Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

Business

What Do You Do? (The “Do Do Dialogue”)

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You’re at a business or social event and the inevitable question arises, “What do you do?” Now is the time for your “Elevator Speech” to kick in and smartly sell your product or service. Or is it?

Most often we tell the inquirer our job category (e.g., I’m an accountant, plumber, salesperson … ) or job title (VP, realtor, sales representative) and where we work. At this point, the conversation often goes relatively quiet as they offer an unknowing, polite, or perhaps perfunctory response about your work, “That’s nice.”

If you dislike your work, perhaps ending the conversation about your job plays to your advantage by avoiding a disheartening conversation. It may also be that the person was simply making polite conversation and has no real interest in your business.

The other extreme is the canned elevator speech where your tightly crafted unique selling proposition is flawlessly presented worthy of a Toastmasters’ award. You’ve rehearsed it over and over so now you’ve said it. What do you get in return?

“Oh! That’s nice,” again. Then the person walks away for fear of being sold or bored by a rehearsed jerk with robotic responses. You were insensitive to the person.

No one likes to feel stupid or feel like they are being sold. Under either approach, at best they only have a shallow concept of what you really do and how you truly make a difference for your clients or customers. In short, you’re either putting them to work figuring out what you do or you’re working them over with your sales pitch.

The Do Do Dialogue takes a bit of thinking on your feet mixed with some advanced preparation. The goal isn’t to sell or present. Rather it is to discover how you can help them, how they can help you, or what a referral or recommendation looks like for either of you. (Yes, some of us actually think that way from the start).

Assuming, however, that you are an on-purpose business person working in an on-purpose position, then you truly are interested in the on-purpose business approach of Doing More Of What You Do Best More Profitably. If that’s the case, then your response to their question just short-circuited an organic opportunity to earn a new client or gain a source of referrals or just make a friend.

Instead, what if you had a respectful and relevant response that actually got the person interested in what you do—or at least more interested—while providing a clear understanding of your on-purpose customer? 

In either a business or social setting, before you show up, think about where you’re going to be. Who you’re going to meet. This gives a huge clue as to appropriateness of response. If you’re at a neighborhood block party or the Chamber of Commerce Lunch, then you’re walking into different settings. Be wise to that.

Here’s the social setting response when asked, “What do you do?” I quickly assess whom I’m speaking with: a retired person, a young mom, an unkempt teenager, or a man in his working years.

“Do you know how many (retired persons, moms, teens, or working adults) often feel that their life is meaningless?”

Their response is typically, “Yes.”

Then I say, “I help my clients write their purpose in life and make decisions that are aligned with it so they are on-purpose rather than off-purpose.” The next question from them is typically, “How do you do that? Are you some kinda life coach?”

My response isn’t to directly answer their question, but to probe a bit further. “Why do you ask? Do you know someone who is looking to know their purpose in life?”

At this point they’ll talk about themselves or someone they know. Now I can probe further. “Tell me about that.” So rather than telling them I have a company that “does life coaching,” I model it for them by becoming interested in them.

In a business setting, I’ll assess the person but unless I know otherwise, I always assume they are a P&L business leader because that’s my clientele. I want them to get someone in mind who needs my help.

I’ll say, “Do you know how stressful it is for (business owners, sales people, executives) who are charged with making (a profit, sales, a budget)?”

Their response is typically, “Yes.”

My next “do question” is likely to be, “Does someone come to mind?”

Again, they’ll either self-identify or get someone in mind. Then, I probe further, “So what’s that story?”

Each of these series of questions has the potential to open up a powerful conversation about either the person or someone they know and just might introduce you to. 

Learn the “Do Do Dialogue” and you’ll transform small talk into engaging opportunities. Who knows, you might just gain a new client or a referral and truly do more of what you do best more profitably.

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What’s Your Elevator Speech?

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The Elevator Speech or Elevator Pitch is one of the staples of sales training and business development. But is it really effective? In this classic On-Purpose Business Minute, conventional wisdom is challenged.  

