Maverick and Company

On November 1, 2004, exactly 5 years and 5 days ago, I did a terrible, stupid, beautiful thing. I started my own company.

I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t have a plan or a marketing strategy for finding new clients. I didn’t have a mentor to show me what to do or a coach to help me get it done. I didn’t have enough cash reserves for tough times. I didn’t really even know how to explain what I did. I would not recommend starting a company the way I started mine. Deciding to work for yourself is a foolish, foolish thing to do. Your company is a version of you, your mistakes, your immaturity, your impulsiveness. Everything you wish were different about you will become an exponentially bigger problem inside your business. It will, often, be uncomfortable even when it’s going really well. So you see, it was a terrible, stupid thing to start my own business. In fact, it still is.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM MAVERICK

But as I stop to look back on these past five years and five days since I became the Maverick of MAVERICK & COMPANY, I still love the terrible, stupid beautiful mess I’ve gotten myself into. Because just as your business will show you all your faults, it will also show you where to grow. If you’ll let it, your business will help you fill in the gaps of who you are as a human being. If you let it, your business will turn you into a better person, a bigger person. In that spirit, here are 5 things MAVERICK has taught me in the past 5 years and 5 days:

1. THE RAIN ALWAYS COMES—No matter how bad it is, it will always get better. Even in the dessert, even if it takes 100 years, the rain ALWAYS comes. Your job in life is to remember that, store some water and hang in there.
2. GO TO THE ZOO—I’ve learned I can’t force life to go the way I want. Often, the harder I push, the harder things become. I get more tense, less happy and opportunities dry up. In these instances, I got o the zoo to see the gorilla babies. They romp and play and tease the big male gorillas (also a terrible, beautiful, stupid thing to do.) And something about watching them, brings me back to me. When it isn’t working, stop working, go play.
3. GROW YOUR OWN CONFIDENCE—Many people get their confidence from their results. Doing it that way severely limits the amount of good you can do in the world. Your confidence level is critical to your effectiveness. You need to know how to grow your own, protect it and restore it, whether or not your have the results RIGHT NOW.
4. EVERYBODY’S AN IDIOT—I’ve now worked with thousands of people and hundreds of groups. What I’ve noticed is that everybody is an idiot. Almost nobody does all the stuff they should. Everybody could be doing it better. They’re all imperfect and it mostly works out anyway. Everybody’s an idiot, including me, and we still manage to run great companies, raise great families and make a difference in the world. MAVERICK taught me that being an idiot is the beginning, not the end.
5. I’M AWESOME—I sort of knew this before but working for myself, the way I’ve dealt with the hard times, the stuff I’ve built and the sense of humor I’ve (mostly) maintained prove to me that I am, in fact, awesome. And if that didn’t do it, the fan mail, the fan emails, the grateful phone calls, the tears of recognition and the way I see faith come back to the faces in the audience…THOSE things tell me that I am (mostly) being the person I said I would be. Knowing THAT is, as they say, priceless. I am awesome and awesomely blessed.

It’s not just beautiful, it’s a true miracle, a divine event to be able to do something you love, give the gift you’ve been given to give, and pay your bills all at the same time. The very best parts of my life are coming up with new ideas and hearing how people use them to have more of what they want and these are things I get to do ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t know what will happen in the next 5 years and 5 days…I’ve at least learned not to guess or try to predict. But I can say that if the next 5 & 5 went half as well, if I was half as blessed, if I got to make half the difference I have so far…that would work for me.

