3 hour Brand Accelerator – hosted by Glen Carlson of Dent Global

Background:

Daniel Priestly and Glen Carlson created the “Key Person of Influence” program in Australia in 2010. Their brand has now expanded and they offer their 40 week “Growth Accelerator” program in the UK, USA, Australia and Singapore. They take entrepreneurs through their ‘5 step sequence’ of Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile and Partner to help their businesses and their brand succeed. In 2014, they were awarded Australia’s 9th fastest growing company. With a strong track record and over 2,000 alumni success stories, it’s pretty safe to say that becoming a Key Person of Influence can work for you too.

Quick Summary:

After reading and reviewing the Becoming a Key Person of Influence book, Jonesy found this event online that happened to be the night after we recorded the last podcast! We went along and brought our friend Long Nguyen along for the ride too. There was a little bit of crossover with the information in the book, but I found that this event went a lot further and went into a lot more depth. Some of my favourite bits, which I’ll detail below, included the Entrepreneur’s Journey, the five inhibitors to success, focusing on the unaware population, Complete and Remarkable Solutions, the Ascending Transaction Model, and improving your personal reputation (not personal brand).

Who should attend:

I’d say the book is for everyone, but the event was a lot more business focused. If you’re in business and want to really accelerate and add a zero to the end of your profits, this short event is a good place to start. It’s all about, as the title suggests, accelerating your brand. It’s not going to instantly 10X your sales, and there’s definitely a lot more to learn, but it definitely gives you a few things to think about and a few key ideas you can implement immediately.

Favourite Sections:

The Entrepreneur’s Journey

Great breakdown of the different stages of a business’s life. I was just agetting ready to do a write up of the story Glen tells, so I went online to find the image they created, and I actually found an 8 min youtube video Glen’s made telling us exactly what The Entrepreneur’s Journey is! It’s a lot better in his words and he’ll go into a lot more detail, so I’d recommend checking out his video here.

The 5 Inhibitors to Success

There are 5 things that your business is missing if you aren’t achieving the success you dream of:
– Lack of Clarity
– Lack of Confidence
– Lack of Capacity
– Lack of Cut-Through
– Lack of Compatibility
I like these and I can definitely see that these things would inhibit success. How do you fix these? Of course! The KPI book tells us! Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile and Partnerships. These seem to marry up quite nicely…

The Unaware Population

I hate using this term, but this is seriously a game changer.
Let’s divide the population in two: there is a segment of the population that is aware that they have the problems you are trying to solve, and there is a segment that is unaware and doesn’t even know they have the problems.

Which of these segments is larger? UNAWARE

Which segment is easier to sell to? AWARE

Of course if people know they have the problem and are aware, they will be much more ready to buy. Because the unaware population doesn’t even know they have the problem, you first need to educate them that the problems exist, THEN you need to try to sell to them. So, if the aware population is easier to sell to, of course that’s where all of your competition is! And because these people are aware, they are aware that there are competitors, so they will go shopping for the cheapest option and you get stuck in the race to the bottom of who can cut their prices furthest and still try and make a profit.

If the aware population is smaller and that’s where all the competition is, hopefully you’re starting to realise that you should be focusing on the unaware population – it’s a far bigger market and there is a lot less competition! You need to take your future customers on the journey to help show them the problems and show them that you’re the best person to buy for. By the time you take them on the education journey from unaware to aware, even though they can shop around, they’d be much more willing to buy from you because they have already got to know and trust you – you’ve shown them the light!

7 / 11 / 4

This is a simple breakdown of how customers need to see your brand before they become pre-sold. This stands for 7 hours across 11 touch points on 4 different platforms. As an example using the KPI guys, this might include doing three hour-long sessions reading their book, listening to two half-hour podcasts, reading two ten minute blog posts and watching four forty minute youtube videos. That’s 7 hours across 11 touch points on 4 platforms.

This is what you need to do to get someone “presold”, and ready to confidently buy from your brand. Big companies know this. They don’t just buy one thirty second TV commercial and hope people will come in and buy from them – the buy TV ads, radio ads, build social media presence, create billboards, sponsor events… While most of us probably can’t yet afford these, we can definitely build out our platforms and create content for potential customers and constantly build our brand.

