One item that I’m constantly trying to teach to my team is the importance and constant application of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). My simple definition for NLP is “Communicating in a specific way to maximize your chances of getting the desired response.” Ok, so what the heck does that mean??? Well it’s probably easier to illustrate with a few examples than with a detailed explanation…

NLP encompasses 3 Main things:

1. What you say. (I.e. word choice)
2. How you say it. (I.e tone)
3. Your body language and facial expressions while saying it. (I.e. posture, eye-contact, etc.)

The first NLP lesson is talking in a manner that puts the other person first and makes it easy for them to deal with you. A few examples:
“I’ve included a quote…” vs. “The quote you requested” or “Your quote is included…”

If you’re always starting your sentences in emails, proposals, or conversations with I, I, I – then chances are you aren’t being heard as much as you’d like to think.

“We won’t be able to get there until Monday, will that be OK?” vs “Great, it looks like we have an opening for you on Monday. Does that work for you?”

In the first scenario the tone and wording implies that “we understand you need us today but the best we can do is Monday.” The second implies “wow, we have an opening right away on Monday just for you, isn’t that great?” If you present the opening on Monday as a negative through your tone and word choice you’re much more likely to get a negative response than if you present it positively. (Even if not getting there till Monday isn’t top-notch service you don’t have to act that way if that’s the best you can do right now.)

Here’s another simple example when communicating with people:
“Do you understand?” vs. “Does that make sense?”

“Do you understand” means “Are you smart enough to understand what I just told you?” Whereas “Does that make sense” means “Did I explain that clearly enough that it is simple to understand?” Do you see the difference in the second wording the pressure is on you to explain it clearly instead of on the other person to understand it clearly.

Another one of my favorite questions to ask irate customers, disgruntled employees, or upset girlfriends after proposing some sort of solution:
“Does that sound reasonable?”
Even though (using effective NLP techniques) you’ve just led them to exactly the solution you want, by offering them the chance to accept that it’s reasonable they feel in control of the situation.

One of the best ways to diffuse a difficult situation is to ask a question. Since we’re just reviewing the basics, let me keep the explanation as simple as possible. In essence, asking a question shifts the thought patterns of the person to whom you’ve posed the question so they aren’t singularly focusing on the object of their dissatisfaction. It’s a bit more complicated then that so trust me on this one.
By asking a question that requires a bit of thought you’re shifting the persons brain pattern from the left to the right hemisphere of the brain where emotions are stored and you will INSTANTLY see a difference in the person’s response (if you ask the right question).

So how do I teach my team about these things. Well first off you introduce them to the concept and explain the basics above. Then you work with them to apply these concepts in all of your scripts. You also help them plan out their conversations before ever picking up a phone to ensure the best response. It takes weeks or months of positive reinforcement for someone to really start applying it, however once they do, it’s amazing how excited they get.

Keep in mind that learning NLP is something that can help someone not only at work, but also in their personal life. If you’re able to help someone indirectly communicate better with their spouse, children, or friends imagine how much more they’ll enjoy working with you? Remember that a great leader should be able to lead so well that his teammates would be willing to pay to learn from them!

To your success, Bryan

Me on the top of Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh

Since I’m 26 I often go to meetings with other business owners where I’m the youngest one there and certainly look too young to own a business. At one such meeting someone who was quite a few years older than me and was working for another business asked me if its hard to own a business. “Not really. It’s like anything else. If you take the time to educate yourself anything can become easy.” Here’s why building businesses is “easy” for me. Keep in mind I don’t define easy as working 2 hours per week (though that is the goal). Easy for me is simply sleeping well at night, not feeling overly pressured, and welcoming the day. Nothing I encounter troubles me that much because I feel confident I know how to overcome it.

1. I LOVE it. When you’re totally, completely, absolutely passionate about something and you know its what you were designed to do even the trials are colored positively.
2. I picked a great partner. The rule of thumb is you only get a partner if you absolutely need one. Since I can’t service or sell my company’s products I needed to make sure I could rely on someone who could if times got tough. Granted that’s far secondary to finding someone I can easily work with and trust.
3. I’ve spent a ton of time and money educating myself. If you ask an expert programmer if it was hard to write that last program, chances are they’re going to say no. Ask the plumber about plumbing that house, or the salesman about closing that deal and you get the same. Why? Because they’ve spent the time and energy necessary to become experts to the point that doing what’s best is second-nature.