Here’s to this terrible, stupid, beautiful dream of mine that came true and here’s to YOURS. Thank you, Alecia

I’ve been noticing lately that many of us could use a bit of perspective, a bit of inspiration, a bit of hope. This is a little something I wrote last year that seemed good to share today. –Alecia

“Life requires no particular genius or courage or faith when it is going well. Any idiot is capable of standing in the warmth of the winner’s circle and soaking up the applause of an adoring crowd (and many of them do.) But life often does not go well. Life is often frustrating, frequently unfair and sometimes downright scary. Happy moments are easy for us all, and can’t be used to predict who will win and who will lose. It is the quiet moments of exhaustion, pain, boredom, fear, uncertainty, THESE are the moments that sort us into the groups of failure and success. Some of us will start out with more money, more advantages, more intelligence even, but all of us will have to deal with tough moments. Few people are willing to work hard enough to handle the bad times moments. Fewer still will do the work to learn to handle them well. But all of us can. Greatness is not learned in the winners circle. Greatness is developed in the storm, by learning to navigate around the tough times that will sink the ships of lesser men. If greatness is what you’re looking for, deal well with the storms that find you and seek storms worthy of the person you wish to become.”

Copywright © 2009 Alecia Huck

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If your computer crashes, it’s pretty easy to see that you need help, and fast. When it comes to YOUR performance however, it can be tough to tell when it’s worth it to call in some professional help. Here are 7 Times When Business Coaching is Worth the Money.

1. La Brea Syndrome: You’ve Been Stuck for a While
2. Repeating Patterns
3. Borrow a Brain
4. Develop New Skills
5. You Have Plenty of $ but No Life
6. You’re Working Hard but Have No $ AND No Life
7. Crunch Time

1. La Brea Syndrome

You’ve Been Stuck for a While The La Brea Tar pits are a legendary collection of fossils. Animals would wander into the tar, get stuck and eventually die there. La Brea Syndrome is when you’re too stuck to be able to get yourself out. When you’ve spent weeks or months thinking you need to make a change but still haven’t made it…it’s a good idea to get professional help. You may not be able to get unstuck on your own OR it may just take a long, long time to do it. You don’t necessarily have to sign up for a year long package…a really good coach might be able to get you unstuck in a single session. How much work you need, and how long it will take will vary from situation to situation. Don’t kid yourself about whether or not you’ll be able to deal with it on your own. If it’s been going on for a long time you’re wasting money, energy and time spinning your wheels. Get help. It will definitely be worth it.

2. Repeating Patterns

Over the course of your professional life, you’ll find some patterns repeating over and over. When you have one that is particularly damaging, it’s usually worth the investment to work with someone who can help you create new processes and paradigms so you don’t keep doing the same thing over and over. One example, you overbook yourself, work really, really hard for a while and then retreat into a work coma where almost nothing gets done. This type of cycle can kill a business if it’s not properly managed. The worse the impact of the pattern is on you and those around you, the more important it is to get help dismantling it. If you’re not sure it’s all that bad, check in with the people around you. They can usually provide clear feedback about the true impact.

3. Borrow a Brain

We can’t all be experts at everything. A good reason to hire a coach or consultant is that you want to borrow their brain. An expert, or someone with a lot of experience in a particular area or industry can add enormous value to your business for the cost of just a few hours time. If a project’s success hinges on a factor or area where you don’t have expertise, consider hiring one and borrowing their brain. Technology upgrades, major changes to your sales process, even hiring decisions are all events that often justify an investment in coaching to produce the desired result or avoid costly mistakes.

4. Develop New Skills

Professionals should be consistently and strategically growing their skill sets. If you’ve identified a set of skills you want to develop, executive coaching can be a very cost effective way to get the results you want. Unlike classes which are generally designed for a general audience, a professional coach can design a program specifically for you. You’ll avoid reviewing lessons you’ve already learned and can often learn your new skills inside of a real project you’re currently working on. That way you’re producing great results as you build your skills. This is a great way to improve the R.O.I. on a coaching investment. Great examples would be leadership skills, confrontation, marketing, time management, etc.

5. You Have $, But No Life

It’s not unusual for life to get wildly out of balance. We tend to focus our energy on the places where we feel good and confident, places where it’s likely we can produce results. For many of us, that’s our work. If you find you have plenty of $, but not much of a life, a coach is a good investment. Look for one who won’t just tell you how you should live your life, but who can help you understand your true priorities and motivations and design a good life to fulfill those needs and desires. Plan to work with this person for several weeks to help you design a life you want and develop the strategies for putting in the new priorities and breaking old habits.

