadlines in front of them to motivate action, outcomes, and results.

3.  Although rarely will they make their appointed deadlines, they'll appreciate your concern for their progress. Nobody likes a taskmaster. Everyone loves an encourager. Yes, your clients will miss deadlines. But they would miss a whole lot more of them if you didn't have deadlines to shoot for! When clients miss a deadline, don't beat them up about it - that's not the point. The point is that you're there to coach them through to success - one deadline at a time.

4. They want to see that you provide not only the content but also the structure for their success. If you sell insurance, insurance is not your product. If you sell paper, paper supplies are not your product. If you sell engineering, engineering services are not your product. We sell the results (both tangible and intangible) of what our products and services do. No deadlines, no action. No structure for action, no results.

So deadlines are not calendar devices - they are results devices. Deadlines and milestones (even highly adjustable ones) make sure your client crosses the finish line over into results. And the sooner they do - and the more you help them get there - the more you'll earn their business, their referrals, and their trust.

Give your clients deadlines, people - and make Marvelous happen!

In small business and in life, I have found that we go through three phases of attitude. * The first is excitement. The second is frustration, and the third is recommitment. During and after Hurricane Katrina, all of New Orleans sank deeply into the frustration phase, myself included. There are six sub-phases of frustration that everyone in my business and personal life were experiencing:

1. Shock
2. Denial
3. Fear
4. Anger
5. Justification
6. Acceptance

1. Shock is the first sub-phase of frustration. You are going to be shocked at the realization that it’s possible you’re going to be hit with another hurricane. Intellectually, you know good and well that the possibility exists, but when you see that icon again, you’re still going to be shocked. It’s amazing how many people live with the mentality of “that could never happen to me” even when it HAS happened to them before. It is easier to not focus on the adversity which is why you are shocked when the hurricane hits.Today’s article will focus on the first three sub-phases, shock, denial and fear.

2. Denial comes next. You deny that the weatherman could possibly be correct. What are the chances we’ll have another Betsy or another Katrina? This may sound humorous, but there are people who have lost everything and still believe that New Orleans and the surrounding areas will be spared in a future hurricane. I find that absolutely amazing. Never having another Category Five hurricane hitting New Orleans not only defies my logic, it defies all science.

3. Fear is the third sub-phase of frustration. You say, “My goodness, what if this weatherman is telling the truth? What if we really are going to stay in the funnel and get hit?” Fear is not something anyone likes to feel or even admit to feeling. If you are fearful, sometimes you revert back to “denial” in an effort to hide your fear.

Regardless of the stage of attitude you are at it is imperative to remember these three things:
• Don’t play the victim.
• Don’t play the blame game.
• Own it!

If you are reading this blog and were not involved in Hurricane Katrina can you think back in your life and determine what your “Katrina” moment was? How did you respond? If it was a defining moment for you as Katrina was for me, it is probably something you carry with you each and every day.

Learning to channel your energy after adversity is a gift and takes work.
I love helping people see the good, find motivation and be successful in business and in life! Join me for a and let’s make Marvelous happen in your life!

Peace, Love and Gumbo! 
Marvin LeBlanc LUTCF CNP

* Content adopted from Jim Winner author of Split Second Choice, the power of Attitude. 

PICTURE WITH ME 2 men in a Brutal Fist Fight
1 Man Down- almost laying Motionless

I now ask u - IS THE FIGHT OVER?
WHAT WOULD BE YOUR REPLY?

ANSWER:  It's only over if the man on the ground refuses to GET UP!

Marvelous people.  Memorize this -  DEFEAT IS A TEMPORARY CONDITION!

The definition of defeat is the failure to win.  If we allow defeat to keep us down in life we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to rise above adversity.  Life is full of challenges, each and every day you have battles.  The only time a fight is really over is when the opponent doesn't get up. Think about boxing, when one of the boxers is down, hurting, bleeding and suffering the match is not over unless he refuses to get back up.

