Kick Ass Friday 9/11/09

1. Remember what made this country great and keep working hard to keep America the best in the world. Terrorists only win when we give up.

2. The terrorist attack of 9/11/01 threw this county further into the Decade of Fear. Make note of ways you’ve become more fearful in the last ten years, and take action to reverse that control over your actions.

3. List five things you want to happen this year to make 2009 end with a strong finish.

4. Identify two significant shifts you need to make in your business to prevent your products and services from becoming obsolete.

5. Consider the impact of shifting regulation on how your company makes profits. Take two steps today to mitigate that impact.

6. Note what your company is in denial about, and take steps to discuss the real potential if this denial isn’t addressed.

7. You know the elephant in the room. Get discussions started about it so you can focus on more productive pursuits.

8. Identify where you are screaming at your customers about what you do instead of listening to what they want.

9. Find the right message to reach the right customers so you no longer have to use scream marketing.

10. Enjoy the freedoms you have in this country and be thankful we have people willing to defend the lifestyle we so richly enjoy living in America.

10 Questions to Make You Think on Kick Ass Friday

1. Why do we want our employers to be there for us when we are sick, but not to help us keep from being sick?
2. Why do you have to be so connected electronically all the time? What are you afraid is going to happen you don't know about?
3. When was the last time you "walked off the grid?" I mean a week with no Internet, computer, TV, radio, phone or watch?
4. If that idea scares you so much, why are you not jumping at the chance to disconnect and be a person again? (Because you've lost touch with who you are.)
5. When was the last time you acted like a Human Being instead of a Human Doing?
6. What if you started all over again? How would your life be different? (I know people right now doing this exact thing with their lives.)
7. Like a bad golf swing, what behavior do you need to unlearn so you can relearn the right way?
8. What negative memories are still molding your current behavior? How can you sear them out of your brain?
9. How have you changed so gradually as to be undetectable, but now has you wondering, "How did I get here?" What are you going to do about that?
10. What negative influences do you need to say good bye to today?

10 Important Questions for Kick Ass Friday

1. What meeting rules do I need to hold all meeting to, so everyone feels they have the right to speak up, the need to express their opinions, and the desire to contribute?
2. What am I afraid of in the workplace that is holding me back from being the best me I can be?
3. How do I intend on addressing those fears?
4. Who is the person I need to have a private conversation with to rebuild our communication lines?
5. Do I feel meetings are ever a safe environment to speak my mind? If not, how can this be corrected? What would be the benefits?
6. How does my management team shut down good ideas brought up in meetings? Has everyone been shut down so much no one even brings up those ideas anymore? What can correct this failure?
7. What work environment could I create to make everyone feel more comfortable and more productive?
8. Is my management style a push strategy or a pull strategy? A push strategy means you have to keep pushing people to get work done. A pull strategy means your work and leadership pulls people along because they want to be following you. Which do you think is most effective?
9. How well do I handle negative feedback? How can I improve my ability "to take it"?
10. What pain do I need to go through in order to become a better person on the other side of the painful experience?

10 Important Questions for Kick Ass Friday

1. How can you revamp your web copy to incorporate the F-shaped reading patterns of your visitors? (See Thursdays post for more information.)
2. How will your customer buying behaviors be different in 12 months than they are today? Are you ready?
3. What are the desired product characteristics that will speak to your customer in 12 months? Get developing those now.
4. What could you create that would tilt the marketplace in your favor?
5. What type of permission marketing approach will reach my customers?
6. How can you create more agility in your organization to make changes fast enough to stay in front of customer demands and expectations?
7. What new products are you creating for the shift in your customer buying habits that will emerge in 12 months?
8. What are the new methods for product delivery that will get your prospects attention?
9. How can you inspire your customers right here, right now?
10. What products do you offer that customers demand to own? How fast can you create one, because you don't currently have customers lined out the door for your products?

