Small Business Leadership and Sales Blog

Hello Marvelous People!

Okay, by now you should be sick of articles and blog posts that talk about your 2011 goals.

But have any of those articles “INSPIRED YOU TO ACT”? Because if you have a perfect plan and you don’t BEGIN TO EXECUTE THAT PLAN WITH MASSIVE ACTION, then you will spend 2011 just like you spent 2010. It’s time to DO MORE, BE MORE, EXPLORE MORE! Don’t just be a candle in the wind, Marvelous People. As my mentor, friend and Certified Speaking Professional Mikki Williams says: “BE OUTRAGEOUS, it’s the only place that’s not crowded!”

May I offer this one warning? Go back and look at your 2011 “WRITTEN GOALS”. (Yes, written. If it’s not written, it’s not a goal, it’s a dream. More specifically, it’s a fantasy pipe dream that’s not going to come true for you.)

Assuming you are NOW looking at your written goals, can you honestly point to an item that has anything to do with the subject of Personal Development Training? Personal development training is not company training. Point: you may know company knowledge, policies and procedures but without developing your soft skills, your effectiveness will be severely limited. Complete knowledge, policies and procedures do not make you more productive – personal development and human relation skills do.

The soft skills are the hardest skills to master. Human Relations Skill development is critical. Human Relations Skill development does not have a destination. It is an endless journey. Work harder on yourself than any other item.

So here’s your CALL TO ACTION.
1. Stop planning. Start MASSIVE ACTING on your plan.
2. Let yourself go for – MORE!
3. Put your WRITTEN Goals in your Purse, Wallet, Refrigerator and Bathroom Mirror NOW!
4. The Soft Stuff is the Hard Stuff!

Peace, Love and Gumbo!

Marvin LeBlanc, LUTCF, CNP

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Marvin LeBlanc is a left-handed, right-brained, fun-loving Cajun that is obsessed with Life Performance and Overcoming Adversity. He is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker and founder of Marvelous Performance Systems. Marvin is available for business retreats, keynotes, breakout sessions, workshops, & individual coaching programs. His book “COME HELL OR HIGH WATER” will be available in the Fall of 2011 through New York Publisher www.BloomingTwig.com. To rent Marvin’s brain, contact him marvinleblanc@aol.com

Here we are at the beginning of the year and we’re trying to develop new relationships with customers.

Well, why not have a little fun and get with a local vendor and grab yourself some high quality popcorn and some boxes and get into a routine whereby you call on your target market. Whether it be 10 people or 15 people or 20 people, and you bring them a big tin of popcorn. As they eat their popcorn and you say hello to them jovially, you get an opportunity to talk with them about what is going on in their business and how might you be able to assist them in 2011 on their business.

And as fate would have it, it’s time to leave and then you say to them, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks to fill up your popcorn.

This was a very successful marketing campaign that was put on by my roommate many years ago. His Crown Victoria was completely packed with bags and bags of popcorn, and that’s what he would do. He’d go in, have fun, and fill up popcorn bags. They would welcome him in and that provided many opportunities for him to learn about what projects were coming up and how he could benefit.

So think through and have a “Pop On By” popcorn marketing campaign. Keep it light, keep it fun, but at the same time remember when you’re there to ask those very important four essential questions. [If you haven't heard my "Four Essential Questions" talk, you can find it on my brand new CD Come Hell or High Sales.]

We’re available to help you and your team members get inspired to have a great 2011.

“Practice your lines”.

That’s right.  Practice your lines.  Your job, like a Broadway Play is a performance.  And no great Broadway Play opens up to the public having never practiced their lines.  The great Indiana Hoosiers basketball coach Robert Montgomery Knight once said, “everybody wants to be National Champions but no one wants to come to practice.”

If you’re not committed to practicing your lines, so that you can clearly articulate what your companies’ unique value offering is – then quite frankly you’re not really serious about business.  More specifically, you’re not serious about WINNING in Business.  So that’s rule #1 to avoiding becoming “roadkill” in your industry.  Practice.

Look for Rule #2 coming shortly.   And remember, MAKE MARVELOUS HAPPEN!

(If you’ve not already done so, please click the RSS Feed Subcribe so that you will be immediately notified of his most recent blogs as they are posted.)

Peace, Love and Gumbo

Marvin LeBlanc

I read this at http://theartistfarm.com and wanted to share. Please post a comment and let us know what you think.

In the deepest sense money isn’t real. It’s true. Intrinsically it has no real value. It’s just a fancy piece of paper. If you were to take our money to an alien world what could you use it for? Money is simply a mutually agreed upon token we use to exchange for things that provide REAL VALUE to us like food, community, comfort and shelter. It is the thing we buy with money or the thing people buy from us that has actual value.

Why then do we stress over money? You stress about money because you have mistakenly identified money, the actual money, as the thing of value.  You feel stress because you are “fighting” to get something that doesn’t exist – the closer you get the more elusive it becomes. There is another way.

Look at the thing of value as what’s underneath the money. If you want to generate more income, then think of how you can generate more value, not more money. Also recognize that both value and wealth come in more forms than just money. You can be financially wealthy but be bankrupt in true friendships, peer respect or health.

This observation is universal; applicable to anyone, anywhere in any business or organization. It applies to the artist business, the management company and the United States Government.

In equation form it looks like this:

Wealth = Value Provided by Y * Number of Entities that Directly Value Y

(Where Y is the product, employee or subject generating wealth.)

Think about this on a higher plane. We are all connected in a giant ecosystem and the flow of money is merely a manifestation of the exchange of our energy. Next time you are stressed out about money be self-reflective. Rather than stressing about how you can get more money for money’s sake, focus instead on how you can provide more value to more people. All sorts of wealth will flow from this mindset.

Peace, Love and Gumbo -

Marvin LeBlanc