6. You Don’t Have Much $ OR Much of a Life

If this describes you, it’s likely you’re missing a critical component of a successful business. You may not be charging enough, you may be giving away too many freebies, you might just be working with the wrong people. You might be in an unworkable business altogether. It’s more likely however that your approach is off. A good coach with experience analyzing and diagnosing business processes can help you isolate where you’re going so wrong and get things back on track. Remember that not all of what’s true is true everywhere…meaning a solution for a corporation may not work for your small one-man-show and vice versa. Make sure you’re working with someone who has experience with either your symptoms or your specific size business, industry, etc.

7. It’s Crunch Time

When you’re buried in an avalanche of projects, when you’re getting ready to go public, when you’re growing really fast, all of these are good times to get help. When it’s crunch time, every minute matters. A coach can help you pause to do the big picture, strategic thinking and short-term planning that can make the difference between success and failure. If you don’t feel like you have time to meet with a coach, that’s probably a good sign that you need one. Just like a hiring a trainer helps get you into the gym, a coach helps get you to do the pausing and planning that often produces your best thinking and best results. They can also provide an emotional outlet to help you deal effectively with a high pressure situation.

A REALLY GREAT YEAR, like a really great life, almost never happens by accident. If you want one, you’ve got to CREATE it. Since I’m turning 33 this year, I’m looking for help making a great big list of 33 things I could do this year that would help make the year GREAT. And I’d like your help.

A LITTLE HELP, A LITTLE FAME–If you’ve got a good idea, send it in. I’ll compile a big list of the best and republish them (up to 100.) If you make the list and would like a little bit of fame, I’ll also publish your name, company name and website. Same goes for the final list of the 33 I like most.

SMALL THINGS, BIG FUN–While any suggestion is welcome, I’m especially interested in the little things that you think would make a big difference. Hiking Mt. Everest may have changed YOUR life but odds are it won’t be changing mine. You might instead suggest climbing a single 14’er (mountain with an elevation over 14,000 feet for those of you not from Denver.)  While moving to Maui or spending a month in a monastery might be fun…I’m mostly looking for the little things that have made a big difference in your life. TWEAKS are the small changes that can change everything.  It might be a book you read that changed your life, a movie you can’t forget or the scheduling habit that made your life workable.  It could be the one feng shui idea or the single habit of drinking more water, or the way you started scheduling vacations in advance, limiting the time your phone is on or just that you made a Sunday dinner with the family a priority.

WHATEVER little thing worked for YOU, I want to know about it.   SEND ‘EM IN–I’ll take suggestions for the next week and then publish the big list within the next couple of weeks. I have a feeling people will come up with some pretty good stuff so you may want to check back and look the list over. You may even want to take on doing the final 33 with me, or make your own list. A great life is CREATED. Thanks for helping me create mine and make sure you’re also creating YOURS. Reply to project33@maverickandcompany.com with your suggestions. And stay tuned for updates!

The point of marketing is to make the kind of connections with potential customers that will remove the potential and put money in your bank account. Unfortunately, most marketing also gets caught up in what we call The Pretty Problem. When people write or talk in front of someone they want to impress, they have the unfortunate tendency to focus primarily on sounding smart. They use bigger words, they abuse clichés and they turn to jargon to make simple points sound more sophisticated. They focus on putting up pretty websites with flash graphics and crisp pictures of serious, yet friendly looking people in crisp white shirts at clean brown conference tables. They make it pretty.

But PRETTY isn’t what makes marketing effective. Visually, I imagine The Pretty Problem as a RED ROSE. All over the internet and in hundreds of thousands of unread brochures, you’ll find RED ROSES. You’ll find pretty graphics and big words and talk of taking things to the NEXT LEVEL with EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERIVICE and HIGH INTERITY. You’ll find people talking about organizational dynamics, cultural initiatives and integrated blah, blah, blah. It’s a LOT of RED ROSES.

