Posts Tagged ‘Passion’
So you’re passionate about your business. So what?
Being passionate about your business is a good thing – right?
I know lots of people who are passionate about their business. It’s a good thing and no more than I would expect from the people I mix with, given that most of them have chosen to do what they do.
However, I am constantly puzzled by the need that many folk have to “tell” me they are passionate about their business. Maybe you are one of them.
Telling me you’re passionate doesn’t do a thing for me.
Would you tell me you are funny in order to make me laugh or say that you’re sexy in the hope I might introduce you to a friend looking for a fling? Would you start a business conversation by telling me you’re honest?
No? I thought not. So why tell me you’re passionate about what you do?
Do you think by declaring your passion that I’m more likely to buy from you?
Here’s a newsflash. I’m not – and neither is anyone else.
I don’t care how you feel about your business
Actually I don’t care how you feel about your business. You could be bored to death by it but if you supply what I want at the right price I’ll buy it.
I understand the whole thing about buying decisions being emotional ones but if I’m the buyer, its my emotions that are in the equation not yours. How you or your product make me feel is important but will your declaration for being passionate about supplying me affect my emotions?
No – and here’s why:
I’ve been asking this question for a while and this is one of the best answers I’ve had so far. Its from Jeremy Marchant http://www.emotionalintelligenceatwork.com I’ve edited his words slightly for context.
Jeremy says: “I think it is tendentious, at best, to suggest that (potential customers) will be convinced that you can supply what they need just because you have told them how passionate you are about supplying it.
Yes, the decision to buy is an emotional one, not a rational one. That’s because all decisions are made emotionally, not rationally.
But it is a mistake to believe that, if you tell me how you are feeling, that is a conversation at a feelings level, at the level of emotions. It’s not. It is a rational, “thinking” conversation.
A description of how passionate you are about what you do is not an emotional experience for the listener. It is a factual monologue, which will have the inevitable consequence of keeping them in their thinking mode, NOT getting them into their feelings – in other words it precisely does what you don’t want it to do!
The way out of this impasse is … to convey your passion by HOW you talk. How you are. “
In other words, its better to let people see and feel how passionate you are than to tell them!
Getting people to connect with you on an emotional level is the key to any transaction but simply telling them how you feel doesn’t work.
Don’t tell me – show me
If you want me to buy from you, stop telling me you are passionate and start demonstrating your conviction that you have the solution to my needs.
Posted in Networking | 
Tags: Ann Hawkins, Asking This Question, Bored, Business Conversation, Decisions, Element, Emotional Experience, Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, Factual Information, Feelings, Financial Consultancy, Fling, Funny, Impasse, Inevitable Consequence, Information Data, Listener, Marchant, Mistake, Monologue, Newsflash, Observation, Oratory, Passion, People, Sexy, Sinek, Start A Business, Start Business, Thinking Mode, Widget, Widgets | 
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Question Time
David F Smallman, Managing Partner of Pathfinder Team Consulting, invited participants in The Inspired Group to ask him any question about business. These are his answers:
Q. What advice would you give someone in their first year of business?
A. Don’t lose the passion. Ever. Not even in your 42nd year.
Q. Is it wise to use an untested business model?
A. No. Get it tested.
Q. How do you make sure a new idea doesn’t get stolen before you develop it?
A. Keep it out of the public domain until you’ve had it patented, trade marked etc. Non disclosure agreements are hard to enforce.
Q. What is the best way to price your services?
A. Price the project according to the value to the customer. This may mean that you charge two very different prices for the same work. Charge 25% up front, then two further instalments of 25% and 50%. In over 40 years in business we’ve never had a significant bad debt or had to waste time chasing money. Cash flow is vitally important and this way, your expenses are covered before you start.
Q. What is the single most important ingredient in creating a successful business?
A. Passion (as above)
Q. What one channel would you choose to market a business?
A. It depends on the type of business:
Manufacturing – distribution / sub contractors
Service Provision – figure out how your customers/clients like to buy and meet them there
Accounting / Financial services – traditional routes are still working
Q. What will the future economic power of the UK be like?
A. Look out for a debate between David and Phil Jones of Excitant Ltd on this topic. David recommends reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis.
Q. If the three essentials of business are producing the product or service, managing and marketing, what time should a business owner spend on each.
A. In a 60 hour week (which most business owners admit to working)
Marketing 55% – 33 hours
Making 35% – 21 hours
Managing 10% - 6 hours
Anyone spending more than 6 hours managing a business needs to streamline or outsource and ask themselves if they using this as an excuse not to do the marketing.
Similarly, when marketing, use the same equation:
Existing customers 55%
Short term prospects 33%
Long term prospects 10%
Q. Should we strive to continuously make our services or products better?
A. Excellence can sometimes be the death of a business. Quality is what is good enough to satisfy the customer.
Q. Is social media providing businesses that use it with an advantage?
A. Many big businesses just haven’t got it yet but many smaller businesses are using Social Media to great advantage so it gives them an edge in engaging, listening and providing what customers want.
