Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Today I am coming to you from the beautiful Arizona desert where I am honored to have the opportunity to work with the insurance industry on the trends that are shaping business in 2010. Perfect weather and a great group of people. Scottsdale hosts a fantastic art festival every year and Laura and I had a chance to go yesterday. I have been a student of the creative process for years and to have a chance to not only see the spectacular art work, but to also watch the artists work and visit with them was a wonderful treat!
Here are a couple of things:
- It’s pretty much unbelievable to me, but I got the personal branding project for a national company with a sales force of 500! I based my program around ignoring the product (which is as high a quality product as exists in their industry) and focus only on the unique aspect of their sales professionals. I built my model on corner hot dog vendors and independent graphic artists. I guess the sheer oddness of the plan was too much to resist for them. The project launches late in the 2nd quarter with application designs then the launch in the 3rd quarter. Unbelievably exciting stuff!
- My Repeatable Successful Acts platform continues to roll as I now have three clients all involved in launching different elements as part of their sales platform.
- My new presentations on FRAMING and TRENDS are getting a lot of interest and I have bookings on the calendar.
My March newsletter, which highlighted the FRAMING idea, has generated a ton of email and I am grateful to have so many readers!
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
I hate to beat a broken drum, BUT . . . I continue to be absolutely amazed at the lack of focus organizations put on simple planning. In two recent trips I saw companies winging things. Flying by the seat of the pants. The worst part was that these meetings were phenomenal opportunities to impact large numbers of their team members.
I tell them wait a minute, are you telling me you have not really thought about how you can impact this meeting? You have not really planned out the flow of ideas, the application of these new strategies, the levels of accountability everyone will face? I swear to you it is not unusual to see the golf outing better planned than the meeting.
The loss of opportunity is staggering.
So here is a simple reminder:
- SLOW DOWN: Things have a tendency to speed up the closer they get to the event. In an exponential growth cycle the biggest growth occurs near the end of the model. As an event gets closer, close the door on input. No last minute changes. This forces the bulk of input to happen towards the beginning of the planning.
- NO MORE THAN 3: You should never have more than 3 desired goals for anything, meeting, project, sales plan, ANYTHING. Now use these 3 or less goals as a filter. Every time something gets added to the meeting, stop, slow down and put the new item through your 3 part goal filter. If it does not support the goals, say NO.
- CONCENSUS IS OVER RATED: I believe in group think and getting input from as many legitimate sources as possible, but at the end of the day I believe in one person, the accountable, making the final call on a decision. I see more time wasted in trying to get everyone to agree than almost any other aspect of team work. Everyone is seldom right. Get great input, and then make the call.
Try those three things and watch a great meeting result!
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Alice in Wonderland: Burton and Johnny Depp in all their glorious weirdness and add 3D – I’m in!
NetFlix Fans: The Last Waltz: Perhaps the greatest concert movie of all time.
TV: Now that the Olympics are done, I get new episodes of House, The Mentalist and The Human Target. Fantastic.
BOOKS: Functions of the Executive – Barnard: Though almost 20 years old this book still has a fantastic lesson in the critical nature of clear communication channels.
MUSIC: “”Though some of its magic and some of it tragic, I’ve had a good life all the way.” Jimmy Buffett from He Went To Paris – great video.
WEB SITES: As the Oscars get closer thought I would re-introduce one of my favorite movie web sites (language warning):
SOUTH OF NORMAL
I’m a science geek by nature and this little story made me science happy!
NASA has equipped a jumbo 747 with an infra red telescope that will be searching for signs of newborn galaxies and extraterrestrial organic matter. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy will start collecting data this spring, making it the world’s biggest airborne telescope. Its 45,000 ft cruising altitude puts it 10,000 higher than most commercial flights and above 99% of the atmospheric water vapor. This translates to a clear shot to the heavens.
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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