Create To Be Great: Coaching and Speaking





"to challenge and inspire people 
so that we can realize our full potential"
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Amazing!

7/7/2014

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What will it take to get to Amazing?

Many promotional products professionals are really getting beat up on price and see the industry’s products as becoming commodities.  Many people tell me that their customers are demanding them to match or beat impossibly low prices. What is happening out there?

The answers lie in the fact that if you are not growing, you’re dying. It’s brutal, but true. Buyers assume that you will give them quality, service and a low price. The assumption is that you will deliver goods as pictured or promised on time done right. This is the first level of a transaction based sale between a buyer and a seller.

When you raise your performance and give more, you gain a happy customer who expects that you will perform and provide them with peace of mind. Your customer expects and trusts you to make them look good.

What if you can get your client to be impressed?  What would you have to do to impress them? Perhaps you’ve anticipated their need. You may have researched their market position and brand and created some really custom, personalized and “wow-worthy” design. Your client is impressed. They will tell others.

But if you want to move to the fourth level of customer experience?  What will it take to amaze your client and seal your partnership? If you want to be an integral part of your client’s business, to be the go-to resource and problem solver — you need to be nothing short of amazing.  Amazing is hard work. Not everyone can be amazing. Can you?  

These are the four levels of customer service.  

  1. Your buyers assume that you will deliver.
  2. Your customers develop expectations of how you will deliver.
  3. Your clients are impressed with your professional service.
  4. Your loyal clients are amazed by what you do, how you do it and just how good you are.  

Here’s the thing. What customers are amazed by today will just impress them tomorrow and by next week they’ll expect it and by next month, it will be assumed.

Creating value and being the best is a journey. You need to get up every morning and ask yourself. “How Can I Be Amazing?”







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Two Ways To Find Your Why

4/29/2014

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Do you know your “why?” Why are you doing what you are doing? Please don’t tell me to make money. Money is a result of what you are doing, it is not the why. Your “why” is your purpose. When you find your purpose and live it, you discover meaning and you get to do what you love. When you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.

When you find your passion and your purpose and live out your “why”, your work becomes a labor of love. Work is what we do by the hour, while Labor sets its own pace.  Living out your mission, you tap into a creative stream that allows you flow — an intense focus and crisp sense of clarity that others notice.  Simon Sinek has a TED video with more than 12.6 million views on YouTube in which he explains the importance of finding your “why”.  He points out that “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”  

What is your cause? What are your beliefs that drive you and get you out of bed every morning? Why should anyone care? Most of us can explain what we do. Most of us can explain how we do what we do. But can you articulate your “why”?  Are you passionate about solving problems? Are you driven by continuous improvement? Does helping others succeed drive you? Are you trying to make the industry more professional? Do you love being part of the creative process and watching an idea germinate, blossom and flourish?  Find YOUR Why and live it courageously. Steve Jobs said, “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. Don’t settle.”

It is your responsibility to discover your “why”. Once discovered, center your life on it and allow it to flood meaning into your life goals and daily activities and become an everyday source of integrity and pride. Your purpose should be rooted in love, not fear; aligned with your fundamentals, your passions and desires; something that moves you emotionally and not just mentally; be energizing and nourishing; inspiring and worth building a life around.

Here are two ways to help you find your “why”.
  1. You’ll find it inside. You already know the answer, but you will find it close. So step back and look inward and then trust your gut. Let go of self-interest and control and reflect with honesty on your values, your beliefs and the things that matter most to you. Ask yourself if your life serves something of value in itself and not just what you think you can get from it. If you can direct your energies in the service of creating a greater good, it will return to you. Allow yourself to have moments of “awe” that put you into the moment. Watch the leaves change color and drift to the ground. Stare at the fire and smell the smoke and hear the pops and crackles. (Hopefully around a campfire or fire pit). Get up and watch the sunrise and see how the colors of the world change and hear the birds greet the new day. And then, listen. To yourself. The answer is inside of you.
Be for the sake of being. Love for the sake of loving. Give for the sake of giving. Trust the world to give it back to you. It always does. It’s the law. The law of the universe. Pursue your purpose with a sense of service to it. When you keep your self-interest at bay, you’re able to find your true purpose.


     2.  You’ll find it by working at finding it.  Steve Pavlina suggests that anyone can do it in about twenty minutes. Begin with an open mind and a commitment to work at it until you get there.  On a blank piece of paper or a new document file if you’re more of a computer person, write “what is my true purpose in life?” Write the first answer that pops into your head. Now repeat that with each new answer that you think of. When you get to the one that makes you cry, you have found it. It could take you one hundred, two hundred or even a thousand answers but when you hit one that hits every emotional nerve in your body, you will have found it.

