Mount Everest! A hundred million is at the top. What are you going to do?

Any diet and exercise program will work if you follow the system, whether it be Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, P90x or Zumba, yet we still struggle with getting that ideal physique. In fact, if we were to interview 1,000 people on the streets of New Yorkand asked them how to lose weight they would say, ‘diet and exercise’ but out of those 1000 people 600 of them would be overweight! They know what to do but are still not doing it.  So what is that missing factor? What is missing is will power, commitment and a solid structure. Their will is weak in the face of the dragon of resistance. The will is weak not because they are a weak person or that there is something wrong with them I submit like any muscle that is not exercised it will atrophy. They have no strength of will because that will has been left on the coach eating doughnuts and drinking beer! No pun intended.

Sensei used to say:  ‘it is better to have and not need than to need and not have.’ What is needed to lose weight or make money or be in a relationship is a strong will or will power. Think about the last time you exercised the muscle of your will.  Did you exercise it purposefully or randomly?  If you were going to pilot an airplane would you jump in one today to fly solo to Las Vegas? If you answer ‘yes’ it’s because you already know how to fly which was a triumph of your will. If you do not know how to fly and you decide to fly solo your outcome would be disastrous, you will either never get off the ground (best option) or crash. Not one of us would consider flying without being properly trained.

A fun skit I will do in presentations is draw Mount Everest on a flip chart and put a box on top of the mountain and say there is a 100 million dollars in the box at the top of mount Everest for your taking. Nothing stands between you at the bottom of the mountain and your goal of a 100 million dollars at the top of the mountain. It is there 100% guaranteed! Then I will ask the audience, what are you going to do? Are you ready to achieve all that you have ever wanted in life? Are you ready to live the life you have dreamed, desired and longed for? By this moment the audience is foaming at the mouth! They can taste the fine champagne, the private jets, the boats, the Rolexes, the big house, the  vacation house they had always wanted or the Porsche they had always dreamt of, because with a 100 million dollars they could have it all! So what are you going to do? The audience begins to chant ‘climb! climb! climb!’ I respond back, ‘by a show of hands who is going to climb up this mountain to achieve your goal?’ All the hands go up!  My response, ‘you are an enthusiastic and committed crowd aren’t you?’ They all nod their heads with wild excitement. And now the hammer: And guess what: You are all DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! The survival rate of a novice climber by themselves onMount Everestis almost Zero! I am going to say this with a lot of love: you have not earned the right to climb Everest yet. And I will also submit all those other things that you have not accomplished yet is because you have not been trained properly! How dare you think you can climb the highest mountain in the world without being trained!  You have to do the work. Now that I have popped your bubble and told you, your 100 million is not avaialbe to you yet. What are you going to do?  Use your smarts to figure out a way to get you to the top. What will you have to do? Train – get your ass in mountain climbing shape because this is a big one!  Hire the right experts and guides. Build your plan and go to work! You want to be in the top 1%? Earn the right! Do the work and stop whining.

Earn the right to be a million dollar producer. The proven system is at www.gettingresultscoaching.com. Get Ken’s book called The Journey here.

Image via Wikipedia

Here is a quick and fast way to figure out how much money you are going to make next year. It does not take any fancy calculus just some simple averages and observation.

#1 Write down the 5 people you spend the most amount of time with outside of your immediate family. If you work in an office of 5 please right down all of their names only if you spend the majority of your time with them. If you work in a remote office with no staff then write down once again the people you spend the most amount of time with. They can be clients, friends, police officers, the owner of the local coffee shop and or bar. Remember this is an exercise in predicting your income.

#2 Ball park how much money they make in a particular year.

#3 Add all those incomes up and now divide by 5.

#4 Whatever your number is that is what your income is going to be next year!

Does that number excite you? If yes, you have done an excellent job at being very conscious of the people you surround yourself with!

Does that number depress you? If yes it is time to take new action like hiring a coach like me who coaches multi-million dollar producers each week, move to a new neighbor hood, join that fancy club and or begin to rethink your relationships. The hard truth is you become who you associate with. Do the people you associate with inspire you? Or do they simply make you feel comfortable? Nothing wrong with being comfortable except that it does not cause growth! It all depends on what you are committed too.

Who are the most successful people you know? Do you spend time with them? How could you spend more time with them? Would you like to be more successful?

