How To Get a Job, Grow Your Business, or Improve Personal Positioning

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The numbers of Unemployment are staggering….over 9,000,000 working age Americans. Most are choosing to opt out of the labor force, (which I fail to grasp).

And Underemployment is also staggering…as high as 7,000,000 by some estimates. The definition of underemployment: Workers that are highly skilled but working in low-paying, low-skilled jobs or part time workers that would like to be full time.

Consequently, this article is design to solve a bit of this problem. I can hear your reaction: “Bill, you’re nuts. You can’t solve this in a blog post.” Oh yeah? Watch me.

Caveats. This will be apolitical so you trolls step back. This is about personal responsibility of the worker. And I consider that politically neutral.  This also is not about macro-economic trends. I’ll leave that to people smarter than moi.

In order to get a job, you have to have a System.

And that’s what I will teach you here: A systematic approach to job improvement is essential. If you have no system, you’ll be at the whims of the market. You will lose control. You will be powerless.

If you’re OK with powerlessness, stop reading this IMMEDIATELY. This will not help. Get to therapy now, where you can lay on the couch and discover your self-imposed limitations.

But for others, here we go. Read more

Dunking Seems Miles Away

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Well, I’m still at it. If you read this blog regularly, you might recall that I set a crazy goal right after my 59th birthday, back in February, to dunk the basketball by my 60th. I have 6 months left…

Plan-Goal

And it isn’t going well.

What I Forgot…

I guess I neglected to consider that after 40-something you begin to lose your quick-twitch muscles, which is a “must” for explosive jumping. You also lose any kind of glute power and your hamstrings begin to atrophy. All bad trends if vertical leap is the goal.

So, my miscalculation is now apparent.

So what should I do? Quit? Keep going? Change the routine? Set a more realistic goal?

Not sure…but here’s my thinking. I would love your input.

1. This goal is really cool to me. It’s measurable. It’s weird, I can tell when I reveal the goal to people and they say, “Well, there you go,” as if I’m a little child again, I know I’m on to something special. It’s just that they can’t fathom it…or appreciate it. And it’s a huge stretch. All good characteristics for a goal. Read more

Working Under Load. The Secret To Your Success.

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Charles Poliquin is a weight-lifting coach. He’s the guy your trainer looks to for advice on proper technique, cadences and exercises. He was on Tim Ferriss’s podcast (Click Here To Listen) last week and he said something I thought was fascinating. Simple, but fascinating.

IncreaseStrength-UnderLoad

He said if you really want to increase your strength, you must spend more time “under load.”

In his world, under load means to stress the muscle throughout the entire weight bearing exercise. In other words, do the reps slow, stopping at the top and bottom for a few seconds. So instead of doing 20 curls in 35 seconds, you do 20 in 2 minutes.

More time under load = more strength.

In our world, “under load” leads to strength as well. Read more

Becoming Your Best By Avoiding The Misses

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I am blessed to be able to interview top-notched authors and experts in the area of leadership as we launch The Sales Leadership Academy.

Steve Shallenberger

I spoke to a veteran of leadership coaching, Steve Shallenberger, last week. Steve has worked with Fortune 100 companies for the last 30 years and has a great pulse on the mistakes he sees leaders make. He’s also author of “Becoming Your Best.”

One of those has to do with “Vision.” The lesson is that just because your company has no declared vision, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

But the fact is that if you have a division…a team…a group…you MUST have a compelling, inspiring vision for your them or they’ll wander around with little focus, and little inspiration.

Here is an excerpt from a longer interview I did with Steve where he shared his thoughts.

Enjoy!

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

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Are You Using An Ancient Leadership Method?

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How tedious has it been in the last 20 years to try to keep up with all of the leadership theories and maxims put forth by experts? Leaves us all kind of confused, doesn’t it?

Alan Cutler

Alan Cutler has done an excellent job of sifting through all of the theories and get to what works. In this interview excerpt, I ask Alan some of those questions about the psychology of leadership, a topic on which he has written, “The Psychology of Leadership.” (Click Here To Learn More)

Enjoy the interview with Alan. Let me know your thoughts.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

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What Percentage Of Your Team Is Truly Committed?

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In the lead up to the launch of The Sales Leadership Academy, I have the luxury of interviewing experts in the field of motivation, most specifically, “sales team motivation.”

DrJoeFolkman

As in, “What role does the leader play in the inspiration and motivation of their teams?”

It’s really easy to say (and I’ve said it, too), “Well, it’s not up to anyone to motivate the producer. They have to come to the table with their own motivation.”

That may be true. But does that mean you play no role at all in that? Of course not.

Dr. Folkman’s Take on Inspiring from a Leadership Position:

I had the privilege of speaking with an author, Dr. Joe Folkman. He’s written several books, most notably, The Inspiring Leader. In it, he reveals multiple studies of leaders and what makes them inspirational.

I sat down with Joe this week and I thought you’d be interested in a specific audio clip from that interview. In this clip, he addresses the idea of “commitment” and how you, yes YOU, have a role in creating commitment on your team.

If you’re interested in learning more about The Sales Leadership Academy…and how it can help you create this type of inspiration in your team, go here. A little knowledge here could make a huge revenue difference in your team. It might be worth looking at.

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What You Can Learn About Achievement From The Stacey Dash Interview?

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Recently, Stacey Dash (unknown to me until I saw this and researched her) was on Meredith Vieria. Personally, I don’t watch Vieria mainly because of the tact she took in this “interview.” The video is below.  Watch it, then come back and read on.

I love this girl! Unafraid to speak on a hot, controversial issue, and speak her truth.

I hear this all the time: “My territory isn’t large enough.” “My compensation plan isn’t fair enough.” “People don’t answer the phone like they used to.” “Prospects lie.” “I can’t get referrals anymore.” My company doesn’t invest in me.” “My company has no vision.”

All of these statements (and Meredith’s unbelievably arrogant questions) are perfect examples of our buy-in to a victim mentality. And it wears us out. Actually, it renders us unable to adopt a stance of personal empowerment.
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The Average Of 5 People

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On this week’s audio post, I want you to evaluate who you spend most of your time with. Are you surrounding yourself with people that you admire and look up to? The people you choose to be around are a direct reflection of who you will become. The rule is, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

The Problem With Idea Generation – And a Solution

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More ideas are not better. I know there is a saying, “If you want to come up with a great idea, come up with lots of ideas.”

Ideas

But I see Presidents and Salespeople generate idea after idea – and yet have little to show for them. So what happens. Here’s my take.

My sense is that the person that has the idea (the creator) is seldom the person who will implement the idea and bring it to profit. I didn’t say “never,” I said seldom.

So the idea-creator needs to have either a) someone around him/her who can flesh out the idea before investing too much time dreaming about it. Or, b) a system that walks them through the ‘fleshing out’ process. Read more