Will finding your “why” help your business? It will if you make the decision to live it, love it and be it. 
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7 Ways to Create A Social Media Presence

2/11/2014

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You’re not still asking why or whether you need to have a social media presence are you?  Real quickly now. You need a social media presence because that’s where your new customers are and it’s how they will find you, trust you and try you.  Ignore it at your own peril. My definition of marketing is — Turning Strangers Into Friends, Friends Into Customers and Customers into Raving Fans.  Your social media presence allows you to do just that.  Here are seven tips... 

1.  Make learning Social Media Marketing a priority. Your town probably has a big building in it with lots and lots of books.  It’s kind of like Blockbuster used to be except with books instead of videos and you can check them out for free.  Get reacquainted with your local library.  The internet is also your friend. Google, Yahoo or Bing a phrase such as “How to Learn Social Media” and pick out some great articles to read. Check out your regional trade association’s, ASI’s and PPAI’s pro development offerings.  We have several great professionals in our industry sharing their knowledge on these topics.  Get your own domain name and website that you can use Social Media to drive traffic to and to improve your rankings on search engines. Learn about SEO - it’s not that hard to do it yourself - and optimize your website. You want to create a presence so that when someone in your market enters: Promotional Products - (Your Town Here) into Google that your website comes up in the top half of  the page. 

2.  Update Your LinkedIn Profile and Make Connections. In the past, successful sales people had their Rolodex and it contained all of their contacts names, addresses and phone numbers. It was one of the most valuable business tools that they owned.  Get on LinkedIn today. If you have a profile but haven’t used LinkedIn, get back on there and first update your profile and polish it.  Make so that it leaves the impression that you want your number one prospect to have of you if they were to look for you.  Here’s the thing.  They will look there. Make LinkedIn Connections. Use the “find connections” tools that the site offers and send out invitations to connect.  Watch your network grow!  It is amazing just how many people we are all connected to.  Look at your friends and acquaintances connections and connect with the people that you know from their lists too.  You might also take a look at some of your customers’ and prospects’ profiles for ideas for whom you should invite connections.   

3.  Use LinkedIn Right.  There are several ways to build your presence now that you’ve updated your profile and have a growing network.  First of all be aware that Google loves LinkedIn.  You will notice that when you Google yourself (it’s okay, we all do) that BOOM your profile just came up near the top of page one.  Second, explore the search capabilities. You can find people by location, by job title, by company. Use this as a prospecting tool to not only identify potential clients, but also to identify people in your network who may be able to provide you with at best an introduction and at worst a common ground conversation starter. Next get into the LinkedIn Groups that will highlight your level of expertise.  Sign up for notifications and contribute to discussions. Pick groups where your best customers and prospects hang out and they’ll soon see you as an expert. 

4.  Use Facebook Right. If you are going to use Facebook for building your business and your social media presence, keep personal and business separate. Either use two separate pages one for personal and one for business, or make sure that all of your posts are of the type that you would want your best customer or prospect to see. Post things about your company, your people, any awards or accomplishments. Feature profiles of your customers and highlight their successes. (Particularly their successes using one of your services!)  Keep your posts interesting, informative and valuable. Use it to promote your presence on other social media channels like YouTube, LinkedIn, your blog, your podcasts. Use Facebook to create your online personality. Be interesting and likable. 

5.  You can know own your own television station and your own radio station. Have some fun with video and create a YouTube channel. Record yourself, your employees, your customers, your suppliers having fun with promotional products. If you’ve got more of a face for radio, you can create your own broadcast of podcasts on iTunes. Once again, it’s all about the content. Make sure you have something worth watching or listening to and topics that people will actually search for online. Your video on how to select the right giveaways for a golf outing may show up on a prospects search for information on just that topic and BOOM! you’ve got yourself a new client.   

6.  You also can publish your own newspaper. It’s called a Blog. There are several great platforms available for free (I like Wordpress and blogger). This is where you can use that great domain name that your bought for yourself and create an informative, valuable website.  I’ve heard it joked that blog stands for Better Listings on Google. That is one of the benefits of blogging. Your name will come up higher on searches when you’re a blogger.  Another great benefit is that the internet is forever.  Three years from now, a prospect might find the article that you wrote yesterday on how to plan a company picnic or other valuable content. 

7.  Remember this is Cocktail Party Marketing.  I hope you wouldn’t go to a cocktail party among both strangers and friends and begin shouting out that you’re offering end quantity pricing, free set-up charges or twenty-five percent off on coffee mugs this week.  Social Media Marketing is about having conversations.   

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?  It is work, but if you get consistent at it, it will pay off with customers finding you which is a lot more satisfying than cold calling. The rules of marketing have changed. Change with the times and you’ll find new relevance and new business coming to you. 
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Resilience

9/16/2011

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“You may have a fresh start at any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.”  Mary Pickford

Resilience def:  the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.

