Can’t we all just get along?

These famous words in recent history that many, including me, use as a punchline when appropriate.  The interesting thing about this phrase is that it does apply in many situations.  One situation that comes to mind is in our own Christian industry.  I have now been in this industry for almost 20 years and it amazes me  that in an industry that produces products that should reflect Christian values, we spend more time protecting kingdoms rather than coming together for the good of everyone.  Here are my thoughts on our trade organizations that all continue to struggle with a tough economy and are not sure how to bring everyone together. 

CBA has struggled for several years to effectively produce a convention which has declined year over year.  GMA has also seen a huge delcine in their yearly GMA event climaxing with the Dove Awards.  ECPA attemped the first ever consumer show in Dallas in order to better connect with consumers, but did not succeed in generating the interest to support going forward.  Finally NRB also invests in a yearly convention that is expensive to produce and does not connect with consumers or retailers in a big way. 

Here is my suggestion… Please, please CBA, GMA, NRB and ECPA work together to produce a Retail, Consumer, Publishing/Music  yearly convention that can connect all areas of interest and expand our territory as Bruce Wilkinson states so well in Prayer of Jabez.  If we can all come together in one place once a year I believe we can have an impact far greater than the four separate events currently create.  Just think of all the possibilities for sharing ideas, showcasing the best in our industry on one stage, exposing new talent, connecting retailers, authors, ministries, and artists to consumers.  I believe we would gain tremendous media covereage and could make a huge impact on our society.   We could then focus on our message and leave God’s mark in our collective stories. 

Please let me know your thoughts and maybe we can start a movement bringing us closer to becoming one as we were instructed to do by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Isn’t this what we should strive for in these uncertain times? 

I want to get along, how about you?  I believe we must if we are to fulfill our common mission and goals.

New England in the Fall

Joni and I just returned from our 30th anniversary trip to New England.  Specifically we stayed in a cottage on Cape Cod.  Beautiful little town named Falmouth.  We drove to the tip of Cape Cod,  the middle of New Hampshire (beautiful colors on the trees and also saw a moose in the middle of the road),  Plymouth Rock, Salem, and finally Martha’s Vineyard.  A lot of stores were closed for the season but the traffic was light and the drives were relaxing.  The most important thing to happen on the trip was great conversations with Joni and relaxing in great weather for this time of year.  No coats most of the time.  We ate breakfast most mornings at a great diner in Falmouth named Betsy’s Diner and dinner at other local hot spots.  We got 1-1/4 pound lobster for $8.95 in one restaurant .  We ate there a couple of times. 

Anyway, we had a great time and we praise God for allowing us the opportunity to experience his incredible creation and to be able to connect with my honey on an even deeper level after 30 years.  So many times we can get lost in working and just keeping up with life so it’s worth the time away so we can reconnect to better understand each others needs as we head into the next 30.

By the way colors are great in Tennessee when we got back.

Catalyst 2009

My first time to attend and it surpassed my expectations.  Great presentations, great worship, and great speakers.  If you haven’t attended I recommend you check it out next time it is near you.   http://www.catalystspace.com/events/atlanta/

Quotes and Notes from my experience:

• Dave Ramsey
  •  ”Momentum Theorem - Focused intensity over Time multiply by God equals Unstoppable Momentum”
  • Momentum is created, it does not randomly occur
  • All leaders are readers
  • Never, never, never quit
• Rob Bell
  •  ”our children pick up what is really important to us without us saying a word”
  • “does my wife and kids  get my very best or what is leftover”
• Malcolm Gladwell
  • “In times of crisis we need leaders of humility” Listen and learn
  • When leaders stop listening to feed back is when overconfidence has taken over
• Andy Stanley
  • Lend your leadership skills where they are needed
  • Every leader leaves a mark – not our mark but the mark God wants to leave through us.  We won’t know the mark until long after it has happened. Settle once and for all – His mark not mine
  • Are you willing to play a role in God’s story? Submit my leadership gift to the bigger story.
  • Will you submit to God?
  • God takes full responsiblity for the life wholly devoted to him
  • Be obedient to God and leave the results up to him
  • Who’s for me or against me won’t matter
  • Use me to further Your kingdom
• Chuck Swindoll
  • It’s lonely to lead
  • Requires tough decisions – hardest at home
  • Painful to be obedient
  • Brokeness and failure are necessary
  • Everything we learn is through afflictions
  • My attitude is more important than my actions
  • Integrity eclipses image
  • God’s way is always better than my way
  • Christ likeness begins and ends with humility
  • Leave methods behind.  Traditionalism will leave us brittle and broken
  • Give God the glory
  • Always lead with gratitude and grace
  • Stay thankful
• Check out Kiva.org and Hope International – doing great work in third world economies

 I will definitely attend next year and will try to take my sons.   It will have great impact on your life.  Reminder of why we do what we do.  Very encouraging

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Lead From Where You Are

I promised I would flesh out each of the Leadership traits I wrote about in my previous blog on Leadership

#1 Lead from where you are - critical.  You must be willing to step up in any given situation and offer leadership to a group in a positive and decisive manner.  This is how you develop leadership qualities.