In 2010, I was speaking at a leadership event with 550 highly successful independent health coaches. When I described the “Do Do Dialogue” (The On-Purpose Minute for next week) the audience was intrigued and asked me lots of questions during and after the event. When originally produced, this video along with the Do Do Dialogue were posted on a web page rather than my blog so I’ve posted them both for convenience.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin W. McCarthy

Are You Feeling Successful?

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Success! Everyone wants it. Olympic Games dramatically remind us that success on the podium with a gold medal is a vaunted position. The discipline of hard work, sacrifice, and a coachable attitude comes with a remarkable reward and distinction for the rest of the athlete’s life.

Success also comes with responsibility if we choose to acknowledge and embrace the opportunities it opens commercially and influentially. Whether it is in sports, business, or the home, success sets one apart as having garnered an achievement. There is the event itself, but true success can be thought of as what one does after the accomplishment.

Success in life, however, is rarely recognized when compared to the fields of endeavor in sports and business. The only gold medal most moms get will be in their choice of flour for baking. 

Several years ago I was working out at the local high school stadium by running the stadium steps. As I crossed the track to go into the stands, a young, extraordinarily fit African-American woman sat stretching. We smiled and acknowledged one another. Moments later I saw one of the fastest human beings I’ve ever seen in person move down the track in a 100 meter sprint. She was scary fast. At the finish line stood her coach with his stop watch in hand. As I jogged my up-and-down stadium steps circuit through the bleachers I watched this scenario replay out several more times.

Curious, I stopped to talk with her coach. “What’s she training for?” I asked. He smiled, “She got back from the Summer Olympic Trials and didn’t make the team. She has a slightly hurt knee and she’s mad at herself for not qualifying.” He excused himself for just under 11 seconds to time her as she swished by the finish line yet again in a Nike moment.

Success for her meant making the Olympic team, but it wasn’t to be. This young lady is no failure, however, unless she decided to limit her success to being an Olympian or winning a gold medal — fleeting accomplishments instead of permanent character qualities. She’s learning the power of setting goals, managing disappointment, working hard, being coachable, self-discovery, and much more that will serve her for life.

Years ago I was a speaker at a convention of general agents in the life insurance business as a non-industry expert. Also presenting was a general agent who spoke in his bold and glowing “How I did it” terms to the awestruck adoring throng of gathered general agents. He talked about reaching a billion dollars in commissions in one year. This man had the swagger and air of gold medal success. 

Afterwards, I waited my turn to chat with him. One question I asked him metaphorically knocked him to the ground, “Now that you’ve reached a billion, what’s next?” He had invested decades in this “impossible dream” and had reached his tallest imaginable podium. Panic washed across his face. He didn’t have a clue what to do next with his life! A couple of decades later I’m happy to report that he has created a business to teach other insurance agents what he learned so others can follow in his footsteps.

Back to our young sprinter: she may not yet have achieved her Olympic dream but the character, discipline, and willingness to be coached are life skills few people ever master. She’s learned to set goals, to discover her inner motivation, and to work hard. Success comes in many forms often with the rare blessing of the gold medal, but more often than not without the #1 in the world standing for one brief, shining moment. For the other competitors, success is often wrapped in the intangible qualities of having been in the game as a fierce competitor playing to a world class standard to the best of one’s ability. 

The popular movie Rudy is a bright example of how becoming a success can be measured on one’s own terms. Gold medals come and go, but golden moments last a lifetime and need to be cherished for whom we have become on the inside and how we pass along our life lessons. If we dwell too long on the agony of external defeat, then we risk becoming bitter and defeated as our identity was gold-plated. The true solid gold victory is that of becoming a better person on the inside and passing it along.