By far, educating yourself in how to ethically buy, build, and sell businesses is the most important part of making it “easy”. If you want the crash-course in business that will far exceed anything else you could ever learn in 3 days I highly recommend saving up $4k and attending Brad Sugar’s Entrepreneur’s Masters class. He’s the best. Or if you don’t have that money and you prefer to get more hands-on, then join my team and we’ll work through the 6 Levels of a business together.

There are really only 2 paths to getting started down the path of being a successful entrepreneur without having to make all of the common mistakes along the way:

1. Go work with the absolute best entrepreneur you can find with the potential of buying him or her out. Or just eventually take the knowledge you’ve gathered and go out on your own.
2. Attend Brad Sugar’s Entrepreneur Master’s Class (if you know of a better 3-day training then I’m all ears), read his and the other books I recommend, find a good lawyer and accountant (which is by far the hardest thing to do), and then go do it.

As a motorcyclist, when I first jumped on a bike with no experience and no friends to ask for advice it was a bit scary. I just never felt completely in control. So my first trip on my brand new bike was to the library where I borrowed every book I could find on motorcycling. A few hours later my eyes were forever open and my riding skill improved 1000% as I learned the concept of “counter-steering”. If you’re not a motorcyclist here’s the simplest definition of what it means: to go left you turn the handlebars to the right and to go right you turn the handlebars to the left. In other words it’s backwards or “counter” to how you would turn a car. What? That doesn’t make sense, right? Well without getting into the Tony Foale (Tony is probably the greatest motorcycle chassis and suspension expert in the world who I’ve had the pleasure of learning from) explanation, if you look at it in a few basic steps it becomes perfectly clear. First, all 2 wheeled vehicles turn by leaning. No lean, no turn. It’s impossible. Second, motorcycle tires are rounded, not flat on the bottom like car tires. That’s important because to get the bike to lean you turn the wheel to the right and the front tire immediately drops down onto the left side of the tire – which causes it to lean, and therefore turn, left. This blog isn’t about motorcycles but if you ask any cyclist to demonstrate how it works with the bike sitting still on flat ground you can see it very quickly.

So now you know how something that seems to go against common sense actually works. Business is much the same way. We as business owners think the more time we spend taking care of customers and putting out fires the happier everyone is going to be and the better business will be. Makes sense, right? The problem is, that if you’re so busy putting out fires and helping each customer, who is making sure the customer is happy when someone else helps them? Who is the fire marshal out teaching your team members how to prevent fires? There are hundreds of “common-sense” business practices that you and I would easily understand if someone just told us. That’s why it’s so important to learn from the best. Guys like Brad Sugars, Marcus Buckingham, Michael Masterson, Dale Carnegie, Warren Buffet, Dave Yoho, Duane Sparks, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber, etc. etc. etc.. Read the various books that I reference, look for great business blogs, and make as many contacts with business owners as you can possibly make. They may not all be geniuses, but all they need is to fill you in on one great idea, system, or program to make it worth spending time with them. Plus, we entrepreneurs are all egotistical and think our ideas are great. So we’re generally more than willing to share those lightning bolt ideas with you and after we’re done we like you even more since you let us talk.

To your success, Bryan

P.S. If you really want to know what it’s like to live a hard life then check out American Courage: Remarkable True Stories Exhibiting the Bravery That Has Made Our Country Great and learn about some of the greatest figures in American history who they didn’t teach you about in school.

In the spirit of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People I will recommend Sam Carpenter’s book Work the System and I certainly felt reinvigorated about the systems I’m working on in my business. (Dale Carnegie suggested that before you critique someone you always offer a positive so as not to put them on the defensive.) I will recommend the book to people who I don’t need or want to have a big picture of generating wealth – to people who just need to understand the importance of systems, but not everything else that comes along with being able to grow lots of businesses.

For me if I can pull a single good idea out of a book then I consider it worth the $20 and time invested. It wasn’t until the last few chapters that I found that great idea from “Work the System”. It’s a concept Carpenter calls “PTO” or Paid Time Off. The way it works is that with every paycheck your team members accumulate vacation or sick days or both. Well Carpenter found out that caused a problem with people just taking one of those sick or vacation days because “i don’t feel like working today.” So instead of that, he wrapped both into Paid Time Off and paid the employee for that time immediately as an additional line item on each paycheck. That way when the employee takes off a day or week, they don’t get paid for that day or week since they’ve already been paid ahead of time. He claims it reduced absences by 80% and I believe it. I read that last night and this morning I was working with my accountant to get it into our Quickbooks program! Brilliant idea!

