Joint Ventures: The Profit Power of Motivation

When I attended a Dale Carnegie Management Course, the trainer, Deon, told us a story I’ll never forget. He owned a successful jewelry store in a mall. After attending his first Dale Carnegie course, he decided to treat the security guards in the mall, whom he’d always ignored, in a friendly and respectful manner. He started asking them about their families and greeting them. Suddenly, they started arresting thieves in his shop, for shoplifting. He called a meeting of the security guards and asked them what they thought had caused this rash of shoplifting.

To the best of my recall, this was their reply, as Deon conveyed it to me: “Sir, there has always been shoplifting and theft in your store. But you treated us so badly that we simply chose to ignore the thieves. Since you started treating us well and showing a genuine interest in us, we started catching the thieves.” Deon estimated that he had lost tens of thousands of dollars over the years because of his uncaring and haughty attitude towards the security guards.

We tend to underestimate the tremendous untapped profit that can be released when we start to treat our employees well. I’m not talking about being soft or compromising our standards; I’m talking about being sincerely interested in their wellbeing, dreams and goals. Remembering their family members’ names and their birthdays is a good start. One simple exercise that works well for me is to have a piece of paper in my pocket where I jot down personal information about employees and file it for later reference.

As a group exercise, we hang a paper card around their necks, on their backs, and have them each write a positive, upbuilding, sincere and honest compliment about the person on the card on his or her back. At the end of the exercise, each person has a whole list of good things that other people think about them. I have known employees to keep these lists for years. Many people seldom receive specific, honest compliments. They dress as well as they can and nobody notices or remarks on it. They have their hair done, and no one says a thing. They work overtime and it’s taken for granted. Notice their contribution, reinforce good behavior and reap the rewards. And, if you really want to massively increase your sales, stop whining about your staff and attend the Dale Carnegie Management Course. It all starts with the owner of the business. That’s where the buck stops. And that’s YOU.

The same principle applies to Joint Ventures, the most powerful bsuiness tool ever discovered. Good relationships are the basis for good bsuiness. Together, we can dio amazing things. Check out the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum.

Robin J. Elliott has been officially included inthe International Who's Who of Entrepreneurs in 2002 and has been nominated as a candidate for inclusion in the 2004-2005 edition of the International Who's Who of Professionals.

Momentum and Branding

I worked with a real estate company to help them increase sales and saw the “tortoise and the hare” fable come to life right before my eyes. One of the salespeople (the tortoise) was slow, not highly skilled, not a great communicator and she had a long commute to work, which cut into her flexibility. But she was steady, consistent, reliable, very enthusiastic and totally focused and committed to reaching her goals. Some of the other “hare” salespeople tended to be highly skilled and polished, but they were often erratic and unfocused. They worked in fits and starts. They got side-tracked. The tortoise beat them every single month. The results I see a salesperson accomplishing are in direct proportion to his or her consistency and focus.

The formula for Momentum is p=mv, where p is momentum, m is mass and v is velocity. If we were to translate that into sales, momentum would be branding and results, m would be the amount of effort, action and focus and v would be enthusiasm and belief.

Branding and momentum is not achieved overnight. It takes consistent sowing and nurturing to build a brand, whether that brand is you, your website, your product or your business. Imagine someone pushing a car up a hill. As they push, they gain momentum and it gets easier. If they stop and let go of the car, it starts rolling back down the hill! Momentum is a vector. That simply means that momentum is a quantity that has a magnitude, or size, and a direction. Some businesses have momentum in the wrong direction, and they require a turn-around expert to deal with them. We need to be sure that our efforts are taking us in the right direction and we need to know why we want to move in that direction.

It’s good to stand back and take along, hard look at your business. Reevaluate your goals, look at your activity and momentum and the branding you want. Are your sure you’re creating the right image? Most of all, focus and consistency should be built into all your systems. As Michael Gerber tells us in the E Myth, work ON your business, not IN it. And continually adjust and improve upon every aspect of it. Concentrated effort and persistence is the mark of a winner. Once you gain positive momentum in the right direction, make sure you continue to feed the fire, and the sky’s the limit.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com