10 Publicity Ideas for Kick Ass Friday

1. Forget dress down Fridays. Go for "Dress up Fridays" and have people come to work in their finest clothes. Imagine a VP walking through the lobby in a tux. That will generate publicity!
2. Develop a creative, funny video for why everyone should want to work in your company. Use employees and let them be their selves unedited. Post it on YouTube. (If this scares you then you need to work on your work environment!)
3. During the middle of a lunch hour at the "power lunch spot" restaurant, stand up and get everyone's attention for an important announcement: Free cheesecake dessert for anyone who wants one! Be sure your business card is delivered with each cheesecake you bought. This will create buzz.
4. Begin a post card campaign to contact your business clients. Something attention-getting. My next post card will have my red boots with the caption: These Boots are Made for Talking! That is sure to get noticed!
5. Roll out new products for the current times (new means not repackaged old stuff) and let the world know in a splash of announcements across all online media.
6. Create a list of something people will pass around. My Kick Ass Friday lists are consistently the most viral of my blog entries.
7. Create a quiz for people to answer. Surveys, quizzes and mind bender puzzles are always attention getters that can create buzz, in fact…
8. Have a brain buster puzzle at your next trade show booth. People will keep coming back every 30 minutes to see the new puzzle and get the answer to the old one. About the third visit they will want to know more about your products and services.
9. Use a compelling image. It could be a cartoon where you invite people to write the caption, or just one of those images people find humorous and will pass along, with your attached information of course.
10. Create a simple video on how to use one of your products. Whether you rent ditch digging equipment, want to walk someone through your new fast loan process, or teach someone how to eat your sub "properly" (think how much fun you can have with this!) The video is an opportunity to have fun, educating customers while answering some questions they might have, and showing your personality or corporate culture that sets you apart from the competition.

10 Extra Miles to Take on Kick Ass Friday

1. When someone asks for help, don't send them a link or an email, talk with them on the phone or if possible in person. Keep the human contact.

2. Contact new customers, clients or members within 24 hours of using your product or service and follow up. You will see if you are good enough or not to retain that newbie.

3. Anytime you send out a customer order include some kind of "extra." The surprise prize is always the first thing someone looks for once they know they are there.

4. A Great White shark is relentless. When you look for going the extra mile frequently enough it becomes a habit, mindset and business culture. Be relentless.

5. If you were tired, hungry, thirsty and ready to give up but you saw relief one mile ahead would you give up? We can't always see one mile ahead, so assume relief is within one more mile and don't give up.

6. Contracts are most often won by those who want it more. Give extra hustle to close that deal.

7. If at all possible the answer to any customer change request is -- Yes.

8. Encourage others to give one more ounce of effort. It's that last push that makes all the difference.

9. When was the last time you totally out-thought the competition? Make today one of those days.

10. When was the last time you out-hustled everyone else until you were the last one standing? The last one standing always does what it takes, including the extra mile.

10 Lessons for Kick Ass Friday

1. Try something new every day to expand your comfort zone and experiences.

2. Celebrate your day by living it to the fullest. No one lives long enough to waste a day of living.

3. Keep your top three priorities the same and always remember what is really important.

4. Don't wish for accomplishment, be driven for it.

5. Control your own destiny and you never have to worry about someone letting you down but yourself.

6. We don't always clearly see the path to success in front of us. We just need to be able to see which road to take at each decision intersection.

7. Lucky people believe good things will happen to them.

8. You will never be like other people. Be the best "You" you can be.

9. A marathoner who runs 26 miles and stops will never win a race. Always finish the race.

10. What you see depends on what you are looking for. Focus on the successes.

10 Walking the Edge Ideas for Kick Ass Friday

1. At lunch today if you see someone having lunch alone tell the waiter to bring you their bill. You will feel so awesome doing this!

2. At 2:15 this afternoon stand up where ever you are in the work place and holler loudly, "I love my job!" How did people react? How did that make you feel? Be an inspiration to others today.

3. Make a list of 10 reasons to trust you and send it to everybody! Then challenge them to create their own list.

4. Make a cold call to a random prospect you'd love to do business with and ask them straight up, "You know you should be doing business with us, let's forget all the posturing and get this deal done today." How did they react? How did that make you feel?

5. Plan an event over the weekend that scares you so much your ass puckered up just thinking about it. Doing karaoke sober, riding in a two-seater airplane, riding a zip line, doing a tandem jump out of an airplane: Those are what scare me!

6. Go into a Starbucks between now and Monday and ask to sit down with people you don't know and strike up a conversation with them. What did you learn? How much did it scare you to do that? Why? How did you feel when you were done?

7. Put a $10 bill on a co-workers desk with a note telling them all the stuff you appreciate about them and tell them the tenner is for them to enjoy a few beers on you after work. If you are too cheap to do this for someone who really makes a difference in your work day, you suck!