The same goes for you in business and in life.  As long as you keep getting up, day after day, you are winning the battle.  Are some battles harder to overcome and get up from?  Of course but the more you practice, the more you make persistency a permanent mind-set the more successful you will be. 

Marvelous people remember this: Defeat is temporary, persistency should be permanent!

Possessing PERSISTENCY IS what needs to be Permanent. In your Being.

REMEMBER- No one can follow you if you continue to lay down!

For more exciting ideas on developing PERSISTENCY and overcoming defeat Grab a copy of my book "Come Hell or High Water" 

Are there days in your life that happened many years ago that you can vividly still recall? You can feel the wind, the warmth of the day, the smells, the colors. You can remember what clothes you had on. You can remember who was with you.

Well, our most memorable days are usually our most emotional ones. During those days, we were challenged or provoked, positively or negatively.

And so it was on that March day in 1992 that I was experiencing one of "those days" on the golf course. It was a Friday and I was hopeful that I would have a quality round of golf before heading in for a nice meal around 6pm and then relax for the night. But it just wasn't to be.

For you see on that day I was experiencing the repetitive misfortune of hitting my golf ball either in fairway sand bunkers or green side bunkers. As I recall, on the 18 holes I played that day (if you wanna call it that), I "succeeded" in landing in 16 bunkers. Well you would think that's what really got me riled up. Oh no! Not so. What really got me riled up is that I LACKED THE SKILL to get out of those sand bunkers.

So there I was. For 4 and half hours, seemingly living in the sandpit of hell. I was miserable. I was embarrassed. It was humid, i was hot. I was full of gritty sand, seemingly lodged in undiscovered body crevaces. I lost every bet to every person I was playing against that day. And by the 18th hole, after paying off all my losses and not taking it out on my playing partners, I walked to the corner of the driving range where the practice bunker awaited the arrival of my sorry ass. Beleagured and beaten. The sand had won.

Folks, it was there that I "lost it". Yep I "boiled over", got "pissed off" or as we say down in South Louisiana, I caught the "red ass".

I proceeded to have a nice long, enthusiastic talk with myself and decided in that fury of self dialogue that I was not going home until I learned how to hit a shot out of the sand bunker.
So I called my wife and told her my plan. "I am dropping 500 golf balls into the practice sand bunker and I'm gonna hit every darn one of them". It was a short conversation as you might expect.

So I rounded up 500 balls and began to: PRACTICE!

LESSON: Are you mature enough to accept the fact that there are AREAS that you LACK SKILL? Many people get stuck on stupid in this key stage. Why? Because they live in a state on constant DENIAL. I had to be honest with myself and admit that I HAVE A PROBLEM AND THAT YOU CAN'T FIX IT FOR ME.

I headed into the sand bunker with hundreds of balls and started practicing. Early on, I m not gonna lie to you. I was 8 still working to get the anger and frustration out of my being. Balls went everywhere. Then a small discovery was made. Swing harder and swing THROUGH the sand, not AT the sand.

My backswing in the sand became more relaxed. The next 200-300 balls were still not landing with any reasonable pattern or control, but the balls were successfully leaving the sand.
Sidenote: Leaders are sometimes way too impatient because they are expecting immediate complete results.

The practice bunker taught me to EMBRACE SMALL INCREMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS because they always precede the BIG RESULT you ultimately are seeking. 

I seem to recall taking a break and grabbing a swig of water after pounding at about 300 balls. The transformation of my bunker skills had begun. Right now, I can remember re-entering that bunker with a sense of calmness that I had never had before. I had FACED MY FEAR head on and it was working. But not without MASSIVE ACTION.  (Did you catch that last line. Go back and read it again. Slowly.)
During the last leg of hitting the final 200 balls, I began to fine tune the more intricate details of bunker play. Things like "feeling" the back swing and "visualizing" what type of swing is needed to propel the ball into the air at the right distance. Other things like hitting out of a thin bunker lie (a bunker shot has very little sand at the base of the ball) or a fluffy lie (- bunker shot that has far too much sand all around it making the shot very unpredictable upon its exit.) 