Complete & Remarkable Solution

Glen encouraged us to have a main product that we make at least $2,000 profit on. The CRS is a way that you can charge more. By becoming a Key Person of Influence and becoming oversubscribed, you don’t need to compete on price. The CRS is how you solve ALL of the related problems, not just selling one product or service to solve one of your target market’s problems. This ties in well with the ATM, detailed next.

Ascending Transaction Model

Another amazing takeaway – “Products don’t make money – product ecosystems do”. You don’t just have one product and expect to make money. You need an ecosystem of products and you need an Ascending Transaction Model to progress prospects into customers.

You need a few gifts to give away, you need from products for prospects as the first point of sale, or products for partners so your partners can easily and cheaply recommend your services, and finally you need your core product (the CRS mentioned above that has at least a $2,000 profit margin). The gifts generate the leads, the P4P qualify the leads, then the core business is where you make your money.
Glen uses Apple as an example. Their gift was iTunes that everyone can get for free. They product for prospects include the iPods and iPads, even iPhones. And the core business is the full suite of computers, laptops, phones etc.

Personal Reputation

A lot of people are worried about building their ‘personal brand’. Especially in Australia because we have the ‘Tall Poppy’ Syndrome. We are worried people will view us as being a ‘shameless self promoter’ and constantly trying to sell people stuff. Glen says the easiest way to overcome this hesitation is to replace the term ‘personal brand’ with the term ‘personal reputation’. Who doesn’t want to have a good reputation??? Who wouldn’t want to work to improve their reputation?

Favourite Quotes:

As it was a live event, I was more focused on taking in the information, rather than writing down exact quotes, so this section will be A LOT shorter than usual. Check out the post where I review their book, Becoming a Key Person of Influence, for more quotes!

“What’s the best way to walk through a minefield? Follow someone else’s footsteps”
“Competition is the enemy of profit”
“Products don’t make money – product ecosystems do”
“Your environment dictates your performance”

I have to admit I’ve become very bad at managing my personal finances. I used to be the best saver. But the more money I’ve earned, the more I’ve spent! Your lifestyle definitely expands with your income, and your ‘necessary expenses’ grow to things that weren’t so necessary in the past.

But I’m getting back on track! The most important thing is the cliche “pay yourself first”. It’s what our parents used to always tell us, and it definitely works. Maybe they just didn’t explain it well enough or maybe we didn’t want to hear their advice. But re-reading The Richest Man in Babylon recently, I’ve committed to ‘the 10 % rule’.

Every time you get paid, put 10% away and don’t touch it. If you feel like you’re already living paycheck to paycheck, you might think this is impossible. But what you’ll find that if that 10% is gone, you’ll still survive on the other 90%. If it’s not there, you won’t spend it. If this is truly impossible, start with 5% or even 1% and commit to it. Then when you reduce you expenses, bump that up each pay cycle until you get to 10%.

I’ve made this 10% transaction automatic. I changed my pay instructions so that that 10% automatically goes in to a different account. I’ve just had my third pay go in since instating this rule and it feels great! It’s good to see those savings sitting there again and knowing I won’t spend them. As I said, I used to be a really good saver. I’ve lost my way a bit but I’m getting back under control!

This idea comes from The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. He talks about doing 30-day ‘Vice Fasts’. This is where for a whole month you go without one of your ‘vices’. This may be coffee, alcohol, TV, chocolate… anything! By doing the 30 day fast, you show yourself that you are in control and you don’t NEED these things to get you through.

I was recording an episode of our ‘What You Will Learn‘ podcast when somehow how I accidentally committed to three different vice fasts… You can listen to that episode here. I’m just going to change the order slightly, but here’s my commitment:

• August 2016 = No masturbation (I’m not sure if this is a vice for me but Adam Jones made a joke about it so somehow I got stuck with it)
• September = No Coffee
• October = No Alcohol

I’ll provide an update during the month for these. Wish me luck!

So, Pokemon Go has kind of taken over my life for the last three or four days… Along with the rest of the world! It feels that way anyway. I’m very curious to see how long the craze lasts.