Tired of this “new normal” we’ve been optimistically calling a recession?  Three years is a long time to be subject to the compressive stress of clients not spending, prospects who are price shopping everything, our once strong value propositions being commoditized, banks not lending and companies not hiring. 

Know this.  You were born with Resilience.  You were born with the ability to bounce back.  From anything.  To anything.  This moment brings you everything that you need.  It is all here.  Now. 

This doesn’t mean it will be easy.  It doesn’t mean that it’s without stresses of its own.  It requires a leap of faith.  It requires being able to let go of old beliefs and old habits and old familiar places and yes, even old familiar faces. 

Believe in your dreams and create your new path.  What is it that you are passionate about.  Do it.  Live it.  Open yourself to life. 

When we are inspired by others who overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, it is easy to not identify that resilience in ourselves.  If we do find it in ourselves, it is easy to attribute it to faith, to grace, to God.  Psychologists have identified several factors that seem to contribute to a person’s ability to bounce back from major life stresses and be stronger than before.

▪Avoiding identification with the sad story
▪Seeking help
▪Holding the belief that there is something one can do to manage your feelings and cope
▪Letting go of negative emotions and experiencing forgiveness
▪Being connected with others, such as family or friends
▪Self-disclosure of the trauma to loved ones
▪Spirituality
▪Having an identity as a survivor as opposed to a victim
▪Helping others
▪Finding positive meaning in the trauma

          Keep moving forward.  Keep reinventing.  Get creative.  With yourself.  And believe.  It is not that you are powerless.  You are powerful beyond belief, so leap forward.

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Meaningful Change is the Result of a Clear Vision

3/16/2011

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Change. It can be frightening.  Change.  It can be exhilarating.  Change.  It can happen to us.  Change.  We can be the instigator.  We can ignite change or we can be extinguished by change.

This one thing is clear.  Change happens.  Like the current of a river, it flows — sometimes lazily, sometimes rapidly, and sometimes crazily.  We live in times of chaotic change and humans have always done, we must adapt with it.  We must flow with it.

To flow with the changes, we must know where we want the currents to take us.  This requires a vision.  There is a big difference between a vision and a view.  If we allow the currents of change to sweep us along, we will have a view along the way, but we won’t have a vision of where we want to go. 

Creating meaningful change requires that we live consciously and have a clear vision of what we want to experience along the way.  So many of us have experienced the negativity of knowing that what we have is not what we want.  Adding to the frustration is the unawareness of what it is that we want.  A life well lived is a life of intention and life of vision.  Clarify your vision of what you want in this life, in this moment.

Clarify your vision and you become the director of meaningful change in your life.  Take some time with yourself to explore deeply six areas of your life.  Be honest with yourself about where you are compared to where you want to be in these six areas of your life:

1)   Professional — this concerns your delivery of value to make yourself better, to make your world better, and to attract abundance and prosperity into your world.  Yes, that was a fancy way of saying this is your job.  I contend that if your job is just a job, you may need some help in this area.  What do you love doing?  What are you good at?  When you combine passion and skill, the world will find you.  When you can make a living and make a life, you never have to work another day in your life.

2)    Financial — what is your relationship with money and wealth?  Do you worry about money?  Are you living within your means?  Have you reached a place where the things you own no longer own you?  What is your vision for yourself if the financial aspects of your life were exactly where you wanted them?  Set SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) goals around this area of your life and you’ll take the first step to reaching them.

3)   Spiritual — your religious beliefs or lack of them need to be a part of your vision.  Are you at peace with yourself and the source of your energy, your values, your purpose and sense of meaning?  This exploration is the deepest, most personal and in my view, most important.

4)   Emotional — how is your emotional state?  Are your thoughts controlling you?  All negative emotions are the result of believing untrue thoughts.  Have you explored where your emotions are coming from?  Do you have mechanisms in place to help you find emotional balance and inner peace?  Do you have a picture of where you would like to be?  This needs to be a part of your vision in order to create positive and meaningful change.

5)   Relationship — how are you doing with the important relationships in your life?  Are you still actively writing a love story with your significant other?  How’s the family?  Have you got a best friend?  Life is a more pleasant journey when we share it with those we love.  Loving those we want in our lives requires a vision as well.  They are experiencing this chaotic change as well.  You can enjoy the journey with those you love.

6)   Health and Wellness — your physical body is the vessel that you have to take you on this amazing trip called life.  Your body changes too.  You need to make wise choices every moment to care for your body and mind.  Choosing healthy foods in the right amounts.  Choosing to exercise the body to give you the strength and vitality you need to accomplish and experience your life goals.  Wise food choices and commitment to exercise will also relieve stress and create positive emotions that self-perpetuate good habits.

Clarify your vision for what you want your life to look like in these six areas and you will be well on your way to orchestrating positive and meaningful change in your life.  Be well, my friend.

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    Paul A. Kiewiet MAS CIP CPC
    Coach, Speaker, Facilitator



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