Many feel leadership is for someone else or very hard to attain and while it is not easy to lead I believe everyone can and does lead in some part of their life.  There are not many, if any, leaders I have met that leadership just happened.  Most will tell you that they were willing to step up and take on a challenge sometime in their past that gave them the confidence to continue to grow and develop into the leader they are today.  It is true that there are many naturally gifted people who makes it easier for them to take on these rolls, however,  I have worked with and met many that have all the natural abilities in the world but are missing other traits that make great leaders such as integrity, execution, follow through, etc.  Having a dynamic personality helps but does not guarantee a great leader. 

On the other hand I have worked with and met leaders who know how to execute, follow through, demonstrate integrity, etc but their communication to their group is so weak that their group loses confidence and feels isolated.

There is really no magic formula, but I believe that if you start by leading from where you are, then over time you will develop the skills to become a great leader.  The first step is the most difficult but once you make the decision to take the lead remember to execute, follow through, and demonstrate integrity while you are learning to lead.  These are all attributes we can be accountable and make happen no matter where we are in our leadership curve. 

Step out – take the chance – don’t feel trapped. 

Short story… early in my career at Thomas Nelson I was promoted to VP over the Field and Phone sales division.  The first big meeting I remember attending was with one of our up and coming authors John Eldredge.  The room was full with his publisher, agent, my boss, marketing folks and other sales channel leaders.  Pretty intimidating.  We were discussing the new book from John, Wild at Heart, that had sold around 125K units at the time and the discussion in the room was, “where do we take it from here.”   About an hour into the meeting I was intently listening to all the creative ideas being layed on the table for consideration when  ispiration hit me.  The first moment of this thought scared me… could I step out and say this?  Why would anyone care?  I was the new guy in the room among some of the best minds in our industry and the author.  I give God all the credit for what happened next.   I stood up and said something like, “Seems like what we need to do is to stop dinking around with this thing, set a goal for a million units, and work backwards to develop the plans to get us there because this train has left the station and we can either hang on the caboose or get on in the engine room and help with what God has already started.  Not for revenue, although that will be nice, but because of the million lives that will be changed through this message.”   Wow, did I just say that in front of my boss, the publisher, the agent and the author?  I did.  It felt so good but I had no idea how anyone would react.  The first response was from John Eldredge who shook his head and agreed enthusiastically.  What a relief…everyone in the room got excited and we developed the initial steps that day to take Wild At Heart to 1 million units in 18 months.  We developed the full plan and, 4 months ahead of schedule, we surpassed 1 million units.  This was a milestone moment for Thomas Nelson and I am so very  thankful that God used me to step out, take the lead and make something happen that many thought was impossible. 

I encourage you to watch for these type moments.  They are not all this significant but all are just as important to developing your leadership skills.  Take on that next challenge, paint a vision, invite people to follow and the grow from the experience.

Planes, Buses and Terminals

Here’s a story about a business trip I took with several of my colleagues at Thomas Nelson.  We had just completed successful meetings with two of our largest customers and heading home, or trying to head home, out of Logan International Airport.  We got to the airport in plenty of time, loaded the plane on time only to find out the toilet was clogged and it would take 2-3 hours to repair.  That’s some clog!  In an effort to get home at a decent hour, one of my colleagues (who was anxious to start his vacation) started making phone calls to our travel department who booked us on another flight that was to leave in about an hour.  So we take off from our original gate to a separate terminal.  You may not know this but at Logan all of the terminals have separate entrances with separate security.  You got it.  We had to leave our secure area to ride a bus to the new terminal.  Here is where the story gets fun.  We start making the round of terminal stops and by the time we get to our new terminal we get a call that this new flight has also been delayed and we’d be better off to go back to our original flight.  So we decide to ride the bus just a little longer to get back to our original gate but now our original flight is getting close to the 2 hours they told us it might take to fix the toilet and we are now going to have to rush back. 