Beyond that, let’s call it what it is – Sam Carpenter’s “System” was an effective way for 1 man to take 1 small business (currently $2 million in annual revenue) in 1 area of the world in 1 specific industry to his own personal definition of success. God bless him because he’s living his American dream and I absolutely LOVE to hear how people are able to do that. The thing is, Carpenter tries to convince the world that what has worked in his very limited world and experience is the answer to all business owners’ prayers.

There are a few reasons his systems approach was so effective for him:

1. He had absolutely none to begin with. I felt really bad for him reading the first few chapters about how his life and business were in such shambles. It was rather depressing.
2. His business has a recurring revenue business model. In other words if he doesn’t sell another X this month he’ll still make payroll and there are a LOT of businesses that don’t have that luxury.
3. His business is relatively simple. He mentioned they can take someone off the street with decent typing skills and have them handling calls for his 24/7/365 call answering business within 3 days. There are plenty of small businesses that require much longer then that just to get someone acclimated.
4. His business is a necessity for its clients. Its not a luxury.

So let’s face it, he misses some VERY important points in growing a business that no business owner should be without. Here’s a quick list of just a few things he doesn’t address that are important to a business:

1. Unique Selling Proposition and guarantee.
2. Testing and Measuring particularly with lead tracking.
3. He grows his customer base mostly through buying other businesses but gives no weight to the value of doing that. I’m curious as to how many new accounts he signs up every year through his marketing and sales system since they’re never mentioned.
4. His first systems to fix were his operation’s systems not his sales/marketing systems (he had that luxury because he had a recurring revenue business).
5. He never really reviews team-building other than to find people who buy into his systems mantra
6. NLP, Proximity, marketing, scripting are all missed.
7. He doesn’t review any method for maintaining the systems or the business with important financial numbers such as a daily break-even, the cost of “buying” your customers, the 4 ways to grow revenue, lead conversion ratios, lifetime value of each customer, etc. etc. etc. How can you manage what you don’t know?
8. Back-end Sales, cross-marketing, additional income streams
9. Commission and employee incentives for productivity. For as much time as he harps on the necessary mechanics of life in that everything is controlled by systems, it seems ironic that he doesn’t have an incentive based pay-structure for his managers. Instead he seems to rely on the “pay my people a good salary and make them feel good and they’ll perform to their full potential” model. Wasn’t his whole hippy-to-reality conversion based on feeling good doesn’t produce results?

You get the point. The list can go on and on. Let’s face it, Sam Carpenter may be the McDonald’s brothers, but he’s no Ray Kroc. The McDonald’s brothers created a fantastic systematized business that made them both millionaires in a relatively short amount of time. However the McDonald’s business didn’t make it big until Ray Kroc bought them out and applied all of these other principles to their beautifully systematized business to become a billionaire.

If his systems are that good, and he’s looking to develop a lot of credibility so he can write books and charge people $3k to attend his workshop in Oregon, I’d recommend spending the next 2 years buying a competitor a month and applying the systems. Or just franchise his systems out to other call center businesses since his systems approach is the way you develop and sell a franchise. Within a few short years his business could grow ten fold into a $20 million operation. I have no doubts he could do that very successfully with the well developed systems he has in place. Then again he is more than twice my age so maybe at that point in my life I’ll be more interested in living comfortably than creating an empire.

Again, his systems approach has its place and is certainly a crucial point for every business – but its not the guiding factor for success and certainly can’t be taken on its own. Maybe it’s because I personally know and have consulted with at least half a dozen people who make a lot more money than him, work when they want, and take vacations wherever they like without his obsession for systems. Especially since many of those business owners I’ve worked with understood that their first priority and most important systems were the ones that generated leads and closed sales (something he never addresses).

Michael Masterson in Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat probably points out the biggest flaw in Mr. Carpenter’s approach and that is that a Stage 1 business’ main priority is to sell. In Stage 2, once you’ve proven that you have a viable product and a willing market, you focus on systems’ development.

The freedom, comfort, and happiness that Mr. Carpenter has found through HIS approach to HIS business is awesome – this blog is just a fair warning to people who think that by reading his book you know all there is to becoming a successful entrepreneur. His book is excellent for what it is – a book on the importance of systems to small businesses – but that’s about it.