Success Modeled By Don Budge

As a former USPTA tennis teaching professional and ranked player, I had the rare privilege of getting to know and sometimes play against or with former world class tennis professionals. Aside from their remarkable physical attributes there is typically a marked difference in their thinking, attitude, and point of view. The game is simpler and clearer to them. They possess a quietness of mind and capacity to zone into the experience thanks to preparation and practice. Success, therefore, is expected. The champion, however, has learned to face on-the-court failure repeatedly in such a manner that the disappointment of loss is not failure, per se, but revelation of and a pathway of growth to the next level.

As a young tennis player I had a wonderful personal relationship with Don Budge, the first person to win the Grand Slam in one calendar year (1938). Mr. Budge told the story of winning a national championship one year and returning home in deep dismay. He realized his western forehand grip on his wooden racquet was his Achilles’ heel. In those days, it would be exploited by more advanced competitors and prevent him from reaching the next level. He called that his year of having permission to hit the (back) fences. With a rebuilt grip, his forehand stroke was solid and eventually he became the greatest tennis player of his era. Some forty years later, I had the pleasure to know and work with this true champion when I was 17 and 18. Some forty plus years after that, I still think of the character of the man even more than his accomplishments which included winning the Sullivan Award for Sportsmanship. Mr. Budge was the real deal through and through.

Find success by defining what is YOUR success. Apply yourself to it with your heart, mind, soul, and spirit. Certainly strive to create the external win. As important, acknowledge the internal win of becoming more the person God designed you to be and become. That’s the platinum medal that isn’t awarded but is earned as a lifetime achievement daily. That’s what it means to be on-purpose!

But don’t stop there! Learn to pay it forward and bring others along with you so they, too, can discover their genius and contribution.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

 

Who’s Reviewing Your Business Plan?

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So you’re making plans for 2017. Who’s reviewing your business? Who’s challenging you to think about things differently? Without a review, you’re at risk of management myopia. So who’s reviewing your business plan?

Heading into the new year provides a fresh start of sorts for your business. The holidays are here, but business tends to slow down in many industries. Now is the ideal time to be planning for the future, to make great strides in your business, to re-think, re-tool, and re-engage your team based on lessons learned in the first 11 months of the year.

Reflecting on the lessons of the year so far and projecting into the future are beneficial exercises. Committing your thoughts to paper provides your team (and you) with a blueprint for building the business.

Are you willing to risk an end-of-year review and make adjustments to your business plan? You better be! It will be some of the best time and money you’ll ever invest. An independent business assessment provides sight into your blind spots. This reveals danger spots as well as missed opportunities.

The closing days of 2016 can be some of your most productive planning days. Don’t blow it by being content or simply checking out.

Mark Goldstein, the president of the Central Florida Christian Chamber of Commerce, often says, “No one loves the creation as much as the creator.” As the creator of a business, isn’t it great to have such devotion and love for one’s work? Yes, but, as Mark so rightly points out, there’s a side to being the creator that can bite us in the long run. Blind devotion to our ideas can lead to folly.

What if you don’t have a business plan to review? That’s manageable! There are plenty of options out there to help you, including On-Purpose Partners.

Writing a business plan need not be onerous. Know the reason why and assess the context of your business plan. Sample business plans and templates are widely available on the web. Business plan software programs are helpful. Candidly, a formal business plan is typically overkill for most small business owners unless you are raising money or borrowing from the bank.

How do I write a business plan? Here’s a simple suggestion: in lieu of writing a business plan, create a strategic plan at the top level of your thinking using The Service Model from The On-Purpose Business Person. It will help you identify relationships of essential activities in each level. You’ll also discover gaps in your thinking that may have been hidden from you under the surface of business activity and customer service and care.

There are two prominent weaknesses in the “Process” level for most small and mid-sized businesses:

  1. Marketing and Sales
  2. People

Most entrepreneurs who start businesses often have an operations or technical expertise rather than a sales or personnel background. Pay particular attention here when creating your business plan! Get help here sooner rather than later by outsourcing to agencies.

