Entries Tagged 'Kids' ↓

I am selling the Most Valuable Product, the Experience. What are you selling (stop denying, we all sell something)? Does your customer get engaged easily? No? Neither mine. Then how do you engage with your customer?

You create a brand that is credible, compelling, and personally connected with the potential customer. 

by myuibe

This simple formula is expressed in William J. McEwen’s book Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life. How do you check your brand for credibility, compelling, and connecting? This is what the author suggest:

Credibility

• [Brand] is a name I can always trust.
• [Brand] always delivers on what they promise.
• [Brand] is a highly respected brand name.
• I know what [Brand] stands for and what makes them different

Compelling

• [Brand] sets the standard for all other brands to follow
• There is no other [product/service category] quite like [Brand]
• I can’t imaging a world without [Brand]
• [Owners/Buyers/Shoppers/Customers] rave about how great [Brand] is.

Connecting

• [Brand] is the perfect [product/service category] for people like me.
• I can easily imaging myself as a [Brand] [owner/shopper/buyer/customer]

“Brand promises that are Credible, present a Compelling offer, and manage to personally Connect will attract first dates. But far more than that, they will generate a special type of first date – one that set the stage for a continuing brand relationship” - William J. McEwen, the author.

Self check

Are *you* Credible, Compelling, and Connecting brand? Check yourself. Replace [Brand] with [My dad/mom] or [My husband/wife]. Is it still Credible, Compelling, Connected? Are you world greatest for your customer?

Is “leadership” applicable only in sports or corporate world? How do you become a leader for your kids? How do you lead them to become a better person, a better citizen, a better worker, a better leader?

Same rules apply.

by Swaity

I’ve been looking at John Wooden’s 12 lessons in leadership. It made a lot of sense for me to apply it in my personal life with my kids:

1. Good Values Attract Good People. What values do you teach your kid? 
2. Love Is The Most Powerful Four-Letter Word. Do you show your kid your love?
3. Call Yourself A Teacher. What have you taught your kids lately? 
4. Emotion Is Your Enemy. Keep cool, do not yell at your kids, they explore the world’s limits including yours. 
5. It Takes 10 hands To Make A Basket. What family tasks your kids is assigned to do? Is your kid a team player?
6. Little Things Make Big Things Happen. Do not constantly preach, show how to do things, small things.
7. Make Each Day Your Masterpiece. Read this least each morning. 
8. The Carrot Is Mightier Than A Stick. My kids taught me that. Not John. 
9. Make Greatness Attainable By All. Reward every even smallest achievements, make them hungry for bigger ones. 
10. Seek Significant Change. Self explanatory I guess…
11. Don’t Look At The Scoreboard. Enjoy the process.  
12. Adversity Is Your Asset. You kid is different from you. Do not break your kid to be like you. Learn from your kid to grow yourself.

I continued researching John Wooden web site and then I’ve noticed books section where I’ve spotted this one - Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success. This is next one to appear on my Must Read Books list very soon.

This post is inspired by short conversation I had with Vered over my previous post You Have Built A Team, Now What?

This is test drive #3 announced in Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

What was in my practicing pipeline are:

• Collin’s “The day employees stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
• Leo’s “Give a full-body massage“.

Recently my good friend just used the same phrase with regards to employees and their problems, he said ”they just won’t bring you their problems anymore, so you sink slowly”.

I am looking back when I was team lead (today I am individual contributor and I do not have anybody to report to me). I recall that any time my team members were coming into my cubicle I used to put aside any work I was doing that time, disconnecting the phone and listening what they have to say. My approach was simple - if I listen and help them now I won’t be surprised afterwards. I earned trust among the team, and I had quite few surprises.

I can also reflect it to my little daughters - they are looking for my attention trying to tell their stories [==problems==] from kinder garden or from school. I know for sure if I do not listen to them now, no matter how tired I am, I will lose their trust so when they will grow up the train I missed will be far away…

Here is my practice:

I let people bring their problems, never compare theirs to mine. If I cannot help I try to encourage them by sharing my approach of The Mindset Of Failure

Leo, full-body massage never works!! At max, it gets to half-body quickly turning into greatest compliment I mentioned in Driven By Values, Sushi, And Great Sex :)

I came across Motivation or Action First? and it motivated me to share my simple practice.

My day starts at 6:00 and ends by 1:00 late at night. Walking the dog, taking kids to school, work, house keeping, self development, blogging, love. I am not workaholic - I just try to collect as much experiences as I can during the day, preferably productive ones - here is my simple recipe for this - Plan, Execute, And Celebrate. Obviously with such workload, I need mental support. Shrink is not an option - expensive, too much time to spend, and why I need someone to tell me how I need to live my life anyway?

So I motivate myself by positive reflection each day by the end of the day - I do it with myself, my 7 year old daughter, even told my mother to do so. The result is always the same - at least good mood, at max more power and motivation to do more.

The practice is simple - ask yourself about 3  simple things that were successful today - it can be anything - traffic was good, the coffee was tasty, passed the test, had a nice call from old friend or my mom or dad, kids told me their stories, completed most of the daily to-do list tasks. After admitting I had the whole three good things during the day I feel motivated for even more to complete. Even when the whole day was a disaster then I turn to The Mindset Of Failure which helps me extracting the most even from failure.

The techniques is not new but simple and works for me.

“Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one” - Hans Selye.