As people focus on sounding smart/looking pretty, they tend toward the safest, least offensive, most used, most common, most general descriptions and language. They lean toward the clichés and jargon. They think they sound smart and many of the sites do look pretty. You end up with another RED ROSE in a sea of RED ROSES. The problem is, aside from being disgustingly boring, it’s a ridiculously ineffective way to attract new customers. Your clients work with YOU presumably because they LIKE something about you and how you do business. If you look like a RED ROSE in a sea of other RED ROSES, how will new clients ever find you?

New marketing is all about knowing which qualities and characteristics your clients like/love about you and AMPLIFYING those qualities and characteristics. It’s about making yourself EASY TO RECOGNIZE. If you’re a BLUE FISH, it’s about being a BLUE FISH. If you’re funny…be funny. Uptight? Traditional? Downright Anal? Your materials and communication style need to reflect that so the clients who love it about you can tell that YOU are the one they’ve been looking for. When you put YOU on loudspeaker, you make yourself easier to find. You separate yourself from the pack…not based on vague (and absurd) promises of better customer service, but based on differences that are both REAL & DESIRABLE to YOUR CLIENTS. When YOU be YOU, you’ll stand out to new clients like a BLUE FISH in a sea of RED ROSES. And THAT is the kind of connection that takes the potential out of potential client and puts money in your bank account.

If you’re looking for help figuring out what your BLUE FISH characteristics are, and how to put them on loudspeaker, contact us today. We currently have 3 OPENINGS for one-to-one projects and will have another small group session starting in early August. We’re rebuilding the website to, God help us, make it both prettier AND more Blue Fish compliant so time and space in our programs is limited. If you’re interested please send an email with “BLUE FISH” in the title and we’ll send you a quick questionnaire to help you figure out if our programs might be for you. Please send requests to info@maverickandcompany.com

We all want to be remembered so we can be referred.  We want to stand out in their memory.  But the smartest way to do this is to first focus on fitting in. Ever notice that there are certain people you just click with?  Certain people who seem to like you and you seem to like them, almost from the get go?  There are some people on this planet that you don’t have to work hard to connect with.

These are what I call your Blue Fish people.  There is something about them, something about you, that just goes together.  When you find these people they tend to stand out in your memory…almost like a Blue Fish in a sea of Red Roses.

If you want to stand out, be remembered and get referred, I recommend you start by seeking out the people who you have that click with…your Blue Fish people.  It’ll be easy to connect with them.  It’ll be easier for them to remember you.  And because you do have that friendly connection, they’re more likely to refer you.  AND because their connections are probably a lot like them, their connections are likely to be more Blue Fish people, people you will naturally connect with as well. Don’t try to impress everyone.

Don’t try to be remembered by everyone.  And CERTAINLY do not seek referrals from everyone.  Find your Blue Fish people, the places where you fit in.  It is there you are most able to Stand Out and reap the rewards of doing so.

A few weeks ago I received an email invitation to a launch party for a BNI group.  BNI, Business Networking International, is a great organization with lots of chapters all over the world, and oodles of dedicated members who pass millions of referrals.  In general they do a great job of providing businesses and sales people with good training and a good set-up to build relationships with new referral sources.  In general, I am a fan. Specifically, the series of interactions I had with the person inviting me were a case study in how NOT to invite people to events you’d actually like them to attend.  Which brings us back to that first email. 