Our bus driver (let’s just call him “H”) pulls up to the next terminal (I think we had a couple more stops to go before reaching our original) and he gets out.  We’re thinking he is helping folks load their luggage on or something, but no… he is gone.  We think he is inside the  terminal but nowhere to be found.  We wait 5 minutes, then 10 with the clock ticking to get back to our original gate.  I think it was my finest moment when I became so impatient with the situation that I got up, after making several comments about our situation, picked up the microphone to dispatch and asked where the heck was our bus driver.  No answer.  Finally after waiting 15 minutes the driver returned like only a few seconds had gone by.  I began asking where in the world had he been, and after a couple of other comments, he pointed at his watch as to say “it was my break time.”  BREAK TIME? You have to be kidding me.  A bus full of hard working travelers just trying to make their connections through an outdated terminal system that makes you ride a bus to begin with.  Our next stop is to pick up another 20 or so people standing on the street and the bus was full before we picked them up so this took longer than expected to squeeze everyone in.  The comments kept coming to the driver not just from me, but now from a New Yorker that I mistakenly identified as a Bostonian.  He cleared that up real quick.  We were both giving it to the driver as hard as we could without inciting the other passengers. :)  We’re not sure if the bus driver spoke English, but we are fairly certain that he had no concept of time. 

We finally get back to our original terminal and we have maybe 25 minutes to get to our original gate before we think the plane will be leaving.  Stop… the security line that was minimal the first time through is now backed up like a Disney ride at Spring break. 

We get through security to the gate and, thankfully, our plane has not left yet but it maybe another hour or two (some clog)  and we just can’t wait.  At this point we’re thinking we may end up spending the night in Boston but one of my colleagues finds another flight at another terminal that is for sure leaving in one hour so we decide to go back out of security again to another terminal to see if we can get home.  We get about halfway out of our original terminal when one of us thinks he has heard our names called out over the intercom system to return to the gate.  Keep in mind that the message was in broken English also, so none of the rest of us picked up as clearly as he did, but he insisted that we go back to our original gate before we head out on another bus journey.  At this point we are up for anything, so we blindly follow him back and sure enough our original plane was getting ready to re-board.  We asked if what we heard was the gate agent paging us to return  and they said “no it wasn’t them that paged”.  We all believe that an angel paged us so we wouldn’t have to ride any more buses that day and we could all get home even if it was 3 hours late. 

Moments like these can be frustrating but we all determined to make it fun and to laugh at all that we were going through because in life, it’s not the smooth no hassle moments  that create memories, it’s the complex and difficult ones that make great memories and great stories to remind us all of our moments together and that life is best when unpredictable.   Remember no matter what laugh at these type unpredictable moments.  It’s what makes life great!

In the end, I know that there was a reason we were delayed and experienced our 45 minute bus ride… we may never know why in this lifetime.

Top Ten Tiebreakers by Joe Calloway

I want to share with you another great help to those of us in sales.  The article below was written by Joe Calloway a contributor to Jeffrey Gitomer’s blog and is author of Becoming a Category of One.  

Top Ten Tiebreakers by Joe Calloway Here’s the toughest question in business: “Why you?” In a marketplace where customers see sameness everywhere, we’re all just a commodity. A pound a nails. All you can do is play the price game. Unless…you’ve got a tiebreaker. Better still, a bunch of tiebreakers. Whether it’s a new prospect you’re trying to win or a long time customer that you want to keep, you’d better have tiebreakers and you’d better be using them now. Here is Joe Calloway’s Tiebreakers Hall of Fame Top Ten List: Speed Wins. Become know for a blazing fast response time. Return calls and emails so fast that it becomes part of what you’re known for. Being there first is a dramatic demonstration of how much you care and how you work for the customer. Face to Face. Don’t FedEx the proposal. Get on a plane and put it in the prospect’s hands in person. It knocks people out. Big Picture Perspective. Don’t just solve the customer’s immediate problem. Help him advance his strategy; help her live a better life. Be Easy. Be the easiest to do business with. It’s ranked as the Number 2 factor in B2B buying decisions (Number 1 is Big Picture Perspective). Ultimate WOW! Factor. Do it right every time. Every single time. Being rock solid dependable and ridiculously consistent is the greatest WOW! Factor in the universe. Win INSIDE the Box. Inside the box are your customer’s basic expectations. If you win inside the box – you win. We’re talking value, quality, service, consistency. Southwest Airlines is fun and they sing silly songs and it’s just precious as hell. But the reason people fly them is that they’ve got great value and their planes are on time. Ask What Your Proposal Should Be. I am dead serious. Sometimes when I sense the conversation has hit an immovable object, I’ll say “So what do you think my proposal to you should be?” It’s amazing how often they’ll write your proposal for you with terms beyond what you would have imagined. Change The Tire. If you had a customer on the side of the road with a flat tire, you’d change the tire for him. You wouldn’t say “Let me check on what I can do and I’ll get back to you.” No. You’d change the tire. Right then. On the spot. So do the same thing if a customer has a problem with you, your product, or your company. Solve the problem right that second. Change the tire. Smooch. You’ve got what you think is a happy, loyal customer. Here’s a reality check – somebody’s trying to break you up. You’d better do some smooching fast. Have a face to face, heart to heart “thank you” session. Don’t discount the significance of expressing genuine appreciation to your customers (a tear in the corner of your eye would be good). Get in your car, or on a plane, and go tell them face to face how very much you appreciate their business. It could prove to be your best insurance against defection to a competitor. 10.  THE ULTIMATE ALL TIME TIEBREAKER: Know more about the customer than your competition knows. Use that knowledge in the service of that customer. This is the ultimate tiebreaker. I want to pound this into your head with a ballpeen hammer. If I could only have one differentiator this would be it: “Know more about the customer.” Tattoo that onto your favorite body part. Read it. Know it. Live it. Joe Calloway helps great companies get better and top performers top their last performance. His new book, the revised edition of Becoming A Category of One, has a whole big, fat chapter on Tiebreakers. Download that chapter FREE at JoeCalloway.com.

