A British Entrepreneur in America

Just finished a meeting with one of my senior executives here in Dallas having discussed ‘risk and reward’ – seems the attitude today is “we have absolutely nothing to lose so let’s not do it”.  Talk about being driven mental and to an early vodka martini!

It’s funny though, how our minds can come up with hundreds of reasons NOT to do things, but rarely a positive affirmation to just get on and do it, as the famous advertising slogan goes! 
There is no reward without risk and no result without action and no action occurs without doing, so I’m going to devote the next leadership session to just that – DOING. 

My day did actually end on a high – our executive staffing business, C-People  has just reported two consecutive record months of billing.  Not bad for a business that started from scratch seven months ago!

~  Neil

Technorati Tags: business, leadership, risk and reward, C-people

Nothing annoys me more than a sales person who cannot close a door, let alone a sale. This is because many sales people forget that if you have to close a deal, it is already too late.  The closing process, if you want to call it that, begins from the second you engage your prospect and is continuous; right up until pen is put to paper!

If you want to be the best salesperson you can be, then here’s something to think about - start by consciously reminding yourself to be natural – don’t change your personality to suit your industry, just be ‘you’.  You are what you are.

I had one of my brainstorming or ‘Jack storming’ sessions as we call it here.  We were discussing the ‘definition of selling’ and Jack challenged me to define ‘selling’.  I began my business career when I was nineteen and I’m forty three this year, my background was sales and I’ve been around long enough to have signed some pretty major deals…but, do you think I could answer Jack’s question?

After thirty minutes of agonizing, he put me out of my misery with the definition: selling is simply a ‘transfer of belief’, amazing!

We are now on a ‘belief transfer’ crusade!

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: sales, brainstorming, selling

Life for me is about not ‘working’ – I retired from ‘work’ a long time ago.  Work for me, is doing the things I don’t enjoy – cleaning out the garage for example.  When faced with these ‘work’ situations, I quickly hatch a plan to do it in the shortest possible time and with the minimum of effort, I then go at it furiously until it is done!  This is because I don’t like to work!

Now, talk about what I do like to do and that revolves around my various businesses, drumming, golf, martial arts, traveling, reading, writing, cooking, eating, drinking and spending time with my friends and family – so anything I do in these areas, I do because I want to do it.

I hear a lot of executives and business people talk about the work/life ‘balance’ and this is where a lot of people go wrong.  Life is about prioritizing – some days its work and others its family, you do what you need to do, when you need to do it.  If you are employed, then you may have to find a job with more flexibility, if you are in business…then that’s one of the reasons for being in business anyway

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: retirement, drumming, golf, martial arts, traveling, reading, writing, cooking, eating, drinking, work/life

Well Val has flown home and I am in serious pain from our DVD production - Ballistic Striking.  Talk about pain!  In my twenty- five years of practicing martial arts, I have never been hit so hard and so gracefully and with such little effort…thankfully Val introduced me to some fine ‘Russian Ibuprofen” or should I say Vodka…just to numb the pain of course!

Now back to business, we are now learning about editing and the value of Internet Marketing, thanks to the latest addition to my business team, Jack Spirko.  Once a top flight sales guy and now an Internet Marketing guru, Jack is the master of ‘messaging’ and this is the most important aspect of any business.  The Internet is the new economy and those who are ignoring it, will do so at their peril. 

In the early nineties, Nicholas Negroponte, the then chairman of the MIT stated that there would be over a billions users of the net by the end of the century – believe it or not, he was laughed at!

The Internet is close to my heart – with two technology businesses, I’m always trying to stay ahead of the game and look forward to the first technology ‘converged’ device that looks good and functions even better.  It will come.

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: Russian, Vodka, Internet, Negroponte, MIT