Month: June 2013

Categories
People & Relationships

Can I Invite You To Coffee?

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Can I invite you to coffee?

I give myself permission to call people I want to meet and invite them to coffee.

Here is my approach.

“Hi Bill, this is Ron Finklestein. I been hearing good things about you and I would like to buy you a cup of coffee. I have no agenda others then getting to know you a little better. Are you open to having a cup coffee?”

I have never been turned down using this approach. It is not unusual for this meeting to be schedule out a few weeks but I have never been refused. I do this once a month and I do it for me. I want to learn what others do to be successful so I can be more effective at helping my client grow, prosper and get results.

There are some things you need to know when you do this. Be authentic, don’t use it as a ruse to get in front of them and sell them something, be open to what you can learn, and be a good listener.

I recently did this with a gentleman who recently sold his business.

We had a great meeting and he told me why he met with me. “I never had anyone just want to have coffee with me who approached me the way you did. I was curious.”

During our discussion I asked him how I might help him achieve his goal. He said, “I never had anyone ask me that question before.”

I could tell there was something he wanted to share so I waited for him to make up his mind. Finally he told me that he wanted to get into coaching and he was concerned because he had no methodology. We then talk about my methodology and how it was created. I told him I could shorten his process if wanted to license my approach.

He had to leave to catch a plane and told me he would read some material and let me know next week if he wanted to proceed and learn more.

This all happened because I reached out.

I do group sales training and I shared this story with them. None could believe I would set up meeting without the purpose of getting business. I explained to them that you can have different purposes in meeting others: curiosity, networking, referrals introductions, problem solving, asking advice, etc.

The universe works in mysterious ways. I just follow my path and if I like someone I tell them. If I want to learn more I ask them and I never leave a meeting with someone I just met without asking these two questions:

  1.  What are you hoping to get out of our meeting today? I ask this because they are meeting with me for their reasons and it is useful to know what they want.
  2. What is your goal and how can I help you achieve it. People are surprised by this because most do not have goals. This helps bring some clarity to the meeting.

Give yourself permission to call someone you find interesting and ask them to coffee. Tell them you the truth; that you have no agenda and you just want to learn about them.  Watch how both you and the other person change. Be prepared to create some new meaningful relationships and be open to whatever the situation offers.

Categories
Success Attitude

Playing The “What If? Game

what-if

Fear can have a powerfull negative impact on our lives especially when it spirals into dread that grows from anticipated unknown  or troubling possibilities.

Our imagination can run wild with vivid details that can chain us to a life that is unwanted an unhappy.

The fact is no one can scare us better than we can. Most “what ifs” focus on worse case scenarios…”What if I lose my job?” or “What if I can’t pay my bills?” or “What if someone gets angry at me?” 

Years ago I was having coffee with a colleague and the topic of fear came up. He asked me about one of my fears and I answered, “I have a fear of losing everything and being out on the street living as a homeless woman or a bag lady.”

He challenged me to heighten that fear and suggested the following scenario:

Imagine that I found myself in a town where I knew no one, had no money, no clothes except the ones I was wearing, no family, and no friends. As if I was just dropped there and had nothing except myself. He asked, “What would you do?”  I could feel the panic beginning to escalate and I didn’t want to play.

After my initial shock, my answers began to pour out. I said, “The first thing I’d do is look for work. I would accept any kind of job I could get to earn immediate cash. Then I would look for some place to sleep, any shelter that felt safe.”

The more I talked about what I would do, the calmer I felt. This “what if” scenario reminded me that I’m a thriver and willing to do whatever it takes to land on my feet. I always have and reminding myself of my abilities, tenacity, and courage was comforting. Whew!

In the same situation, what would you do?

Playing the “What if?” game can help to expose the truth about your fears so that you can claim responsibility for what you will do if the worst happens. You can realize that these horrific situations are more manageable than you imagined. AND you can also see that many of the things you imagine never, ever happen!

Our negative fears view life through a narrow lens and eliminate creative options and solutions. This game can help to expand your viewpoint and invite you to see things from a fresher perspective.

Here’s how to play:

Make a list of the specific fears that occupy your thoughts and might keep you up at night. After each “what if?” write down what you would do if your worse fears actually came true. Describe in detail what would happen and what you could do about it. Consider your options, resources, support, people….

After you’ve done that exercise, consider the opposite position

Make a list of all the best scenarios you can imagine. In other words, “what if everything you ever desired, dreamed about, yearned for…. happened.”

  • What would you do?
  • Would you be able to receive all this good with open arms?
  • Who would you become?

I recommend journaling your feelings and observations. Reflect on what you learned about yourself that can become your growing edge.

And remember that in every moment, you do not walk alone. The Divine is always with you as your life partner in creating a joy-filled abundant life!