No matter what, your business (plan) will be “reviewed” by the marketplace in terms of revenues earned. How well your customers receive and respond to your products or services will provide amazing feedback. Avoidable poor performance, however, is an expensive price to pay for just mindlessly heading into the next season.

Now, are you willing to have your business plan be reviewed? Before you invest and commit your time, money, energy, and team to a hope and dream plan, consider having your business, marketing and sales plan, and people plan scrutinized if not by me, then consider some of the resources below:

  1. A SCORE (Service Core Of Retired Executives) volunteer.
  2. Your trusted industry or business peer group and advisors.
  3. Me! I’m available to review your business plan and to help you refine it so you aren’t blindsided and have better success in the market.

Think you can’t afford to have your business plan reviewed? Think again! You can NOT afford to NOT have it reviewed. To paraphrase an old saying, “An ounce of planning is worth a pound of cure.”

We get annual physicals for our bodies, but what about the body of one’s work … the business? On-Purpose Partners provides an independent check-up on businesses to assess what’s working, what isn’t, and what to do about it.

Let me help you anticipate some of the land mines as well as focus your energy and effort on what matters most to get the results. I offer small business advisory packages starting as low as $1,000 for businesses with revenues less than $2 million. Email me to make the arrangements.

Is Money Mastering Your Life?

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What is the relationship of purpose and money? Here’s the crux of many a modern-day challenge of money mastering our lives and dominating our thoughts. Is it practical and affordable to be on-purpose? How do we bridge the gap between what our heart wants and paying our bills? Keep reading!

The text and the video of this On-Purpose Minute provide important insights and strategic direction to create a healthy co-existing relationship with purpose and money. 

The Material World of Money

The chorus in Madonna’s 1985 hit single Material Girl is:Cover of "Material Girl"

Living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl 

If your worldview is one of a material world, then money is its highest status symbol. Money becomes “what makes the world go around” because it occupies the center of one’s life, attention, and efforts.

Does money define purpose? Purpose is a currency all its own so it doesn’t need money to define it. It would be like thinking that only the rich are on-purpose. Money is a unit of measure, but not a measure of how on-purpose a person is or isn’t.

Purpose lives in your heart; whereas money jealously aspires to rule the house of your heart. Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

We have a choice which to treasure: money or purpose. Even of the best intended of us, far too few have taken a break from the material world and invested our time to discover our purpose in life. Our heart therefore remains relatively empty and undefended from within. We’ve shoved our purpose into a hall closet expecting to pull it out someday when we have more time and money to pay attention to it. 

Money, therefore, has an easy job of filling the vacuum of our spirit. Dropping our guard and inviting money to preoccupy our hearts places us at risk of never having the rightful resident abide within us.

Purpose and money are, however, related because if our heart or purpose remains ill-defined, money and purpose are competitors vying for the same space. Purpose politely awaits for our invitation to enter, whereas money will break and enter. Living life divided tears us apart with busyness and distraction as we jump from one pursuit to another in constant, yet ineffective attempts to calm our guilt as we deny and violate our true selves yet again.

Who wins the battle of the material and the spiritual? The answer is simple: the one we most give provision and comfort to within our being. Settling the matter is deciding once and for all which treasure lives in our heart.

I’m, of course, advocating for establishing your purpose as the sole resident of your soul. Money is a harsh and ill-prepared master of the home. It is intended to be a highly obedient servant of the master.

But how does one reclaim one’s heart? Taming money’s lust for control means gaining greater mastery of your life by answering essential questions:

  • Do I know what truly matters?
  • Do I know my 2-word personal purpose statement?
  • Am I willing to do the work to create the life I want?
  • Am I prepared to put money in its place?

Here’s a simple and fun exercise. How would you live your life differently if you had unimagined wealth? In this On-Purpose Minute, we’ve explored money’s unhealthy and overly aggressive elbowing of its “claim” on your heart, mind, actions, and decisions. Turn the tables by taking money off the table for a moment and imagining your life lived abundantly.

For what you may not realize is that you’ve already won the lottery! Imagine the price tag Apple would place on selling an iYou! The computing power, the eyesight, the touch pads of your fingertips and body, plus the mobility are priceless. Now add a heart and spirit! $30 million doesn’t come close to estimating your value and worth.

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Right Business Strategy

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Strategy& (Formerly Booz & Company and part of PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers)) does for large businesses what On-Purpose Partners does for small and mid-market companies. As you watch the video above listen as they describe in their words the pillars of The On-Purpose Business Person:

  • Do More of What You Do Best More Profitably
  • Strategy is about the business being (purpose) with aligned execution (missions)
  • Answer important questions at the core of the business and culture
  • The Service Model to execute the strategy

Learn how to instill purpose into your business strategy (being on-purpose) by watching this 9-minute video called The On-Purpose Business Plan. 

Here are some of the highlights of this Strategy& video that hit me:

  • 80% of value destruction has come from bad strategic decisions
  • Competitors are coming from all corners so differentiation is important
  • Companies go chasing growth by letting a thousand flowers bloom only to have fields of weeds to clean up later
  • 60% of C-suite executives have no confidence in their strategy
  • Fundamental questions are not being answered — being best and better than anyone else
  • Double down on differentiated capabilities and competencies
  • Who are we going to be? — the most important question (purpose, vision, mission, and values)
  • Strategy provides the advantage to win

Here you can watch a series of these brief video commentaries on business strategy and leadership.

 

Employee Engagement: How Are Your Three E’s?

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Peter Drucker, the famous management guru, spoke of doing business with effectiveness and efficiency. Let’s add another “E” to the equation: Engagement, as in “employee” engagement. Learn to assess your career and business using these 3 E’s and you’ll be amazed what might be revealed about your career, team, or business. 

Engagement has more recently come to the forefront of employee discussions by The Gallup Organization. I admit to being a huge fan of their work on Employee Engagement. Twenty years ago, I had the pleasure of partnering with a Gallup leader on a client assignment, and I was roundly impressed. Several years back, I reconnected with their work again through a client’s company. Their books and StrengthsFinder survey are first rate as well.

Jim Harter, Ph.D., author of New York Times bestseller 12: The Elements of Great Managing, talks about the power of Gallup’s 12 questions at this Gallup site.

Team Engagement is one of the primary measures for a Chief Leadership Officer™. If you’re leading a business, then you need to get your head into this topic. Leadership of people is the future — engage with it! Be a CLO

Efficiency. Effectiveness. Engagement

Chapter 7 of Chief Leadership Officer will positively rock your take on employee engagement. Basically, the very use of the term “employee” dooms the engagement effort to failure. An employer-employee relationship is transactional. Whereas, engagement is relational.

Chief Leadership Officer – order your book today!

Who Cares About Leading The Business?

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Leading the business carries responsibilities. Being aPurpose of Organization business advisor and strategic management consultant for more than a couple of decades, I can tell you the single, simplest, most overlooked root of more problems in organizations is the failure to articulate, communicate, and execute based on the purpose of the organization (Po). Its absence is massively expensive; its presence nourishes the corporate culture for productive and efficient growth in people and profits.

Someone in charge, however, has to care. Is that you who is leading the business?

This lack of deep strategic clarity muddles every aspect of the organization. People, process, performance, profits, customer service, and operations are just a few of the functional areas informed by a potent, simple, 2-word purpose statement. 

Yet, purpose statements are amazingly misunderstood, unappreciated, and under-engaged. In businesses, I’ve seen the benefit of the leadership team knowing and executing on their purpose produce a 25% or more increase in sales and even greater percentage increases in profits. 

Are you finally ready to set a strategic cornerstone and write your purpose statement? Remember, it is just a beginning but an essential start. I recommend that all business clients first write their personal purpose statement before they do the business statement.