I read some amazing stats online about how quickly this things has grown. Below are some of the things I read and heard today. This is amazing! The game has only been out five or six days, and currently has only been released in the US, Australia and New Zealand.

• Added $10b to Nintendo’s value in two days
• Nintendo share price shot up 36% in two days
• On android devices, more people have installed Pokemon Go than Tinder
• Pokemon Go is approaching the amount of unique daily users that Twitter has
• People spend more time per day, on average, playing Pokemon Go than they do on Instagram, Snap Chat, Messenger and Whats App
• Apparently it cost around $30m to develop the game, and in less than a week they’ve already taken in over $14m, and is now churning out about $1.6m in revenue a day

 

Crazy. Good news is, I just went out and took down three gyms!! Pokedex is currently sitting at 56.

I’m hooked.

 

It’s the newest worldwide craze.

 

I hadn’t heard anything about and within two days, it felt like the whole world was playing it.

 

I thought it was stupid at first… Then I thought I’d just give it a try… Then I spent about 4 hours on it the first day I got it, and each of the three days I’ve had it. I wonder how long it will last? I actually missed two days of writing blog posts on the weekend because I was playing this instead…

 

It’s actually pretty cool! I’ve gone out and walked around when I would usually be sitting on the couch or at my desk. It’s a really good fitness tool disguised as a game!

 

Be careful though. On the first day, I got so excited but I wasn’t progressing fast enough. So I thought that rather than walking around, I’d jump in my car and dive around. Bad call. When a Machop jumped out and I went to pull over to catch it, it got a little too close to the curb. By too close, I mean I hit it and popped my tire… Also, I’ve already spent $22 on it. Classic. I can never resist those “free” games with their in-app purchases… I would’ve spent over $100 on Candy Crush and its spin offs over the time I was addicted to it.

 

 

Anyway, not much to teach here, just letting you know you should get on it! There’s so much room for improvement, like being able to battle other trainers and selecting moves like the normal Gameboy versions instead of just tapping the screen in gym battles, but they will come. Like Snapchat – it started off with a pretty basic version and when it got serious traction it’s morphed into something almost unrecognisable from the original. If there was any way to, I’d definitely be investing in this.

I’ve set myself a challenge to write a blog post every day for a month. When I first started, it was so easy! I had so many thoughts and wanted to write more than one a day! About It’s getting a little bit tougher. Thankfully, whenever I had ideas to write, I made a quite draft with a few dot points of what I wanted to say and have been able to come back to them if I was struggling for ideas that day.

I want to practice writing and improve it, hence this writing challenge. Seth Godin recommends writing every day. It’s been a good way to get ideas flowing, and it’s helped me open my eyes a little more to the world around me because I’m always consciously trying to find something to write about.

I’m only about 10 days in and already struggling, but I’m committed to keep pushing on! Wish me luck.

The One Minute Manager – by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

Background:

Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson have written heaps of books, both together and individually. The most famous are probably Who Moved My Cheese? and The One Minute Manager, which now has around 15 different spin offs of other “One Minute” titles.

Ken Blanchard, PHD, is one of the world’s most renowned leadership experts. He has sold over 21 million books, was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 best selling authors of all time, and has worked with companies all around the world to improve leadership characteristics and qualities.

Spencer John, MD, has become a world thought leader for presenting simple solutions to complex problems. Known as the “King of Parables”, Johnson is a highly qualified psychologist with over 50 million books in print worldwide.

 

Quick Summary:

The One Minute Manager is a parable about a young man who is studying leadership and management within companies. He has interviewed many managers but has never really been inspired until he meets the “One Minute Manager”. Subtitled ‘The world’s most popular way to manage your life and work’, this is a short and simple book that provides you with a short a simple way to manage yourself and others. There are Three Secrets to One Minute Management: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Re-Directs (in the original publication, this was termed “Reprimands”, but was updated and rebranded was more positive connotations in the updated version called The New One Minute Manager as leaderships and management has progressed over the decades).

It is only about 80 pages long. As it’s a parable, it presents all of the ideas but allows you to interpret and internalise how you can best apply these in your life. I read this 12 months ago when I was still studying full time and thought it was a good read, but having re-read it as a full time employee with some more experience with managers, I think it’s now a GREAT read.

 

Who should read this:

This book is predominantly for managers, but I think it’s a good read for any employee (because we all have managers), and especially those with management aspirations of their own. These lessons can even be extrapolated to help you manage your personal life, not just your working life. I would love it if every one of my managers from now on read this book and applied its principles, and I hope when I’m a manager I can be as effective as the One Minute Manager.

 

Favourite Chapters:

 

Note: I’ll be referring to The New One Minute Manager version. It’s slightly updated from the original book, The One Minute Manager, but not drastically.

The New One Minute Manager

On the young man’s search for a world-leading manager, he finds a person who others call ‘the one minute manager’. (Or in the case of the updated version, ‘the new one minute manager’). As I said, this book is a parable, which is I guess a fictional story that has a moral or a non-fictional takeaway. I’m sure you can find a better definition but that’s how I think of it. In our first meeting with the One Minute Manager (from here on known as ‘OMM’), we learn that managing should be about facilitation of ideas. It should definitely NOT be about participating in the decision making of others. The OMM is about helping others come to their own decisions, not about making decision on their behalf.

We learn that some manager’s see themselves as “results oriented” while others are “people oriented”. Results oriented managers may refer to themselves as “bottom line managers”, “hard nosed”, “realistic”, or “profit-minded”, but generally they are seen by their subordinates as “tough”. People oriented managers may call themselves “supportive”, “considerate”, “humanistic” or “participative”, but at the end of the day may been seen as too “nice” or “soft” to produce financial results. Neither of these extremes are good, so the be a OMM, you need to be a combination of both.

My biggest takeaway from this section is the fact that “people who feel good about themselves produce good results”, and it is up to the manager to ensure that people are feeling good about themselves. This is the “key to productivity”, keeping in mind that productivity isn’t just the quantity or sheer volume of work output, but a big part of it is also the quality of the work. A major, major part of being a successful OMM is coaching your employees and training them to be better – you don’t need to be doing their job for them, so the better they become, the easier life is for you. By constantly coaching people, they will learn these Three Secrets for themselves and begi to deliver their own Goals, Praisings and Re-Directs without you.

 

The First Secret: One Minute Goals

This is a great way to help coach new employees or to help set people up for success in a new role or responsibility. The manager will be very present in the early stages of a new task to ensure things are progressing on the right path. The best way to do this is to set “One Minute Goals”. This is where the OMM and the employee work TOGETHER to set goals.

In a lot of situations, if you ask an employee what they do and you ask their boss what their employee does, you’ll get two very different answers. If this process is followed, all parties will be on the same page. This way, the employee won’t get in trouble for not doing something they never knew they were supposed to be doing! The key to this is that the manager doesn’t set the goals and give them to the employee. The OMM is there to facilitate discussion and help the employee set their own goals.

The most important goals are then written on one page. They are to be regularly reviewed in less than one minute so everyone can stay focused. If you’ve read about the “Pareto Principle” or the 80/20 rule, you’ll realise that 80% of the results come from 20% of the goals, so the manager and employee both keep a copy of the top 3 to 5 most important goals. Ideally, as the employee becomes more familiar with the process, they can begin to take on more responsibility and will eventually completely set their own goals autonomously and simply send their manager a copy.

As a side note, another book I liked a lot that emphasised goal setting was Life in Half a Second by Matthew Michalewicz.

 

Summary of One Minute Goals (from the end of the chapter):

1. Plan the goals together and describe them briefly and clearly. Show people what good performance looks like.
2. Have people write out each of their goals, with due dates, on a single page.
3. Ask them to review their most important goals each day, which takes only a few minutes to do.
4. Encourage people to take a minute to look at what they’re doing, and see if their behaviour matches their goals.
5. If it doesn’t, encourage them to re-think what they’re doing so they can realize their goals sooner.

 

The Second Secret: One Minute Praisings

As I previously mentioned, a manager’s job should be to help people feel good. Most managers are quick to point out when you’ve done something wrong. But a major key to being a OMM is to try and “catch people doing something right”. Especially in the beginning. It’s vitally important to give “crystal-clear feedback”. Feedback can be an “invaluable tool”, but only is it is done in specific terms.