Categories
Business Ideas

Managing Life Sciences As A Business

 

Generating a business plan is an important part of the entrepreneurial process. However, different business concepts require different strategies in order to generate successful ROI.

The business of life sciences is an important example in this regard. The commodity being cashed here is the intellectual ideas and there are a number of technicalities to be realized.

First of all, starting up a business in life sciences requires a defined target. This segment is being described here because a lot of commercial ventures are blooming in this area. Life sciences may go on to translate into a bio-based economy that will become a major part of the business growth cycle.

With life sciences, an important area is defining the intellectual property state of the idea. By intellectual property, not only the idea of patent is being applied, but also the worth in terms of actual profit. Taking the example of Genentech, it’s a company that started on a very small scale with the goal to commercialize insulin. Genetech is now a market giant that has cashed in using its intellectual asset.

This brings to the need for investment and the question of how to appropriately manage the ROI.  Managing ROI and accounts for intellectual property can get overwhelming for businesses short in budget, but it’s possible to reduce workload as there are websites for accountants, HR managers and other departments in business available.  These kinds of sites provide tools and services that makes the management process much easier.

In life sciences, knowing the right scientists/researchers is very important. Your breakeven period would be made much smaller if you have a number of scientists in your interaction sphere. Their intellectual endorsement defines how quickly your product/service gets sold.

Based on this idea, it’s a wise ploy to mention the intellectual assets in your business plan as your strength. Venture capitalists can be convinced based upon the experience of your R&D team.

A vital part of the business plan for life sciences is to present the concept in a simple manner. This approach has been wonderfully demonstrated by companies that are planning to bring plants that glow to the market.

The project has been picked up for crowd funding and is now in process to commercialization. The important element was that the science was held back, and the aesthetic charm of the product was sold.

When starting a life sciences business, it’s also important to consider the legislative impact of your product/service. For understanding this approach, agribusinesses are a good example with genetically modified products. There are a lot of health considerations which you should be able to foresee before bringing the product/service to the market.

Another worthwhile tip is getting your product endorsed. Certifications are important, and you can get your product/service certified by a distinguished lab because doing so is important to increase its credibility and it also increases trust of the buyers.

Life science ventures are mostly done in a partnership manner where generally one person offers the science while the other is the science manager. The science related portion is defined by the impact factor of the researcher and the science manager bit is defined by the ability to turn it to profit.

Life science ventures are attractive in the sense that if commercialized, they’re literally a gold mine. This is demonstrated by pharmaceutical industry selling lifesaving drugs. Technology has reformed the innovation process and expanded life sciences more than ever. It does incite the entrepreneurial spirit, but has to be handled with caution.

The ideas mentioned above can be safely categorized as workable business ideas if the business plan is made carefully with all considerations in mind.     

Article contributed by Jenna Smith

Categories
Success Attitude

If You Want More Success & More Happiness, Be First Grateful For What You Have!

As I read the newspaper and forums daily, it seems that the majority of comments and news I read about is negative. People tend to spend more of their time complaining about how bad things are and focusing on what they don’t have rather than focusing on their blessings.

What many of these people do not realize is that they are actually sabotaging their happiness, health and future success. There is a powerful universal law in life that says that we attract whatever we focus on. By complaining and focusing on everything that is wrong (e.g. lousy government, too many foreigners, not enough money etc..), these people are actually attracting more poverty, ill health and unhappiness into their life.

When you don’t feel grateful for what you have, you are sending a message to God that you don’t deserve to get more of what life has to offer. When you are in a negative emotional and physical state, you will not have the passion and physical energy to notice and pursue the abundance of opportunities around you.

If we want more success, more happiness and a greater level of heath, we have to adopt the attitude of gratitude. Learning to be sincerely grateful for what you have and putting yourself in a state of ‘thankfulness’ increases your psychological as well as physical well-being.

When you focus on the blessings that you have, you put yourself into an emotional state of happiness. Not only does this make you feel good, it initiates a healing effect on your physical body. The left pre-frontal cortex of your brain is activated and positive hormones like Serotonin are secreted into your body. Serotonin is a ‘happy hormone’ that further boosts your mood. This natural ‘drug’ improves your physical health by strengthening your immune system!

Psychologists Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California, Davis and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, have found during their ongoing Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness that people who keep weekly gratitude journals had lesser health problems, had a more optimistic outlook on life, and were more likely to reach their goals.

Gratitude Attracts Greater Abundance

“Nothing new can come into your life until you are grateful for what you have.” 

Besides just making us feel good and positively improving our health, having an attitude of gratitude actually attracts greater success and abundance into our life. How does this work?

Every thought we have is a quantum of energy that vibrates at a particular frequency. Negative, pessimistic and unhappy thoughts vibrate at a much lower frequency as compared to positive, happy and optimistic thoughts.

