Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Love Marketing

Posted: 25 May 2009 06:49 AM PDT

Love is not yet a word commonly used in business, but then neither was "authentic" a few years ago.

Going forward I believe that love will come to be recognised as THE key influencer and therefore vital to business thinking.

Think about it from your own perspective. Out of all of the things you own, experiences you have, or people you work with there are a few that stand out.

There are a few whose value is transcendent, a few you will happily lavish time and attention on.

In terms of things, for me, it would be my bike and my Mac. For others it might be cars, clothes, music, gardens or whatever.

What these products have in common is that we love them. Now - can you imagine loving a service, like a bank, a phone company or a rail service?

Think of the opportunity of taking the products of your organisation from "tolerated", or "convenient" to "loved".

The "bar" in many market sectors is set quite low, so while the overall challenge is significant, there are likely to be benefits just by being more popular than the rest.

A few years ago ANZ bank in Australia found that they were one of the least popular employers in the country. This lead them to initiate a "values lead" transformation, over the course of the project ANZ became one of the most popular employers and trebled their share price.

What we are all looking to do as individuals or businesses is to attract more energy. We want some of that energy to be in the form of human energy: creativity, care, time, recommendations and so on. We also want some to be in the form of money.

Again think about it from your own perspective - where do you direct your energy?

On the whole we direct our energy towards a mixture of what we love and what we fear. We buy food partly for the love of eating and partly because we fear hunger. We direct time and money to our favourite hobby for the love of it. Most of us pay our taxes for the fear of the consequences of not doing so.

In this way we can see that there are two ways in which we can attract more energy to ourselves or our business, either through fear or love. We can frighten people into sharing their energy with us or we can be lovable and attract energy that way.

The "fear" strategy has two issues, the obvious one is that for most of us it is uncomfortable, beyond that my observation is that it is not a long term strategy because much of the energy that is attracted is negative and ultimately destructive.

So, I prefer to focus on the "love" strategy - how do we get to be more lovable?

Again think of your own experience. Who and what do you love? Do you love the bland, the equivocal and the anodyne or do you love the clear, full flavour, full value, full strength?

I have asked a lot of people this question and the response is always the the second.

So - the way to attract more energy into your life or your business is to be more lovable and the way to be more lovable is to be more clear, more full flavour - more authentic. Not everyone will love you or your business, but enough will and those who do will really love you and shower you with positive energy.

It is time to get over the playground lesson that the best way to get along is to avoid being noticed. It is time to stand up and stand out, to attract love and energy into our lives, our businesses and our societies.

If you want some help attracting more energy into your business or your life give me a call.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

We are looking for associate consultants to join Authenticis and be trained in the authentic transformation tools - for more details visit the authenticis 2.0 page on www.authenticis.com

With love

nx


Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Consciously Creating Culture

Posted: 18 May 2009 12:02 AM PDT

Who designed the culture of your organisation?

Most organisations don't give a thought to it. Other aspects are tightly controlled and whatever culture emerges as a byproduct is tolerated.

Targets are set, training is offered, recruitment or redundancy is managed - all of this affects the culture, but who makes sure that the culture that results is the desired culture?

I have come to understand that a brand is only ever the external expression of the internal culture. Whatever branding and marketing agencies and directors might like to think or say - it is the culture that defines the brand.

If the culture is confident, responsible, secure, loving and caring, then so is the brand. If the culture is nervous, insecure, fearful and greedy, then so is the brand!

So - who takes care of the culture?

In most organisations large enough to have one the biggest influence on the culture (and therefore the brand) is made by the HR department. They end up managing recruitment, training, redundancy, rewards and possibly discipline.

The culture is also influenced by the behaviour of managers, whose behaviour in turn is influenced by the leadership.

To take conscious control of the culture of an organisation branding and HR disciplines need to be connected at the hip. And crucially the leadership need to be prepared to accept training and adjust behaviour if necessary.

In the start up phase the culture and the brand and the founders personalities are of a piece. As the organisation grows the start up culture will be diluted by recruitment. Early recruitment will be done by the founders, who are likely to recruit in their image, which will maintain the culture.

As the organisation grows, so more functions will be delegated away from the founders and to managers. With growth it is also necessary to adjust from entrepreneurial to organisational culture, but if this process is not carefully managed the result could be accidental rather than intended.

Success in a challenging market will depend on cultural attributes such as responsibility, team work, integrity, creativity and commitment. How would you describe the culture of your organisation?

lf you want to discuss redefining the culture of an organisation, give me a call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

We had our first "focus group" workshop for A Mentor For Every Child on Saturday. The results were very encouraging. We had a group of about 15 young teenagers - the feedback was absolutely positive and they came up with some great names for the website.

www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Absolutely Positive

Posted: 10 May 2009 11:40 PM PDT

Fear of failure haunts many of us, but what is failure in this sense and how does it happen?

As Lance Armstrong says "Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever."

There are two sides to "failure" the most obvious is to try before we give up. The most pernicious is when we give up before we try.

Lets take the obvious one first. When we try before we give up - giving up is mostly a decision. A decision we take when we get to a point of pain, discomfort or recognition that what we are doing is not working.

We might decide that we would prefer to do something else, or we might find that there is another way, that we could not have foreseen before we started. It is not easy to really describe that as failure. It is just a decision.

Making a decision is a learning process, it is a recognition of changed circumstances that alters the strategy. It is not failure.

When it is not a decision, it is force majeure. Some outside element crashes into your strategy and you have to change strategy, but this is still not a failure. It is still a decision, albeit one where your choices are reduced.

I often find this when cycling. If I am climbing up a hill with another rider and I find myself going into the red zone for too long, I might recognise that the other rider is stronger and change strategy, back off and hope to catch up later. Or I might keep pushing and just run out of steam. I don't see either option as failure, they are different strategies for doing my best, if neither works it is force majeure.

The pernicious one is where we give up before we try, a sort of self censorship that is usually based on a fear of "failure". And as we have seen above failure is a phantom. It is not real.

When we test this notion of failure, we usually find that it has more to do with some one else's idea of what we should or should not, can or cannot do. It is not our fear it is someone else's we do not own or need to own that fear.

Whatever action, project or decision you might be struggling with put it to that test. Is it really your fear of failure or is it someone else's?

If you are not prepared to "own" the fear then it is time to commit and move forwards. Belief precedes reality - not the other way around. Someone always has to believe that something is possible before it can happen - even if they are the only one. You can always adjust or change your strategy later.

The outcome may not be exactly what you expected, in fact it is very likely to be different. The outcome will be exactly what you need it to be, to learn whatever you need to learn to take you to the next stage of your journey.

I hope that this is helpful, if you want a more detailed or personal analysis - give me a call call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

There are those who describe A Mentor For Every Child as "ambitious" which is usually code for "you are mad to even attempt it." I am not sure I see it that way. Whatever happens progress will be made and the experience will be interesting and valuable for me personally. The more who believe this, the more likely it is to prosper - come and join us:-)
www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Authentic Business Recession Busters

Posted: 05 May 2009 12:19 AM PDT

Authentic businesses, those which generate profit through the pursuit of a profound and positive purpose, have fundamental advantages over more conventional businesses.

The key advantage is motivation and in my research I found that they typically spent up to 80% less on motivation, both inside and outside the company, than conventional businesses.

However the normal disciplines of business also apply, no matter how authentic you are.

The most basic premise of business is that you sell something for more that it costs you to buy and supply. Authentic businesses need to add passion and value to that equation. The passion is their own passion for what they do, the value is the commitment to giving value to customers AND to society as a whole.

Of course many businesses that would not consider themselves authentic also provide value to customers. With authentic businesses it is the additional personal and emotional quality of the value that makes it special.

It is this unquantifiable emotional value that makes authentic business so difficult for others to emulate. For example it has been interesting to watch Microsoft try to hit back at Apple's "I'm a Mac" advertising with price comparison adverts.

However, many authentic businesses are also experiencing falling sales and finding finance harder to access than before. So here are six suggestions for staying profitable in a challenging market.

1 - Sell What People Want When Money Is Tight. How can you adjust your products or your service model so that you can reduce your customers overall spending without necessarily reducing your own prices?

2 - Renegotiate Your Own Costs. Now is a great time to get into more of a partnership with your suppliers. In many cases it will also be in their interests to keep your business successful. Can you offer them a lower fixed price plus some kind of bonus or profit share that helps both of you?

3 - Communicate Value. Adjust your communication to help your customers understand ALL of the value you represent - especially the emotional value. How do you help your customers feel better about themselves and their lives?

4 - Focus Your Staff. Don't hold back on engaging your staff with the challenges. They are a big part the solution. Define the cultural change you seek and find fun ways to train and incentivise the change.

5 - Get Out There. Most entrepreneurs start by networking furiously, but as the business becomes more established their focus ends up being more internal. Now is the time to get back out there and engage with people to find new ideas, solutions and opportunities. The secret to success in most creative fields is to tap into the zeitgeist of the time. The only way to tap into it is to be in the flow of it. Find the flow and step inside.

6 - Stay positive. Changing markets are also opportunities for change and innovation. Negativity creates a downward spiral. Stay aware of the challenges, but focus on the positive and use it to build up your energy and that of your team to make the changes and move forwards.

I hope that this is helpful, if you want a more detailed or personal analysis - give me a call call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

Help us to create a sustainable and peaceful world:
www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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