Praising someone helps him or her feel good, but it must be sincere. By highlighting a specific incident and giving the feedback immediately, the praise becomes genuine. In the really early days of a new employee or a new responsibility, a OMM will even try to catch you doing something that’s ALMOST right. This way they can encourage positive behaviours. Again, as an employee settles in, these Praisings can become less frequent. The manager can step back and monitor the employee less and less as they earn trust. By coaching the employee on exactly when to give Praise and how these are to be delivered, the employee will learn to identify positive behaviours and start to Praise themselves!

 

Summary of One Minute Praisings (from the end of the chapter):

The first half-minute

1. Praise people as soon as possible.
2. Let people know what they did right – be specific.
3. Tell people how good you feel about what they did right, and how it helps.

Pause

4. Pause for a moment to allow people time to feel good about what they’ve done

The second half-minute

5. Encourage them to do more of the same.
6. Make it clear you have confidence in them and support their success.

 

The Third Secrets: One Minute Re-Directs

In the first version, this was termed “One Minute Reprimands”. It definite has more a positive spin on it now. These Re-Directs are important when an employee does something that doesn’t align with their goals. These are used for more established employees, once they are comfortable and have learned to set Goals and get Praisings.

Ultimately, Praise isn’t as effective in encouraging positive behaviours unless there are Reprimands or Re-Directs to eliminate negative ones. It helps people learn quicker and achieve their goals easier. Again, it is important that these are delivered very soon after the fact, rather than being saved up for semi-annual ‘performance reviews’. These need to be specific, and when it’s over, it’s over. You shouldn’t constantly dwell on the incident. Just take it on board and move on. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Re-Direct is the emphasise the fact that the issue relates to the specific incident or mistake, not to the person as a whole. The individual is still a great employee, they just made a one off mistake.

 

Summary of One Minute Re-Directs (from the end of the chapter):

The first half-minute

1. Re-Direct people as soon as possible.
2. Confirm the facts first, and review the mistake together – be specific.
3. Express how you feel about the mistake and its impact on results.

Pause

4. Be quiet for a moment to allow people time to feel concerned about what they’ve done.

The second half-minute

5. Remember to let them know that they’re better than their mistake, and that you think well of them as a person.
6. Remind them that you have confidence and trust in the, and support their success.
7. Realise that when the Re-Direct is over, it’s over.

Favourite Quotes:

“People look for more fulfilment in their work and their lives. They want to feel engaged and make a meaningful contribution. They’re less willing to trade time on the job to satisfy needs outside of work.”

“The most effective managers manage themselves and the people they work for so that both the people and the organisation profit from their presence”

“I believe in facilitating, but not participating in making other people’s decisions”

“To succeed sooner, managers must be both results-oriented and people-oriented”

“People who feel good about themselves produce good results”

“Productivity is more than just the quantity of work done – it is also the quality””

“Without giving people a quality product and the service they want, you won’t stay in business for long”

“In most organisations when you ask people what they do and then ask their boss, all too often you get two different answers”

“Managers [should] work with us to make it clear what our responsibilities are and what we are being held accountable for”

“If you can’t tell me what you’d like to be happening, you don’t have a problem yet – you’re just complaining”

“A problem only exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to be happening”

“My manager shows me how to do it so I can understand it and do it myself”

“Help people reach their full potential – catch them doing something right”

“Laugh at [yourself] when [you] make a mistake, and get over it by doing better work”

“The best minute I spend is the one I invest in people”

“Most companies spend so much of the money on people’s salaries, and yet they spend only a small fraction of their budget to develop people”

“The number one motivator of people is feedback on results”

“Everyone is a potential winner. Some people are disguised as losers. Don’t let their appearances fool you”

“Take a minute to look at your goals, then look at what you’re doing and see if it matches your goals”

“Punishment doesn’t work when you use it with someone who’s learning”

“We are not just our behaviour – we are the person managing our behaviour”

“Your job is to show people how to manage themselves and enjoy it”

“You want [people] to succeed when you’re not around”

“Goals begin behaviours, consequences influence future behaviours”

“Deep down, people like to work for themselves”