Since all matter in the universe is actually made up of vibrating atoms at the quantum mechanical level, our thoughts actually attract and shape the kind of people, object and events we experience in our lives.

We tend to attract events and people that vibrate at the same frequency as our dominant thoughts. Simply put, if you constantly have positive, happy and grateful thoughts, you tend to attract even more happiness, abundance and positive circumstances into your life. You get more of what you focus on. This is a universal law of life. At the same time, if you always focus on lack and what you don’t have, you tend to attract more lack and more of what you do not want.

What Is There to Be Grateful For?

I once had a participant who attended my ‘Patterns of Excellence’ programme who was going through a really tough time in his life. He had recently been declared a bankrupt (he could not pay the debts from his failed business) and his marriage was in the final stages of divorce. He was potentially losing his kids and even his house. Nothing in his life seemed to be working. He felt as if the whole world was going against him.

“Gratitude is for people who already have a lot and want to achieve even more. What can I possibly be grateful for, with everything going downhill in my life?,” he said. At times, when we all go through rough patches, it may seem impossible to find something to be grateful for.

However, I believe that no matter how unfair or hopeless things may seem at times, there are many blessings that we can choose to focus on. Focusing on our blessings changes our energy from negative to positive and it is the first step we have to take if we want to turn the events in our life around. When we focus on what we have as compared to what we do not have, we draw the strength and the inspiration to turn our challenges into opportunities.

During the training, I got this man to start focusing on and writing down everything in his life that he was grateful for. While it certainly wasn’t easy, he gave it a shot and stretched himself to focus on his blessings. He began to realize how much he had to be happy about. He was in good health and had the knowledge, energy and experience to start all over again. He had a great network of friends who were there to support him and two children who loved him dearly. He began to realize that he had the chance to find someone new who would truly love him and stand by him should he go through tough times again.

He realized that he had the opportunity to learn from all the mistakes that he made with his former business partners and focus on starting a new business that he could own all by himself. Although he was temporarily broke, his reputation for honesty and connections would allow him to find investors for his new venture.

As he focused more on being grateful for he did have, you could see the excitement building up inside him again. His fear and depression faded away and the fire inside him was ignited once again. That is the power of gratitude!

Categories
Human Resource

3 Solid Tips for Startup Hiring Success

One of the most difficult things for a startup is to hire the right person. But why do most startups avoid spending time on quality hiring? Simply because they’re busy with many, many other things. Yes, it is a fact that you need to focus multiple things to make a startup success. And one of them is hiring. What do you do?

#1: Build Your “Employer” Brand

Not many startups have proper brand recognition. You’re new and you’re non-existent to most people, especially if you’re running in ‘stealth mode’. Yes, some startups are lucky enough to have star founders with their previous success stories backing them up. They can leverage their existing name brand to push their startups brand. But if you’re not them, then you need to build your employer brand – which is nothing but how your startup is perceived both externally and internally.

The power of a good brand goes beyond marketing/selling products. It also applies to your startup’s recruiting. Building a real brand isn’t rocket science, but it does take time. In order to build a brand you can do basic things like using a rubber address stamp to customize envelopes and business cards with your company’s logo/website address. You can customize pens for your employees and clients to write with. However, you shouldn’t limit yourself to the basics. Go beyond and be active, authentic and communicative to create a strong brand that potential employees can connect with.

#2: Recruit Constantly

One thing that you should understand as a startup entrepreneur is that if you’re not going to recruit constantly, you will fail. You along with your team should always be looking for fresh new talent. After all, you want to be in the position to hire top talent when it shows up on your door. The more you focus on this one factor, the better it is for your startup.

Now, this certainly doesn’t mean that you have to keep spending gobs of money regularly or have recruiters on retainer. Just make sure you have the word out there that you’re “looking”. Your website should be informative and as well as interesting to keep readers engaged. See to it that you are marketing open positions to your talent pool regularly. Find more about recruiting options and agencies as they can help you market your positions.

#3: Focus on Cultural Fit and Personality

Startups thrive and survive only when they have the right people backing them. The quality of the team of people behind a startup determines how far it is going to go. This is why you should hire only those people who fit in your startup culturally. Things such as “lack of experience” can be overcome with time, but how do you fix poor team spirit and broken culture?

Hiring one person who doesn’t go with the culture and doesn’t have the right personality for your startup can derail everything. In order to hire the right person, get everybody involved in the hiring process. The more people involved, the more clarity you will have. This is one factor that you should never compromise on.

In conclusion, creating a successful startup depends on how much you focus on creating a great team. The above hiring tips are only the tip of the iceberg, which is why you should keep experimenting and learning as you move forward to keep hiring the best people for your startup.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith