A British Entrepreneur in America

I have just had a visit from Tony Chang - Tony, TC (Top Cat) as he is known is the cousin of Stephen Chang who is a very good friend of mine and also a trusted business adviser to me.

Tony is helping me develop business in Asia and flew in for a whirlwind brainstorming session, just for the weekend!  Tony, like all of the Chang family that I have met is totally committed to what he does and is also a super salesman!  We spent the whole weekend discussing the Cerion sales and marketing strategy as well as entering into a heated debate over which type of Gin is the best. I had to argue fiercely over this even though I very rarely drink the stuff - still, I can't resist an argument, especially with Tony!

Tony is absolutely convinced that in the sales process, it is the last 1% that is absolutely critical.  He talks passionately about how you can have a great value proposition, have a great marketing strategy, do great presentations and fail over the minute detail - this is the 1%.  For Tony, it is all in the detail, the painstaking research and intelligence that ensures you are on the right track - setting up the 'close' before you even speak to your prospect.  I am definitely going to produce a video featuring Tony and his effective sales techniques and processes.

Now putting Tony in the same room as Crazy Jack was sure to be explosive, but actually they agreed on everything, which made for a very productive meeting.  I have partnered with Jack to form Franklin-Spirko Media, offering creative design, sales and marketing strategies, PR as well as business consulting.  We believe that too much corporate time is wasted on creating the perfect 'look' for a company - spending hard earned dollars in developing websites that are little more than expensive shop windows.  It is all about putting the marketing collateral into action and earning revenues.  Take the Internet for example, right now while corporate executives are debating politically correct 'copy', a college student is producing a simply designed functional website, with mis-spelled copy and what most people would regard as 'cheesy' copy.  But he is earning a fortune!  Why? Because he has no fear and if it doesn't work, he simply takes it down and tries something else.  It is this almost primal, fearless approach that Jack and I will take to the corporate world.

Stay tuned!

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: design, PR, sales, marketing, business, media, video

Just got back from a visit to the acupuncturist who tells me that I have too much heat in my body!  Now I could have told him that - many people constantly tell me I'm full of hot air!!

Dr Chuan Chin is helping me to re-balance my body and has told me that I should cut down on spicy foods and that I have too much energy!  Spicy foods I can understand, but energy?  I told him that I'm an entrepreneur and I have to energize people for a living, how on earth can I have too much??  Seems he is not totally on board with my concept, so I offered him a Franklin energizing session after he treated me -I even said I wouldn't charge him.  He very poiltely declined!

I have always believed in alternative medicine ever since I limped in to an acupuncture clinic in South London about 15 years ago.  I had a foot injury that was somehow challenging medical science and I spoke to the owner of the clinic, a guy called Terry Simou, who had trained in China, but who was originally from from Cyprus!  I told him that I am here as a last resort and I am a skeptic.  No problem, he said and cured me in three sessions.  I was now a believer and have had Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture ever since.  Terry and I became friends, but I still couldn't convince him to come over to Dallas once a quarter to check on my health and wellbeing although at least now, I have both sides of the Atlantic covered for alternative medicine!

Talking about the Far East - I am preparing to lauch our Cerion business over there soon and will be meeting up with some old friends and business contacts to help me with strategy.  I love traveling to Asia - excellent food, great people and a real fast energizing business environment.  Just what I need!

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: acupuncture, eastern medicine, cerion, business, business advice, strategy, crm, customer relationship management

 …Not powerless effort!

I have just spent a few days with legendary golf teacher Peter Croker, from Australia.  Peter has given lessons to Arnold Palmer, Olin Browne, Fred Funk, and Vijay Singh among others, as well as hundreds of ordinary golfers including me!  Peter myself and Crazy Jack (Jack Spirkos’ new identity), are talking about how to best promote the Croker Golf Schools and system over here in the US.Now golf is one of my passions and like every other golfer on the planet, it is one of my greatest frustrations. 