So here's what happened. After crawling out that practice bunker, 500 balls later I was exhausted - spent. I was also happy, fulfilled and excited about "tomorrow on the course". 

My time would come that I would master bunker play in the heat of competitive rounds, but it would have to be delayed.
Because you see, while in my "trance-like" practice, I created blisters and both hands were bleeding and beginning to swell.

LESSON: Sometimes you have to push yourself to the brink before you can truly realize your potential.

LESSON: Far better it is to spend time in recuperation knowing that it was time well spent in the attainment of better skills.

So here's our lessons to reflect on.
LESSON #1: Are you mature enough to accept the fact that there are AREAS that you LACK SKILL?

LESSON #2: Sometimes you have to push yourself to the brink before you can truly realize your potential.

LESSON #3: Far better it is to spend time in recuperation knowing that it was time well spent in the attainment of better skills.

Develop the Ability to recognize that you lack a certain Skill(s)

• Embrace your issues of Denial

• PRACTICE!

• If YOU have a problem then it is YOUR Problem to FIX!

• Embrace Small incremental improvements.

• Face your Fear then conquer it with Massive Action

• Sometimes you have to push yourself to the brink before you can realize your true potential

• Far better it is to spend time in recuperation, knowing that it was time well spent in the pursuit of better skills or a worthy goal.

Use this article in an "alone" session. And yes, you should have a meditative "alone" session at least once a week. No kids, no spouse, no distractions, no phones, no co-worker, usually inspired by or in nature.

Find your quiet place and set an appointment to re-find that place at regular intervals. The process will invigorate you in ways beyond your imagination. Try it and drop me a line about your experience at Marvin@MarvinLeBlanc

Hello Marvelous People:

Let’s keep in mind that while “Thanksgiving” may be celebrated at a certain time of the year – the attitude of gratitude is worth living and practicing all the days of our lives.

May you enjoy Ana Dutra’s article & share it with all your friends, neighbors, co-workers & relatives.

Peace, Love and Gratitude to you & yours!

Marvin LeBlanc

Thanksgiving, giving thanks, appreciating, being grateful… a colleague asked me recently if I thought there was any connection between gratitude and performance. Yes, I answered, there is a clear connection. At the most basic level, when people feel truly appreciated for their contributions, results and actions, they give their best, they give it their all. Taking this a level deeper, demonstrations of gratitude are energizing for the recipient and fulfilling for the giver.

When people feel truly appreciated for their contributions, results and actions, they give their best, and higher levels of performance are unleashed.

Imagine a culture where people feel comfortable and compelled to express gratitude not only for all the good things employees, colleagues, peers and bosses do but also for who they are. As people receive and give grateful feed-back, positive energy is created throughout the organization and, as everybody strives to do their very best, excellence and higher levels of performance are unleashed.

The role of leaders in creating such a culture is fundamental. It takes self-confidence, humility and awareness — of self and others — to articulate appreciation for others. It takes believing and understanding that people perform at higher levels when they feel appreciated. Yet, gratitude is appreciation at a deeper level. It is less about what people do and more about who they are and the roles they play in the organization. The impact of gratitude on the leader and on others around him/her can be extraordinary.

In some Eastern philosophies where pause and reflection are daily practices, practitioners are invited to acknowledge and express gratitude for things and people that, otherwise, would be taken for granted. As people express gratitude, not only do they benefit from the recognition of something or somebody that makes a positive difference in their lives but so do the recipients of the grateful feelings. As leaders express gratitude for their teams, for their clients, for the organization they lead, the appreciation spreads way above and beyond their inner circle.