The fastest way to accelerate your success is to surround yourself with high achievers not because you want to manage their money which is a side benefit but because you want to be inspired. To experience the things that winners experience and talk about.

How often do you get to spend time with ultra successful people?  Now every idea may not be applicable to you or your practice but let’s go back to the original exercise of noticing who we spend the most amount of time with? Do you spend any time with someone who earns millions of dollars? Or the Getting Results coaches who have coached 100’s of million dollar producers and have writing book on successful practices?  Ultimately we are a reflection of our community. This is the simple reason why people join country as well as private clubs. We become who we associate with on a consistent basis. Our community will either pull us up or drag us down the choice is yours.

Up your community to Up your business!

Ken Doyle – is the author of The Journey: The Evolution of a Financial Advisor available on amazon. He is the Founder of Getting Results Coaching.

Image via Wikipedia

Is growing your business hard or easy? Americans believe that work is hard and if you want to grow its nose to the grindstone: see more people, play less golf, work longer and grind it out for your paycheck. You are right if that is what you believe but before I go further I want you to visualize putting your nose to a real grindstone. Ouch! Now imagine doing that for a month straight and be honest how motivated will you be to jump out of bed and grind off your face?

Grinding off your face is the reason why most people do not make as much money as they deserve. Grinding is not fun so it gets avoided with busy work like answering emails, refilling paperwork or discovering new opportunities inNigeriavia the internet. What if you could build your business predominately on the golf course? The first step though is for you to believe that it is possible. Be mindful of what your answer is because whatever that answer is for you it is correct. How motivated would you be to play golf 4 to 5 days a week and grow your business by 25%? A fun thing about humans is that we seek enjoyment and avoid pain. This is the reason outbound call campaigns fail. Calling strangers sucks so its avoided.

If you think it is possible to golf for dough which of course it is how would you do it? The answer is simple but most people believe that growing is hard. They will find excuses not to do this but here is the simple but not necessarily easy thing to do: Ask your clients who play golf to go golfing and at the end of the round ask them if they know anyone else who would like to golf and set a date to golf. Is it really that easy? Yes it is. So why aren’t you doing it? You don’t really believe it’s possible. You grew up in a world where your parents told you to work hard for your money and unfortunately you believed them. There is a better way. Are you curious to find out? Of course it’s going to take attention but not hard work. If your curious to golf and make more money visit www.gettingresultscoaching.com and hit the “get started” button.

Image via Wikipedia

Prospecting Success – Hey! I can help you with that! – by Getting Results Coaching

As a coach of financial services professionals my clients are on the ever-quest of meeting new people i.e. prospecting. As much as possible I try to get my clients and their prospecting in alignment. This is based on a very simple human principle: “We have a tendency to do what we like and a tendency to avoid what we don’t like to do.” This is not rocket science and you have probably experienced this yourself. If you like to exercise you exercise regularly if you do not like to exercise you find yourself too busy to go to the gym, run etc. I know some of you may be saying, ‘NO REALLY, Ken I do not have the time to exercise!’ I submit you are lying to yourself. What you should really be telling me is, ‘YOU DO NOT  LIKE to exercise’ so you find other “busy” stuff to do. If you can discover a way to “like” to workout it will magically fill your calendar. The key is affinity.

Do you want to prospect more? Do you want to meet more of the right kind of people that will make your business flourish? If the answer is YES! And I know that it is let me share with you a secret of my million dollar producers I have the honor to coach. The secret is: Prospect only in places you like to be at and or doing the activities you like to do! Sometimes this is very hard because many producers have long forgotten what they like to do! They do things out of habit and obligation. They are not excited about prospecting so back to the principle above: they avoid doing it. Its not fun, it does not work etc, etc. If you were once part of a referral exchange network you know how that one worked out. You stopped going because you did not get quality leads and you hated going to it but you forced yourself. How did that one work out? For those of you who are successful at referral networks congratulations and I submit that you like going to them hence your success.

Principle: You will avoid the things you do not like to do.

Principle: You will do more of the things that you like to do.

So what do you like to do? Golf? Boat? Shoot? Collect Art? Cook? Wine? Fish? Motorcycle? Collect War Memorabilia? Antique and or experience the Opera or maybe wildlife photography? No matter what you like to do there are other people who need your services who like the same thing! So if you do have to prospect which you do! Why not prospect in a place or doing an activity that calls to you! No one ever said that business could not be fun!