It’s worth the read and a decent book so check it out but only after you read the other 5 books on my list of books that make you wealthy so that you have a picture of the WHOLE system that a business owner needs.

To your success, Bryan

P.S. I can’t stop thinking that Brad Sugar’s is by far the greatest entrepreneur of the last 100 years (maybe longer). Eight years ago when Mr. Carpenter had his epiphany about systems, Brad Sugars was retiring at the ripe age of 26 with $10 million cash in the bank. He has since owned 54 businesses all over the world and is only 34 or 35.

This could be a script for anything. Sales, service, scheduling, answering questions, etc. etc. etc. Keep in mind that just about every script is doing some sort of selling and so we’ll use some basic sales and marketing techniques to effectively write.

Before we review how to write a script, let’s summarize why every business needs scripts for any question or process that occurs on a regular basis.

1. It’s the only way to ensure consistent, quality responses to all of your customers every time.
2. It’s the best way to quickly train a new teammate and bring him up to speed on your business.
3. It’s the only way to be sure that you’re maximizing the chances of a sale, appointment, happy customer etc. with every interaction.
4. It’s a great way to replicate all of the best, most powerful knowledge in the business and share it with the whole team and even with your other businesses.
5. It’s required if you ever want to step away from your business because you’ve set it up to run by itself

There are probably a lot more reasons for scripts, however you get the idea. Scripts are a key to successfully growing your business.

So to create a script you need to follow the 4 Basic Rules of Marketing:

1. Create a need or problem
2. Provide a solution
3. Convince them that you’re company is the best one to handle that solution
4. Entice them into taking action right now

So let’s keep those in mind while we focus on the 5 steps to creating a great script:

1. Determine your goal or desired outcome from the conversation
2. List all the benefits the customer/prospect will receive by saying “yes” to your script
3. Organize the script according to the “4 Basic Rules of Marketing”
4. Paint a picture and/or sensationalize
5. Translate into your own words and dialect

Let’s look at an example that we recently tackled at my business. We have a recurring service that we provide for our customers where we change the filters once per year in their drinking water system so that it functions optimally. Originally that script went something like this:

“Good morning, this is Sally from The Water Company. I’m just calling to let you know that your annual filter change is due. The filters should have been changed <date>. We’d really appreciate it if you can call us back at <phone number>.”

So let’s work through our process:

1. Determine your goal. – Perform a filter change for our customer on or about 12 months after the last one.
2. List the benefits. Great quality water, lower long-term cost by protecting the much more expensive membrane, the filters are designed to last 12 months to ensure the best water.
3. Organize the script according to the marketing rules. -
   1. Problem – They haven’t changed filters yet and their water quality is deteriorating
   2. Solution – A low-cost, convenient, in-home filter change.
   3. Why us? – Well since they’re already using our equipment it’s not like they’re going to call a competitor however they may think it’s better if they do it themselves. Our initial script will assume they’re either going to not do a filter change or they are.
   4. Why should I call back to schedule now? – Because we’ll be in your area and you’re already on the schedule.
4. Paint a picture – Filters take out impurities and over time they lose their effectiveness to do so therefore delivering lower quality water.
5. Translate – This is done overall by the script-writer but individually by each person using the script

When we put that all together into a full script this was the result:

“Good morning, this is Sally from The Water Company. The filters in your drinking water system are designed to last 12 months and its been 14 months since your last filter change. As you probably know, every day those filters are taking the impurities out of your water so each day beyond 12 months more and more impurities are able to pass through. You are on the schedule for next week when we’ll be in your area so simply call 555.1234 to confirm and we’ll take care of everything for you. We appreciate you being a part of the Water Company team. Have a fantastic day!”

Since we haven’t reviewed NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) in this blog yet, I’ll just briefly point out some things that NLP would have us correct. First, notice in the revised script how “you” and “your” are used more frequently to put more emphasis and focus on the customer.
Secondly, that last sentence jumped out at me – “We’d really appreciate it if…” What message is that sending to the customer? To me that says “you, the customer, are doing us a service by changing your filters” when in reality its a great benefit to them. Again the proper thing to do is to turn the focus to the customer and how it’s a great benefit to them. Notice how we changed that in the revised script – “You are on the schedule next week when we’ll be in your area…” What does that say. Well it assumes that of course they want a filter change and it also gives them a reason to respond almost immediately. If they don’t we might not be in their area for a while or we might show up when they don’t want us to. Either way, it’s much more likely to illicit a response.