Gratitude has to be authentic and heartfelt in order to be impactful. It can’t be an obligation or expressed because it is “the right thing to say”. A few days ago, I picked up my daughter at her job helping to organize and deliver birthday parties. As she sat in the car, she had a card in her hands and, as she was opening the card, she said: ”I love to read the Thank You notes — pause — but not the ones like this…”. As I felt her disappointment, I looked at the Thank You note she was staring at. It was a printed, impersonal, and unsigned Thank You, probably one of many distributed to all the people who worked at the party. My daughter was looking for the sincere, personal and authentic Thank You. But, what she received was one of many impersonal pieces of paper. Like the Thank You note my daughter received, canned gratitude is transparent and a waste of time. It cheapens the gesture and it doesn’t create any positive impact. In order to be able to express authentic gratitude, leaders have to truly feel it. In order to truly feel it, you have to be open to be grateful and take the time to pause and reflect about the things and people you are grateful for.

So, during this Thanksgiving, I want to invite you to pause. Pause and reflect. Reflect on all the people who should receive your gratitude not only for the things they do, but for who they are, how they behave, what they stand for as individuals and as leaders themselves. And don’t forget to be grateful for who YOU are. Again, not for what you do or what you have, but who you are, the values you possess and what you stand for. Expressions of gratitude create better lives and, yes, improve personal and business performance.

As you’re running your business on a day-to-day basis (yes including all the dirty work, meetings, client calls, hassles, heartaches and headaches)… do you ever stop and wonder if there’s an easier way?

Does the thought occur to you – as it has to me oh so many times – that this whole work and business thing should simply NOT be this hard.

Finally, has it occurred to you to ask the key question, “How can I make it easier on my team – my customers – and myself?”

Animals can teach humans so much if we simply observe. Take a flock of geese for example. 

The small business smarts of geese:

1. They fly in a V-Shape formation for a reason. It reduces wind resistance by 67%.
2. They all honk for the leader but they are always changing out the leader so that the leader can rest & they honk just as loudly for the next leader in line.3. When one of the geese gets shot down, another goose will stay with him until he dies or until he is able to fly and rejoin the group.

Ponder these questions about the small business leadership lessons of geese:

1. In our workplace, do we work to reduce resistance within our team and “fly in formation” -- or do we create unnecessary resistance with our colleagues and customers?
2. Are you a “honker” – an encourager, team advocate and a builder of people?
3. Are you taking steps to ensure everyone on your team is ready to excel in leadership roles as needed?
4. When one of your team members is having a bad day or is “shot down,” do you help them until they can “fly again”?

If you’re not 100% sure of some of your answers to these questions, let’s have a virtual cup of coffee or bowl of gumbo and talk about how you and your team can lead smarter, sell more effectively, and have a lot more fun in business.

Much has been written about the power of tapping into your personal passion in business and in life. Whether the message is around small business leadership or small business sales, as a professional speaker on both those areas of expertise, I have a surprise for you - passion is overrated. And we're often passionate about the wrong things at the wrong time.

In essence, what I'm talking about is a Passion Trap - and you may find yourself stuck in it more often than even YOU might realize.

Now here's another curve ball in exploring the passion trap, marvelous people - As you mature and develop, your passions change. What you FELT was so important in your 20's is no longer that central to you in your 30's. You can do the math for your 40's, 50's and 60's too. And passions don't only change over the decades - they can change over a matter of years, months, or even weeks.

Remember to be patient with yourself when your passions & interests change.

You are an ever evolving being, so it is only natural that your passions & interests will evolve – as you do so, many people will find fault with your ideas, your plans, and the chosen “movement” you've decided to start. Maybe it's a movement to make the world better, safer, cleaner, healthier, better managed, more innovative... there are as many "movements" as there are small business owners, professionals, and corporate leaders to lead them. You start thinking and talking too big - and yes, my friends, there will always be someone (usually more than you expect) ready to shoot you down or label you as a "dreamer" or a "rebel" or a "nut."

Why? Because your movement affects their social or financial well-being, because they may be more fearful of change, because they'll lose something in their relationship with you because of your transition.