Your goal when you are prospecting on the golf course, cooking class or duck hunt is not to talk business but to create a one-off opportunity. A one-off is a lunch, dinner or a cup of coffee where you can learn more about the person. Think of it as a business date. On that “date” I want you to listen attentively and when you hear an opportunity to be of service say simply, “Hey, I can help you with that!” and shut your mouth. Wait for them to acknowledge what you said. A clue would be “Really? How?” or another one “In what way?” The key to success is relationship first business second.  Leading with business can make you rich but building life long relationships will make you wealthy. It all depends on what you are playing for: constantly selling or serving?

But this will take a lot of time! I can hear someone whining.  It may but if you want to build relationships with high net worth people what do you expect? People do business with you for only two reasons: they like you and they trust you! Your business is not a sprint but a marathon so be mindful of how you are training.

Simple Clues to success:

1. Prospect in places or doing activities that you have an affinity for.

2. Create a one off or business date.

3. Listen attentively for opportunities to be of service and say, “Hey, I can help you with that!” and then shut up and wait for the acknowledgement of your offer and then of course tell them how you can help.

If you would like a personal trainer for your business contact us at www.gettingresultscoaching.com and click on the get started button. How committed are you to getting in business shape?

Image via Wikipedia

Awareness, Education and Action are the three areas of focus for 2012.

Awareness – Your potential customers need to know you exist. If they don’t know you exist you won’t get their business, plain and simple. The first step of this process is to become aware of who your target audience is. I know this sounds like Marketing 101 and it is, but you would be surprised as to how few people or businesses actually take the time to study who their market really is, not just who you think it is. The two may be very different. Spend the next month taking detailed notes about who each customer is. Find out as much information as possible. You may know that your market is men between the ages of 30 and 55, but you may find out that your primary market is actually Hispanic men between the ages of 30 and 58 who have two kids and an income of over $100,000. The more detail you have the better targeted your marketing will be. Once you know exactly who your target is, you can craft a message more directly related to them, then broadcast that message using the most effective mediums to create AWARENESS. A simple way to think of creating Awareness is “Where is your Sign?” and who do you want to see it? If your answer is everyone should see my sign then what you are really saying is no one will see it. You know you can not sell to everyone so once again you need to think who do I want to see my sign? AWARENESS how does your Target Market know that you Exist?

Coaching Tip Putting up your sign. One of my clients realized after a little study of his existing clients that the majority of his best relationships came from the Detroit Athletic Club so I asked him if he had a sign there? His response was ‘No you can’t put up signs in the club!’ You can’t? Every time you are there or part of a committee or at an event your sign is shining. Since that revelation my client spends much more time at the club presenting his sign!

Education – Once your potentials become aware that you exist, it is now time to educate them on who you are, what you do and why it is useful to them. If they don’t understand why or how they can benefit, you will lose them as a ‘suspect’. Don’t make them work hard to understand what you do. I have seen way too many poor marketing campaigns that left me wondering what exactly the company did, but not curious enough to take the time to figure it out. I might be too busy or just too lazy to take the time to research it myself. Make it easy for me, or more importantly, your target market. Spell it out for them and EDUCATE them.

Action – Okay, so you may be clear on what action you would like your ‘suspects’ to take (if you are not, then you need to become clear), but are they clear on it? For example, the one action we want our ‘suspects’ to take is to complete our Personal Assessment online at our website at www.GettingResultsCoaching.com by clicking on the ‘Get Started’ button. We leave nothing to chance, we tell them exactly where to go and what to do. You need to be sure you know what that action item is you want them to take in order to transition them from the marketing process to the sales process. What ACTION step do they need to take to go from being a ‘suspect’ to a ‘prospect’?

Coaching Tip:  For Getting Results Coaching the action we know increases the probability of a sale is our Personal Assessment. It is how we know that a prospect is serious about coaching. It is a form of self selection. For you, it maybe that they complete a survey or they read a book that you suggest. The essence of this exercise is to identify the action that increases the probability of closing. Once you discover your unique pattern for success….repeat the pattern. Structure will set you free.

Clarifying these three simple steps will make a world of difference for your business.