There are more questions and answers on the LinkedIn discussion http://lnkd.in/Hw4QVb
Questions that David didn’t have time to answer:
Is there a particular hobby or pastime associated with business success?
Is there a difference between leadership and management? (See http://lnkd.in/xMdyjG for this discussion)
What is the best strategy to cope with a business failure?
Posted in Steps to Success Events | Tags: Bad Debt, Business Model, Business Owner, Business Owners, Cash Flow, Economic Power, Excitant, Financial Services, Instalments, Michael Lewis, Money Cash, Non Disclosure Agreements, Participants, Passion, Public Domain, Question Time, Service Provision, Smallman, Successful Business, Time David | No Comments »
You Unlimited
“What counts in the ring is what you can do after you’re exhausted. The same is true of life.” Muhammed Ali
Clive Gott is testimony to these words. When in June of 2004, he reached the lower of two peaks on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, exhausted, did he accept that “at least I am at a peak” or did he look for something extra within himself to go the last 210 metres to ‘the roof of Africa?’
In April of 2006, when out of water, bereft of energy and still faced with more than 3 miles to go on stage two of the Marathon Des Sables in Morocco, he was faced with a choice. Would he climb into a land rover and call it a day or, somehow, get to the end of that stage and start a new day tomorrow?
Be honest now, what would you do? Do you have that dogged determination to get to your goal or are you more likely to take the easy way out?
You see, what counts is what we do after we are exhausted. Whether it is physical or mental exhaustion, the ability to find something extra is what separates winners from losers.
Clive applies his experiences to all aspects of life – not just physical and mental challenges but emotional ones too. He was married three times before he woke up to the fact that HE was the one who needed to change in order to have a fullfilling relationship.
He is also very funny. Listen to this short video clip called “Blame the Boss”
Clive has a passion and that is to release the dormant energy and magnificence of others. To encourage and inspire anyone and everyone to take life by the throat and say “I’m not done yet!” Clive is a student of life who happens to be compassionate, courageous, inspirational and very funny. Using his own achievements (and blunders) and life experiences as his main examples Clive has the unique ability to make the seemingly complex simple to understand, the challenging seem achievable and the impossible possible.
He is the reason that my ‘Inspirational Speakers’ events exist because he had faith in what I was doing and inspired me to believe in it and in myself enough to keep working at it and turn it into an achievement to be proud of.
Come and see Clive in Cambridge on 17th March for the presentation “You Unlimited” You won’t walk away unchanged.
Posted in Steps to Success Events | Tags: Ali, Aspects Of Life, Blunders, Boss, Dogged Determination, Dormant Energy, Faith, Inspirational Speakers, Land Rover, Life Experiences, Losers, Magnificence, Marathon Des Sables, Mental Challenges, Mental Exhaustion, Morocco, Mount Kilimanjaro, Passion, Relationship, Testimony, Three Times, Video Clip | No Comments »
Putting Desire into Action
Here are the pictures from the event
According to Napoleon Hill ‘Desire is the starting point of all achievement’. Bob Garbett takes it one step further and says ‘Desire is nothing without passion’.
Passion was in evidence in every word of Bob’s presentation as he explained how his military training is easily translated into taking action to get a business idea working.
His main points are:
*If you aren’t passionate about what you’re doing – do something else. He describes passion as a crazy mad emotion that you absolutely have to satisfy, not a rational reasoned argument for doing something.
*Aim for complete success – why would you settle for anything less?
*Don’t do it for the money.
*Don’t listen to reason, just the facts. There will always be people who tell you it can’t be done and why – you may even tell yourself this but if the facts add up and you’re passionate enough you’ll make it happen.
*Make decisions not deliberations. Don’t spend so much time weighing up the pros and cons that you drive yourself mad. Just get on with it.
*Never give up. You may need to find a way around obstacles or take a different route but keep going until you get there.
*Think fast and move fast. Don’t look back in ten years time and wonder why you didn’t get anywhere.
*Manage the risk. What will you need or risk in terms of money/ getting the right team/ the right environment?
*Just do it. We regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we do.
*Follow through. It will get rough, you will get criticism, you will fail occasionally, but if you follow through you cannot FAIL.
Inspired events are very different and very special – join us at the next one on November 18th when Andy Gibney will be talking about“How to Master Procrastination and Overcome Obstacles”
Posted in Steps to Success Events | Tags: Aim, Andy Gibney, Business Idea, Decisions, Deliberations, Desire, Emotion, Garbett, Mckendrick, Military Training, Money, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Obstacles, Passion, Procrastination, Pros And Cons, Risk | 1 Comment »