Your personality may see this change as exciting and it might make you feel alive with new perspectives and experiences. Their personalities might view you as a fool or as a risk-taker. "Why would you change careers when you already know how to do well in this one? Why would you innovate a new sales process when we've always done it this way? Why would you invest in becoming a talent-driven organization when we're hurting for money as a company right now?"

Here's my final tip about harnessing the power of passion: People really don't care how passionate you are about your products, your services, your job, your company, or your career. You know what beats that out by a mile? Tapping into what THEY are passionate about. If you can deliver on the value where those two passions meet, look out - marvelous results are in your very near future!

Entrepreneurship is not child’s play. You will need a business mind with an eye for finesse and acumen to avoid all the pitfalls of managing a business venture on your own. Following is a list of guidelines that should be in every entrepreneur’s arsenal in order to be successful. Without engaging in these guidelines, insufficient foresight can flush all your hard work and efforts down the drain.

• The first and perhaps the most important thing that every entrepreneur should bear in mind is that regardless of what you do you will end up needing twice the amount of capital that you have projected for your business. Perhaps this is due to the fact that your budget forecasts might have had a shortfall because you had failed to see a few costs or had just omitted them as not applicable to your concern. However, be ready with extra cash to support any financing needs that may arise.

• Relentless passion for your work is a prerequisite to a successful entrepreneurial venture. No matter how passionate you are about your work or how ardently you undertake each and every project, trust me it won’t be enough at the end of the day. You will always end up with the realization that had you put in more hard work, things would have worked out just right. The one thing that can assure your success is authentic,sincere zeal for perseverance.

• Human capital is that asset, which has the power to make or break your business. Therefore, you should put your utmost effort and time in cultivating the 100 best customers in your company, as those are the people that pave the path to success. Catering to your human resources will bring in better business results than any promotional activity can.

• Most importantly, as an entrepreneur you need to digest the fact that your business venture will be the toughest thing that you would have had undertaken in your whole life. You will be drained out of energy and resources, and will be constantly running to make sure that everything is going on in a smooth flow. Remember, your relationships will be under a lot of strain as most of the time you will be busy with the business management. Your family relations will be extremely strained. Weak supporters will opt out of your life.

• Lastly, if you have the perception that like everybody else you can wrap up work and go home at 5 pm then you will be better off staying as an employee for someone else. Keep a job rather than running a business. To achieve greatness and sustainability in entrepreneurship you will have to put in all that you have and more.

For all businesses, employee performance is the integral factor and perhaps the building block that leads to their success. Employee performance can be greatly improved with the right kind of leadership.

Here are the 5 fundamentals I believe are essential for building performance.

All leaders must practice the following fundamentals with unyielding determination:

• Commitment to showing others their due respect. Leaders always value the opinions of their teams and followers. Why? The answer is that it gives them a sense of contribution and a feeling that they are important members of any team.

• All successful leaders put in hard work and long hours more so than everybody else because they have a greater calling i.e. a responsibility to make sure everyone is on the right path and working towards goal achievement. The leadership goals to effectively manage a team like, planning, organizing, directing, controlling, and administration take a lot of perseverance.

• Individual goals take a backseat in relevance with the goals of the team because it is only through teamwork i.e. cooperation and co-ordination can organizational goals be achieved. The basic goal of a leader is to ensure that everyone is working in harmony towards the achievement of the organizational goals rather than individual tasks.

• A leader never slacks off. Leaders never make excuses not to do a work or for not having to fulfill an objective. They work relentlessly day in day out until they have achieved what they had set out to do. And that is the key to successful leadership. Not giving up and ascertaining goal achievement is bred into the minds of leaders.

• Leaders take full responsibility of whatever they direct their teams to do and however they plan to carry out tasks for goal achievement. They are willing to be held accountable for any consequence of the actions that they prompt, and that in fact is what inspires their team to follow them unquestioningly.

Peace, Love and Gumbo, 

Marvin LeBLanc, LUTCF, CNP