As for the problem and benefits, we decided to pick out the points that the filters are only designed to last 12 months and that regular filter changes require good quality water. We put more specific numbers of 12 months and “14 months”, or whatever the time has been since their last change, instead of just spitting out a date. By listing a date they have to do the math and most people either won’t or it just won’t sound as urgent based on the quick math that they do in their heads.

We tried to paint a picture with our words by talking about “impurities being taken out” and “impurities passing thru”. That’s something anyone can easily visualize and we’re hoping most will automatically picture that with their minds’ eye.

Keep in mind, a script is just a starting point. It needs to flow smoothly when its being used so that it doesn’t sound like you’re reading it. In other words, you need to rearrange, add, remove, change transitional words to make it sound like you’re just talking to the customer. Everyone in your business may have a slightly different “script” because of that, so just make sure they know not to change or alter the key points.

Lastly, as with every change in your business, you need to Test and Measure the results of the new script and again Test and Measure when you improve it next time.

A secondary benefit that I derived from working on this script is that it allowed me to spend some time teaching a team member more about NLP, scripting, marketing, and business in general. Obviously it would have been a lot quicker for me to just write it myself – however if I did that, then I’m just guaranteeing myself that I’ll have to write every script forever.

To your success, Bryan

A seldom discussed topic in the business world is one called “Proximity.” Dave Yoho introduced me to the term in Chicago a few years back. Amazingly studies have show that when you’re performing a sales presentation in someone’s home you get a better response when you sit to the right of the homeowner. It’s theorized that because you’re closer in proximity to the right-brain of the person deciding to buy something, you’re more likely to effect an emotional decision.

Proximity teaches us that the most effective way to arrange a classroom or training event is with a “U-shaped” layout where the presenter is in the middle with the open end behind him. Everyone is relatively equidistant to the instructor and can openly communicate with him and each other. How many classrooms have you seen arranged in that manner?

Proximity also teaches us that when selling, you never put a table between yourself and a prospect. The psychological repercussions of that are “you’re on that side and I’m on this side” – that’s both literally and figuratively. So if you’re at a trade show trying to gather leads for your business, the worst thing you can do is put a table between yourself and the aisle. When you’re meeting with a team member, placing a desk between you and the team member again implies that we’re on different sides. For that reason, I recently reorganized my office to get the desk out of the middle of the floor separating me from everyone else. My L-shaped desk is in the corner opposite the doorway with each side up against a wall which means my back is basically facing the door. There is nothing else between the door, the 2 office chairs and me. With a simple swivel of my chair we’re all sitting face-to-face and working together.

You would be amazed when you put these things into action and explain to your team why you’re doing them at how positively they respond. Far too few “employees” ever work with a “manager” who puts so much effort into every detail. Remember the study in In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies that demonstrated that when your team members see you putting forth effort for them, it doesn’t even matter what you do, productivity will increase just because you took an interest?

This really doesn’t take a lot of work, thought, or effort so why wouldn’t you consider implementing the laws of proximity into your next sales presentation, training seminar, or office?

To your success, Bryan

The other day as I’m walking out of a meeting with my top salesman another business owner inquires “So is this your partner?” The salesman responds “No, I’m just the salesman. I just work for him.” Keep in mind, this guy is twice my age and has been in this business for 18 years. I’ve been there for less than 18 weeks. As quickly as I could think of the words I interjected, “Of course he’s my partner. We work together every day.” Immediately his demeanor changed and he added, “Yeah, that’s true we work real closely together. We are partners in what we do.” I finished the thought with, “Without this guy I’d be in a lot of trouble.” – and I sincerely meant it and more importantly the salesman knew I meant it.

The other business owner who asked the question seemed to be a bit shocked. My guess is that he’d never seen a small business owner react that way. However what I said was completely true. The salesman is an extremely valuable part of our team and as such is certainly my partner in making the business grow. My goal was to take a rather uncomfortable situation for that important team member and turn it around to make it a positive thing. Based on his second response I like to think I did that.

So you see, no one works for me, they all work with me. Its my responsibility to ensure I’m leading the whole team to a common goal and vision. Generally that goal can only be achieved by working together.

What are you doing in your business to emphasize that everyone is working together with you and not for you?

To your success, Bryan