Category Archives: General Business

Here are my key take-aways from attending the Thought Leadership Symposium, hosted and facilitated by Alan Weiss with his guest presenter, David Maister:

• Thought leadership, for me, means being sought after by clients and the media to help improve my clients’ businesses and live. It also means high degree of self-worth.
• It’s not about credentials and education but how smart you leverage your applied intelligence.
• Stop worrying about what people think. Instead, lead them and tell them: “here is what you need!”
• When writing a book, the most important part of that book is the conclusion.
• Develop a vast amount of intellectual property that is manifested in a variety of formats such as: books, booklets, audio and video, workshops, seminars and such.
• You have to create the environment that others see you as a thought leader.
• A firm can be associated with the thought leadership of a concept such as: McKinsey in leadership.
• You may build the future credibility as part of your organization. For example: “Here are The Chad Barr Group strategic Internet growth ideas.”
• When examining my Internet Strategic Profile process visuals, I rank thought leaders between distinct and breakthrough.
• Create a library of great ideas. Move on some quickly while letting others age and ignore the rest.
• Help my clients establish their web dominance.

Summary of David Maister Presentation:

• Trade organizations are very powerful. Publish there.
• The regularity of your articles is the real power.
• The biggest issue with thought leadership is the discipline of it. Find someone you trust that will hold you accountable.
• We all know what we need to do and we just don’t do it!
• The key is to get your clients to rave about you and refer you to others. Otherwise, you have a quality problem and not a marketing problem!
• Take your articles and convert them to books and eBooks.
• Being a thought leader does not mean that you originated the idea but that they want to talk with you about it.
• Develop a powerful questionnaire (assessment) that helps diagnose your clients. In order to get the answers, they have to enter their name and email information.
• Consider doing a pro-bono speech if they give you the email list of the participants.
• Most of your business should be your existing clients. Everything else is gravy.
• Don’t make a promise for something you are not going to do, or scale back your goal.
• Turn down work you don’t need or should not do.

Final points:

• Meet your deadlines and hit the mark!
• Show up at the right time and the right place.
• Remove these items that hold you back or that are clogging your life.
• Take some prudent risk.
• Take action. Move!

In order to be a thought leader remember this:

• It’s all about resolve!
• Decipher what you are going to do and do it!
• You gotta want it!

A common question I am often asked by clients in my mentor program is how to start a conversation with a prospective client or what do I say after I say hello? Although there are probably questions that are better suited for different personality types, I find the following quite provocative in any situation and the kind of questions that stimulate great discussions. These are also the questions I often ask before reviewing the effectiveness of one’s web and Internet strategy:

• What is your key business focus and the value you deliver to your clients?
• How would you describe your target audience(s) and the profile(s) of your perfect client?
• What are your key product and service offerings?
• What great results have you seen from your web site and its strategy?
• What are some of the key issues / challenges you are facing?
• What would you want to be known for?
• if we were to work together, how would you describe the possible outcome from your site and its strategy that would absolutely delight you?

These questions are provocative and would typically start great conversations. I have to also admit that I am surprised at times how many entrepreneurs struggle answering such questions. So next time you meet a prospective client, ask them such questions but make sure you come across genuine and friendly and not interrogating. And also, how quickly can you reply to such questions when asked and what would be your answers?

© Chad Barr 2011. All rights reserved

Last Monday I spoke to the great people of the Connecticut National Speakers Association chapter. A common question was asked of me: “as a speaker, how does one significantly increase their success leveraging technologies and the web?” Here are my top 8 answers:

1. Become a prolific and constant publisher of great provocative content.

2. Publish in a variety of media formats such as: text, charts or process visuals, images, cartoons, audio and video.

3. Engage in many aspects of marketing to effectively attract your buyers.

4. Innovate, reinvent and repurpose your ideas and content.

5. Create strong relationships with buyers, colleagues, partners and journalists. Well, family helps as well

6. Position yourself as a thought leader.

7. Leverage technology and the web.

8. Evolve.

These points should give all of us a quick guideline and at this point you are probably asking, how to do this? So, stay tuned. More will be published by me here shortly.

P.s. Posting this from the Las Vegas airport while waiting for my return flight home after several amazing days of learning and speaking.

© Chad Barr 2011. All rights reserved

I am often asked by my mentorees to articulate the skills and traits of what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. Here is a list I compiled with the top 12 in no praticular order:

1. Enthusiasm.
2. Curiosity.
3. Marketing – This one is huge. Ability to market self, team, products and services.
4. Sales.
5. Smart risk taking.
6. Communication – Effectively building relationships, public speaking, writing and publishing.
7. Learn to recognize opportunities.
8. Creation of products and services.
9. Avoid being stagnant
10. Ability to innovate, invent and re-invent.
11. Focus on improving the client’s life and business.
12. Lead by example and be bold.

What would you add to this list?

My wife is exploring various fitness facilities in the area . She contacted one of the popular locations via their web site and requested a visit to review their place. Almost two weeks later, she finally received an email from one of their representatives. My wife wrote back saying that it’s been awhile since her inquiry and she has already joined another fitness facility.

Here was their reply:
“I am sorry to here that, we have been very busy for the past couple of months. The bad weather is giving us a chance to follow up and talk to the potential members that we have in our system. I would love to set up an appointment with you and give you a tour of our beautiful facility.”

When shared with me, not only was I surprised to see the grammatical mistake but I was also amazed of the poor excuses they used for their lack of follow-up action.

Here was my wife’s reply:
“Thank you for the offer but I am no longer interested.  I’m sure you have a wonderful facility but I am also interested in prompt customer service.  It’s not very comforting to know that you didn’t respond to my inquiry until the weather got bad enough for you to have the time to follow up on potential member inquiries.”

In order to generate the highest successful results for your business, consider the following:

1. Determine the highest impact of what you do for your clients.
2. Who would be most receptive for your offerings.
3.  Who has the greatest capacity to pay.