Image via Wikipedia

Three fundamental agreements cement the success of our individual coaching clients and these agreements get better results than any sales technique, system or marketing program. We can tell instantly how a particular client will do in business by how well they adhere to these principles.

The Agreements

#1 Be impeccable with your word. Do what you say, be mindful of the commitments you make and honor them. The world operates more efficiently when people keep their commitments.

#2 Be responsible for all of your outcomes. Whatever is happening in a person’s life/business is solely their responsibility.  The results a person gets is in direct relationship to their beliefs/non-beliefs or actions/inactions.  We have found that people operate most effectively when they realize that there are no “outside forces” interfering or enhancing their lives. Our clients learn to take 100 percent responsibility for their lives, which gives them control of their own lives.

#3 Be coachable. Do the homework that is assigned. Practice the ideas, concepts and principles. Be eager to learn. Take on business as a coaching experience. Your teachers are everywhere and eager to teach you if you let them. Ask yourself what are the lessons I should be learning from this event or situation?

Unfortunately most people are very sloppy when it comes to the above agreements. A quick example you may have experienced is with others keeping their commitments especially in the arena of time. How often are others late for you? Or more importantly how often are you late for others? Being exactly on time is a near impossibility so who cares if you are a minute or 2 late right? Sloppiness is sloppiness no matter what name you give it. True professionals are not sloppy so take on a great honing practice of being early for all your meetings and be impeccable with your word. Each time you break your word the most important person in the world hears you break your word and that person is you! Most people practice being sloppy with their word so they never truly believe what comes out of their mouth hence sloppy outcomes. This is a practice of self honing. The two keys in sales success is that your clients like and trust you! How does one build trust? Its very simple keep your commitments do what you say you are going to do and be early!

Image via Wikipedia

To be successful in Financial Services what really matters to your success is not just your ability to manage money but your ability to get people to like and trust you. Financial affairs are truly affairs of the heart and as much as people want to believe in logic and rationality most people choose their advisor because they trust them. I coach my clients to build relationships first and then the business follows. A transaction happens once but a relationship can last a lifetime. As an advisor you should have an understanding of what the value of a lifetime relationship is to you. So here are 3 quick questions you can ask someone you meet at the country club, charity event, yacht club, gun range or polo grounds.

But First, the Rules of Connecting:

#1) Eye contact – pay attention to the person you are speaking with. Don’t be looking at your watch or over their shoulder for your next target. People have an innate understanding of when predators are in the area. By the way, most of us don’t like being around predators.

#2) Be interested in what they have to say. (Do not expect to be listened to until you have earned the right). Don’t be a jack ass and half listen, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

#3) Use the Surgeon of Words technique. Watch my video on this at: http://gettingresultscoaching.com/Resources/Video.aspx

The Questions:

“Wow! That is a great ________! Can you tell me more about it?” Acknowledgement goes a long way. If you want people to be interested in you, be interested in them first. Find something that stands out about the person and ask them about it. If you see them get excited about a topic, stick with it and ask them questions about it.

An Oldie, but a goodie, “What do you do for a living?” Listen, acknowledge, than ask “How did you get started in that?” Followed by: “What do you or what did you find most challenging about that?” The key here is to keep them talking and for you to stay interested in what they are saying. You never know what you will learn. If you listen closely you will hear what is important to them and what their communication pattern is. Study NLP if you are really curious about communication patterns.  Often times, this question will lead to what their future plans are.  A perfect way to get a sense if there is an opportunity to help them.

If you are following the above structure, they will more than likely reciprocate by asking what you do. Do not tell them simply that you are a financial advisory (boring).  Tell them a story of how you have impacted one of your clients or your tag line and see if there is a response.  For example, when people ask me what I do, I don’t just tell them I’m a business coach, I tell them that I help people make more money and have more fun.  This almost always leads to the ideal question, “How?”  What do you really do for your clients?  How can you summarize that in a quick statement that will intrigue people enough to ask you how?

Third question: “Hey, what do you do for fun?” If they are a viable prospect and you actually like them see if you can advance their “fun-ness” in anyway. For example, if they tell you they shoot skeet for fun, you may consider saying, ‘I would love to learn how to shoot skeet, would you be willing to teach me?’  The more trustworthy and likeable you are the more business you will do!