More Sales? Good advise from Jeffrey Gitomer

I have been receiving Jeffrey Gitomer’s blog for the past year and I want to share the most recent one I received.  Jeffrey is the author of The Little Red Book of Selling and eight other business books.  He also gives seminars and keynotes addresses across the country.  If you are in sales he is definitely someone to follow.   Not everything he writes about will apply to every sales opportunity but they are all foundational to sales.  I learn something or reminded of best practices each time I read his articles.    Check this out…

http://www.gitomer.com/articles/ViewPublicArticle.html?key=ajcdMibak3PMR4dwujPHuw%3D%3D

Leadership

Leadership has always intrigued me.  To some it seems elusive and to others it seems very natural.  I do believe we have our individual strengths where some may have stronger leadership characteristics than others but I also believe that we all use leadership skills in the things we do everyday whether it is work, family or play.  There are a large number of leadership books that you can read and I have listed some of my favorites below, however, most of what I’ve learned over the years has been through observation and being willing to take on responsibility even though I knew I would have to learn by trial and error.  Here is a list of leadership traits that have worked for me in my journey and I hope you find that these can work for you as well.  Wherever you are in your career you can exhibit leadership to those around you on a daily basis.  I will flesh each of these out in future blogs.    

Not in any particular order…
 
*  Lead from where you are - critical.  Must be willing to step up in any given situation and offer leadership to a group in a positive and decisive manner.  This is how you develop leadership qualities

*  Follow up and follow through  - execution.  This is true at every level of leadership especially as you gain more responsibility.  

*  Confront with facts – offer solutions

*  Numbers, numbers, numbers – Master the metrics – not hunches

*  Turning uncomfortable situations into positive results (no better feeling)

*  Tell your story – humbly, always give credit to those around you while telling the story (successes to celebrate and failures to learn from)

*  Communication – timely and effective

*  Master knowledge of product 

*  Lead across boundaries – Offer solutions outside your expertise   

*  Communication – timely and effective

*  Keep learning and be teachable

*  Lead up line

*  Develop strategic partnerships – this is especially true in today’s economy where we need to build relationships with partners that can help all parties extend and maximize their reach into the marketplace.

Here are some books you can check out that can help you in your journey.

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t  by Jim Collins
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell
• The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization by John C. Maxwell
• A Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: How to Tell the Right Story at the Right Timeby Stephen Denning
• The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your York and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary  by Mark Sanborn

First Timer

If you would have asked me a year ago would I be writing this blog I probably would have said no.  I think I have thought up every reason why I wouldn’t blog such as I don’t have time or I don’t have much to say or who would want to hear what I have to say.  I guess we all struggle with confidence and the fear of failure. 

But here I am with probably spelling erors (just checking to see if you are actually reading this first blog) and grammar issues with what I hope will be an entertaining and informative blog that will spark interest and dialog. 

Mike Hyatt and Lindsey Nobles have been the most influential in making this giant step forward into social networking.  I’m not sure whether to thank them or blame them on your behalf for the future of my blog.  I’m going to choose to thank them for their inspiration and leave the blame up to you my large reader base.  Extra high five to Lindsey for actually helping me get this blog set up to begin with… thank you.

My hope is to provide blogs that address faith, hope, family, leadership, business, politics, and my thoughts on the future.  So you are wondering who cares what I think and right now I join you in these thoughts, however, I will do my best to deliver a blog that is relevant. 

First order of business is I am headed out on a family vacation tomorrow to Charleston, SC with my wife Joni, mother Gwen, sisters Karen and Debbie, brother Richard and his wife Patti.  This is the first time we have been on a vacation together since we were kids so it ought to be a hoot or a holler.  Just kidding… should be fun.  My birthday dinner was last night and my kids gave Joni and me one night in a haunted hotel in Charleston.  We’ll see how it goes but Joni may end up in our car.  Our kids are the best and we have a lot of fun together. 

I’m rambling now so I will blog on one of the subjects above in my next blog but don’t look for it until I return from vacation. 

Here’s to a great time with the family!  Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy