Category Archives: General Business

I travel the world quite often and here is a powerful lesson I would like to share with you that I witnessed on one of my business trip to the Bahamas. Being in a new environment, especially one as beautiful as the Bahamas, heightens my senses of natural, everyday occurrences. My colleagues and I were engaged in great discussions outdoors as we were also enjoying the fabulous cocktail party and the various assortments of food. I couldn’t help but notice some uninvited guests: The birds.

Discovering the opportunity to join the party and be fed, it did not take the birds long before one would wait the perfect opportunity to dive in, grab the treat, and leave. Quickly to be followed by another and another.

As I observed their behavior, I was thinking how remarkably they have mastered and adjusted their survival habits. They combined their need to feed themselves with an unbelievable desire to succeed, a fierce focus and a natural sense of timing. Yet they were doing it elegantly and with what seemed to be a sense of playfulness and enjoyment.

Birds adapt to their environment, where their strategy may be similar but different when it is an entirely natural setting versus a combination of a natural setting and human-made setting. In either type of setting, birds demonstrate patience in waiting for the perfect opportunity, yet they also use prowess in knowing when to change locations to seek other opportunities. My amusement centered on what seemed to be their natural instincts vs. perhaps their learned, internalized and mastered skills. Here is the process they were following:

•    Holistic view of the environment.
•    Quick analysis of the situation.
•    Tremendous focus on the objectives and goals.
•    Wait for the perfect timing.
•    Take action.
•    Reap the reward.
•    Life balance enjoyment.
•    Repeat the cycle

Their careful watch regarding proximity of people to the food helped the birds time when to act and when to withdraw to safety. When they observed momentary distance between people and some food, they would zoom in and zoom away quickly. They repeatedly grabbed their food in this manner over the course of an hour and a half. Their repeated success demonstrated sustainability of success when given the right opportunity and desire. It’s important to note that they had no fear in taking this constant risk and also if they waited too long to act, their opportunity may have disappeared.

So let’s pause here and think about it. What I am suggesting through my analogy is that reaching life and business success and getting the results we want is easier than we sometimes make it to be. We overcomplicate things at times, which are possibly due to fear, lack of knowledge and not following a successful process. By being able to narrow our own path to the success we desire, we first have to define what it is we are trying to accomplish, then seek the right conditions that will increase our ability to be successful and then take strong, focused and concise action. The birds have an innate sense of what their needs and wants are; whereas ours are sometimes clouded by the disconnect between what we want and what we truly need. Aligning this disconnect between want and need is quite important.

So with the power of illustrating through an acronym and the playfulness spirit of the birds, here’s a quick way to summarize the simple, but important survival strategy lesson I learned in The Bahamas:
B – Be
A – Aware
H – How
A – Action
M – May
A – Affect
S – Success

BAHAMAS reminds me to “Be Aware How Action May Affect Success.” Just like with the birds, there are many factors that go into knowing when to act (and when not to), which are essential to getting the results we seek. Being prepared with a strategy can help us know how to get to the right place at the right time—when the opportunity knocks, take action! It’s not just for the birds!

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

Here are ways to develop interest in your organization and have your target customers contact you:

1. Start speaking professionally, deliver your expertise and talk about how to improve your clients business with web strategies.
2. Add testimonials and clients list to your web site.
3. Start a monthly electronic newsletter and deliver genuine value to your target audience.
4. Write and publish your intellectual property in print and on the web
5. Network and discuss how you help your clients
6. Comment on others’ powerful blogs with useful tips
7. Write a book or start with a booklet
8. Get interviewed on radio and TV
9. Work your referrals aggressively
10. Create a breakfast club and invite your target audience to attend a breakfast and learn.
11. Purchase a database list of your target customers and send them powerful valuable content to entice to opt-in to your newsletter list. Once they do, keep offering them value.

1. Become an entrepreneur
2. Live on less than 85% of your income and invest the rest
3. Invest in your health and life balance
4. Create proper business and personal insurance for you and your family
5. Invest in your continued learning and education
6. Hire the best (staff, advisers and consultants)
7. Re-invent yourself often
8. Find a successful mentor with a proven track record
9. Constantly look for ways to help your clients improve their business and life
10. Give a lot
11. Laugh a lot

Your turn please.

1. Strong entrepreneurship spirit which means not being afraid to fail

2. Willingness to take risk knowing that the potential outcome and success can be enormous.

3. Strong desire to work for myself and exit the “employee” mentality

4. Have complete control of decisions and my own future and destiny

5. Ability to enjoy discretionary time and life balance

What do you think?

I just returned from my trip to Rhode Island followed immediately with a trip to Austin, Texas, where I attended a conference attracting the owners and top management of independent wholesale paper, sanitary maintenance, and restaurant equipment distributors. While meeting with about 80 of these organizations, I asked them to comment on what they see as the key reasons for their success. Here are the top six answers:

1. Diversity – being able to quickly decide which products and services to embrace and release to market and which to discard while offering the right range of their customers’ needs.
2. Management – the human factor of making the proper decision, leading the company and creating strong relationships with customers.
3. Technology – The best and most successful distributors where using advance technologies while constantly looking for the next best solutions to embrace. I found the opposite to be true. The ones complaining about the economy, suppliers and their customers’ loyalty were the ones to use antiquated technologies and way of thinking.
4. Serendipity – Or what many referred to as luck and being at the right place at the right time. It was interesting that the majority or all of the most successful companies did not talk much about luck but their ability to take control and influence their future.
5. Locality – For many, being local helped them focus and develop strong relationships with their customers. I found the majority who held such belief to be smaller organization size as well as revenues and profits.
6. Customer service – They ALL claimed that the key was customer service yet many complained about lack of customers ‘and vendors’ loyalty.

What are the keys to your success?