Enter Mr. Croker!   Peter has developed and is continually refining, a golf system that gives you a foundation to teach yourself – perfect for someone like me who rarely has time to attend regular lessons.  I am happy to say that over the last couple of years and after attending golf school with Peter, my game has dramatically improved.  Peter’s system is definitely about effortless power – how many golfers out there, me certainly included, have tried in vain to ‘muscle’ the ball - we expend so much effort, little result.  Look at the professionals; they make it look so easy!I liked Peter’s ‘effortless power’ phrase – business should be effortless! 

Too many of us are trying to ‘power’ the deal and we fail miserably.  In short, we try too hard and we don’t let the natural forces work in harmony.Back to golf – Peter explains that we must let the active and passive forces work together and in simple terms, these revolve around the club head, which must be ‘felt’ throughout the swing and the body, which must be stable and in the correct position and alignment, to allow gravitational and rotational forces to do their work.Business is the same – there are active and passive forces at work all the time. 

Take selling for example, the buyer wants to buy (passive for the sales person), or they would not be engaged in the process.  Active forces are in effect from the sales person who should be leading the process and ‘training’ the buyer to just buy.  It all gets out of sync when you either push too hard or not hard enough effectively ruining the harmony.

You must strike a balance.

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: neil franklin, pete croker, croker golf, selling, golf, power, jack spirko, sales training, web marketing, search markting

Went to III Forks in Dallas the other night – my favorite steakhouse on the planet!  I was there with my Assistant to try to recruit a high performance individual to work in our recruiting business. 

So the softening process begins with the usual small talk, crab cakes and liberal quantities of wine, to lead up to the main course (which for a change was Lamb), more wine, then a selection of desserts and even more wine, after which we adjourned to the bar for a well earned drink!

Recruiting is all about the ‘right people’ – the right people treat your business as their own, they are leaders regardless of their title and they are driven to perform consistently.  Our discussions centered on how much time industry spends on recruiting the ‘wrong’ people and we all know what wasted time translates into!

I am in the process of forming a marketing/media business to provide a framework for the Martial Arts DVD’s and my newest venture which involves Golf, another one of my passions.  My aim is to use the greatest resource available today – the Internet.  The Internet for me is the new economy, there is so much opportunity and it’s virtually limitless.  I am currently putting together a team that has huge capability in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Web Design, so after I’m done with my own ideas, I can offer my services to the world!

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: recruiting, Dallas, marketing, media, seo, web design

Entrepreneurs are sometimes labeled crazy and I must have been a little crazy back in 2002 in the depths of the telecommunications recession when I was approached to invest in a telecoms business that would ‘lead the world’, be ‘different’ and all the usual reasons why someone should hand over large sums of cash!  But my instinct told me they were on to something – the business is called Cerion Network Optimization Services and it helps wireless carriers optimize their technology, business and financial performance.

Back in 2002 I asked the two obvious questions – ‘how’ and ‘why’ and was told that we were going to hire the very best industry experts that would merge pure mathematics and cutting edge wireless expertise and start analyzing the core networks of wireless carriers and optimize them.  Poorly optimized core networks create huge problems – much work had been done on the radio part of the network, but special attention was not granted to the core.  The analogy that made the most sense to me was a medical one – think of the difference between Western and Eastern medicine.  Western medicine is largely concerned with treating symptoms, whereas say in acupuncture, the focus is on balancing the body, the organs, the core!  

Seems we stumbled across something – our research has indicated that these huge ‘problems’ are costing the industry as a whole, $36 Billion! due to poor wireless network optimization.  Effectively we are saying that $36 billion is sitting in networks today – imagine what the industry could do with that amount to money!  

Part of the mission at Cerion is to release that stranded capital.

~ Neil

Technorati Tags: telecom, telecommunications, wireless, network optimization, cerion, capital investments, venture capital, wireless carriers, core networks