1. It was a generic email…which is NOT a problem.  It contained NO personal reference at ALL which IS a problem.  Primarily this is a problem because I had no idea who the person sending the email was.  I meet lots of people and maybe everyone else on her list knew her name immediately but I did not.
2. I received a second email about a week later. Good on the follow up, again bad because I didn’t want the email to begin with, had no idea who was sending it or how I might have met them and therefor the series of communications is now, technically, SPAM.
3. I write a very polite, very nice response letting the sending know I had been a member of a BNI chapter a few years ago and was not currently interested.  I also said I couldn’t remember how we had met and asked her to please remove me from her mailing list.  I added that I wished her great success with her new group. SHE NEVER RESPONDED. This was her big chance to actually communicate with me, build a relationship with me.  She could have apologized, asked questions, asked if there was anyone else I’d like to send, never explained how we knew each other…nothing.
4. Today, the coup de grace. I receive a phone call from a person who sounds like they’re two minutes away from falling asleep or comitting suicide who tells me she’s with a company that sent me an invitation to a BNI meeting.  She could not be LESS enthusiastic about talking to me or her group.  Worse than going thru the motions, she actually sounds like she’s so bored she’s in pain.  I politely inform her that I had received a couple of emails, one of which I’d responded to saying I was formerly a member and not interested in joining at this time.  She then says, “O.k. thanks,” AND HANGS UP. I know we’re all guilty of skipping a couple of steps in the interest of saving time but a couple of hints: 1. As email has become more and more widely USED, it has become more and more widely ABUSED which leads to less use.  A mass email used to have some pull, not anymore.  Any communication will go a LOT further if you can be specific, talk directly to me and at least fill in any missing information about how we know each other.  Adding a detail or two to a generic email means that yes, you sent a generic email but you also gave enough of a damn to tweak it for ME.  The least I can do is read it for you. I once watched an insurance salesman send out 500 personally signed Christmas cards, not a single one of which contained a personal message.  Better strategy, send out 50 with a personal note.  They’ll actually get read, you’ll actually forward those relationships and you’ll save at least one tree and and a bunch of stamps. 2. Respond to any response communication. It’s an opening you worked hard to create, make sure you USE it. 3. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, at least be interested in your own invitation!  If you don’t care, why should I?  You don’t have to jump up and down like a cheerleader on speed, but you could at least be interested in talking to me, somewhat happy, excited about your own event, your life, your phone, the possibility of caffeine in your future.  Sound alive…please.

Invitations are powerful tools for building relationships.  Even if people don’t accept them, it’s a real reason to be in touch, to communicate their value to you, to be on the lookout for what might benefit them…all things that help solidify their connection to you. As with all powerful things however, you must use your power for good and not evil.  Used carelessly, a badly made invitation can do a lot of damage to your relationships and reputation. Invite well and prosper.

Remember, even though people may be spending more carefully, plenty of them are still SPENDING.  One of the best ways to make sure the people who SHOULD become your clients actually BECOME your clients is to get smarter about referrals. Most people think that if they do a good job and know enough people, they’ll get referrals.  But you know lots of great people that you may have NEVER given a referral to.  While I can’t teach you every secret about getting more referrals right here, I can let you in on one of the simplest, MOST EFFECTIVE secrets for REFERRAL RESULTS.

STORIES For a very long time human beings communicated and remembered information primarily through stories.  And even now with our books and directories and our Google, the number one way people transmit and REMEMBER information is through STORIES. This is important because if you want referrals, people will have to remember you and what you do.  STORIES can quickly and easily make you memorable, likable, and trustworthy.  Perhaps even more importantly, a good story can make it SUPER EASY to refer you.

A Quick Case Study: THE MORTGAGE GUY A mortgage guy I know once asked me to take a quick peak at his marketing materials.  I started by asking him to tell me what 3 things he’d want people to know and remember him for in the referral process.  He, like many of you, was trying to let customers know he had integrity.  Unfortunately, that word, by itself, doesn’t work very well.  When pushed, he gave me the perfect example of how he has integrity.  He told me the following story: “This couple came to me for a second mortgage.  I spent a couple of hours with them, looking at their entire financial picture.  In the end, it didn’t really make sense for them to take out a second mortgage and I told them so.” This STORY is brilliant.  He can tell his referral sources to talk about his integrity but in one simple, fast story he can make sure they know it.  More importantly, it’s an easy story for them to tell to potential referrals.  When you make it EASY for people to refer to you, you DRAMATICALLY increase the odds of them doing so.