Image by Pryere via Flickr

And it unfolds only to serve me. Is a belief and principle I share with my coaching clients to keep their minds in a relaxed solution seeking state instead of a resisting wall building state. Go ahead try it on and say it to yourself ‘Everything is unfolding exactly as it should and it only unfolds to serve me.’ How was that for you? What did you inner voice say? Was it in agreement or were  you thinking now that is a left coast nut bag for you! In the spirit of full disclosure I did live in California for 5 years but I was born and raised in NJ and have spent the majority of my life on the East Coast and currently I live outside of Detroit. It is that inner voice which is the key to you present and future success. Will that inner voice guide you to fulfillment or suffering?

I submit a key to success is a solution based mind set not a victim based mind set. Now developing this mind set is not easy but than again nothing of value ever is. If you take on the belief that everything is unfolding only to serve you your mind will actually begin to give your self that evidence. You will begin to discover personal lessons all around you that will accelerate your evolution! If you resist the mantra what are you replacing it with? ‘Nothing unfolds as it should and everything and everyone is out to get me.’ If that is what your inner voice shouts to you everyday I will submit that you have a lousy life and business. If you are eternally at war with what is your life is miserable. Ouch! Not holding back any punches today. Once again if events unfolding are not serving you than what are they doing? If a client leaves you or you lose a big case it unfolded exactly as it should and it unfolded only to serve you! If you can’t find the lesson on how it served you more than likely you will be doomed to repeat the scenario until you learned what is needed to evolve your business. The lessons will continue until we have earned the right to graduate to the next level of complexity. (You don’t make a million dollars a year until you master making 500) What is the mind set that you bring to your business each day? Is it a mindset by design or is it by default? Fortunately for me most individiuals mind set was formed by default and they need Getting Results to hone their thinking.

A quick note on what inspired me to share this concept with all of you. My wife and I were supposed to meet up with a group of road bikers to do a long communal ride. The meet up place was in a different part of the state and I was running late because I needed to fix a flat. Needless to say we got lost trying to find the meet up place but by the time we found it the group had already left. We decided to do the ride anyway. It was a beautiful secluded road but it had a series of underpasses of major highways. As we were riding around a corner we saw the police had blockaded the road and the bike trail. A car had flipped off the highway and landed squarely on the bike path. The driver had to be airlifted to the hospital. It may have happened about 20 minutes before we arrived. The flat tire and getting lost? Everything unfolded only to serve me…

Ken Doyle is known as the Business Sensei more information and products available at www.kendoylespeaks.com or www.gettingresultscoaching.com

the practice of boldness

Cultivating boldness.

Want more money? Want more time? How about being really greedy and submitting that you actually want more life! As a matter of fact you want more of everything! Hey we can even shift this to a spiritual conversation. Do you want more God in your life? If the answer is yes too any of these or all of these questions then I have the magic formula. The magic is boldness, the art of cultivating uncomfortability. That is what bold is really about its the willingness to be uncomfortable to put yourself in situations or circumstances where you may fail, be embarrassed, miss, look dumb, look un-cool, be rejected, called an idiot to sum it all up embracing the possibility of being uncomfortable. At heart I must confess I am a chicken! I really do not like being uncomfortable like being in a place where I do not know anyone or calling strangers on the phone or here is a good one I don’t like calling friend because at times I don’t know what to say! Now as a professional speaker its my job to compel total strangers to embrace new concepts, ideas or actions! Now this creates an uncomfortable situation for me but it also creates the space to make an impact on others. Being bold does not mean being fearless. Being fearless often equates to being stupid. But being bold like courage is acting in the face of fear. What is a bold thing that you can do today that you are hesitating around? A way to cut down on the fear is to language the boldness to someone else for example say, “I know this is bold of me to ask you this but will you do X?” Once you put the “I know this is bold of me out there you give implicit permission to the person you are making a request of to say no. The funny thing is in making bold requests of others they often do not think the request is that bold of an idea! The fear as always resides in your own head.

Another question to ask is “If I were 10x bolder what would I do today? What bold requests would I make of myself or of others today?” Worse case scenario is you get a NO! but there is a probability that you will get a Yes and your world changes for the better. Be bold in your business today! Go head take the shot what have you got to lose? My bold request of you is to go buy The Journey it’s a tale worth the investment of your time and attention.