BONUS ROUND: For those of you who want to go past being a rock star and become a referral ninja, look at some simple edits I taught him. “A few months ago one of my clients referred her sister to me. They were a really nice couple who wanted to take out a second mortgage.  I sat down with them and talked to them about their overall financial picture–that’s important to do because a house is most people’s single biggest financial investment.  I spent a couple of hours with them and ultimately recommended they NOT take out the second mortgage.  I showed them some other options that made more sense for them.  So I actually didn’t make any money working with them but I believe in looking out for people.  That’s the way my dad did it and I think it’s one of the reasons people do refer me.  They know I’ll do the right thing with their people.”

The reality is that both of these examples work just fine.  Remember, your goal here is to train people to refer you AND make it easy for them to do that.  So I added some specific elements.

1. Be specific where you can.  If Mary referred you, talk about Mary.  It humanizes you and adds credibility.  Obviously a mortgage broker has to protect confidentiality but he can talk about a sister.
2. If your story includes a referral, make sure you say so.  It helps train people to think of you as someone people REFER frequently.
3. Add an extra nugget.  The focus of this story is that this particular mortgage guy will give up a deal for himself if it’s the right thing to do for the client.  We added a couple of extra nuggets.  You don’t want to tell a 20 minute story.  Simple is important.  But a couple extra QUICK nuggets put some very important ideas into the story.  Our first one is that he spent time looking at their entire financial picture.  Lots of mortgage guys might not do that.  It’s something that is different about him.  Second, we added the piece about his dad.  It’s TRUE, it humanizes him and helps people know that he’s from the old school, a highly desirable quality, especially in this industry.
4. Reinforce why people refer you.  At the end, we wrap it all up and bottom line it for people.  He’s a good person to refer because he not only says he’ll take care of people, he does it–EVEN WHEN it means he’ll lose a deal. Odds are YOU will remember this story. You might even tell it to someone else.  You might even want to refer someone you know to this broker (Jeff Aronheim)

What stories are you giving your fan club about you?

The MAVERICK GUIDE to GETTING MORE REFERRALS is being pre-sold at a HUGE DISCOUNT right now.  It’ll be out on April 15th.  Order your copy today and start working  A LOT smarter.  Your network likes you and knows people who should work with you.  Do you know how to connect the dots so their REFERRALS become YOUR CLIENTS?  For more information and to pre-order visit www.maverickandcompany.com and go to the CLASSES & BOOKS tab–get ‘em while they’re hot.

If you expose yourself to too much sun for too long, you’ll burn.  If you expose yourself to a lot of negative ideas, your brain will get burned too.  You’ll have a hard time staying positive, taking positive actions toward your goals or even having much fun. In order to stay sane, you’ll have to WORK AT IT.  That means making sure to limit the amount of negative information going in and actively put good stuff into your head.  Some suggestions:

READ, READ, READ–Read things that make you feel good, things that inspire you, things that remind you that life is worth living, goals worth achieving and people worth loving.  It doesn’t have to take a lot of time each day but the payoffs can be huge.

LEARN a NEW SKILL–When you learn new skills, gain new knowledge, your confidence goes up.  It’s almost as though your brain believes that you alone may not be up to the task, but you + this new info / new skills might just be able to pull it off.  What new skills could you learn that would help you deal with your hard times?

TALK TO POSITIVE PEOPLE–We all know people who seem to be both grounded in reality yet not bogged down by it.  Find these people and make it a point to call them.  Let their natural energy and optimism rub off on you.  Go out of your way to be one and associate with others.  The conversations you have matter.  Have good ones.

SHUT OFF THE UGLY–One of your very best strategies is the “OFF” button.  Use it.  Turn off the t.v. when it’s featuring only gloom and doom.  Change the radio station when the d.j. starts complaining.  Leave the room when the conversation turns negative.  You have a choice about how much “ugly” you let into your life.  In one of my favorite books, the author makes the point that it’s good to be informed but you don’t have to be inundated.  A great way to stay positive is to let less negative in.

At the end of the day, the first rule of sanity is that it takes work to stay sane when the world around you goes crazy.  The crazier the world, the more work sanity requires.  Most people either don’t know or aren’t willing to do the work of staying sane.  Be someone who makes that investment and you’ll reap major rewards.

The 10th rule Scrabble gives ou for playing the game is also good for the game of life.