8. Write a note to your CEO telling him/her everything you appreciate about the company. They are used to only getting complaints from employees. Be sure to mention you are not sucking up, you just wanted them to hear the good stuff today.

9. Give those you work with the most a piece of paper and ask them to write on it what they wish you'd improve on. Sure it'll hurt, growth usually does.

10. This weekend stop by a softball game, a baseball game, or a swim meet, and watch kids play and compete for an hour. Can you feel the excitement? Do you remember a time in your life you were that excited? Recapture that enthusiasm in your life.

10 Outrageous Customer Services Ideas for Kick Ass Friday

1. Make the information that your customers want easily available to them

The nutrition box on food is simple and to the point and everyone knows to look for it and how to read it. How can you apply this to your products and services. Get rid of the fancy tri-fold brochures -- make it a simple easy to understand post card.

2. Each employee takes personal responsibility for your customers

In Ritz Carlton hotels if an employee hears a customer complain that employee is now in ownership of resolving that complaint. If they can do it, so can your people.
It's all based on leadership expectations. What are you service expectations you back up with action?

3. Make an outrageous, extravagant effort to serve a customer

Going above and beyond the call of duty only happens when people are aware this is a desired and supported behavior. How far do you let your employees go in outrageous service? Have a teller offer in home transactions for shut-ins, Go to the local senior care facility with DVDs of movies from their time. Outrageous in good taste always works.

4. Customers have a strong sense of fair play

Honor competitors coupons, if you make customers wait give them something extra. Wouldn't you love to know when you had to pull out of a drive-thru to wait for your order they at least gave you an extra French fry order free? How can you deliver this in your business?

5. Differentiate your business

In a large mall in St. Louis a fudge shop has employees who "perform" and crowds gather to hear the performance just as the new fudge is ready. Free samples all around as well! It's the one shop in the mall everyone knows. What makes your branch, office, store, or location any different? An inflatable gorilla doesn't mean anything unless it means something to the customer. Be different in ways the customers will love.

6. The insider club

Frequent flyers, hotel points, and coffee drinkers love to be part of the inside club or the frequent user club. Customers want to feel they are considered regulars. Panera Bread got rid of their coffee cards because someone was selling the stamps on ebay and too much free coffee and bagels were leaving the store. Don't end the program, revamp it. Outsmart the crooks, but don't give up on your insider customers.

7. Be responsible for uncompromising levels of cleanliness

The best judge of management's customer care in a restaurant is the cleanliness of the bathroom and the legs of the chairs. If they are filthy the customer care will be just as bad. If retail shelves are a tangled mess, if hotel lobbies are sloppy, and delivery trucks look like moving landfills, customers will look for someone else to take their businesses to.

8. Encourage your customers to share photos of your products in use

Post customers vacation pictures of them enjoying your product in your customer traffic areas. Everyone enjoys these kinds of pictures and they are not professionally crafted photo shoots. These are normal people enjoying what you sell. Beat that!

9. T-shirts or buttons with online feedback

A restaurant has an uncensored section of their website for customer feedback and they make t-shirts and buttons for the employees to wear of the comments. Good and Bad. One shirt read, “The pizza was soooo greasy. I am assuming this was in part do to the pig fat.” With the person's name who submitted that review! Who can't laugh at that? Show that you listen to the online Yelps! It means you care and have a sense of humor about yourself.

10. Send the note

One of my clients has employees who receive wonderful letters from their customers about great service. The personal notes are gold to those employees. Why not send hand written notes to the best customers you have? We all know we have to deal with the cranky pain in the ass customers, so why not thank the ones who are a pleasure to work with?

Kick Ass Friday -- Take Action and Achieve

1. 4 out of 5 college graduates of the 2009 senior class are unable to find a job their degree prepared them for. How could you employ this unused talent in your workforce?

2. It cost $848 million to mint US Currency and coins in 2008. Sounds like time for a cashless society. What innovations do you need to get moving with?

3. The time-tested buy and hold stock strategies have netted zero income for the most recent 10 year period. Sounds like it's time for a new stock model. What tried and true methods are you relying on that are as out-dated?

4. Freerisk.org provides a platform for investors, academics and armchair analysts to rate companies. Are you ready or; in fact, being proactive to have the masses rate your organization? Its coming whether you are ready or not. Be proactive!

5. Penmanship was important to our grandparents. Spelling and sentence structure was important to our parents. Speed of texting and computer-generated words are important to our kids. What "penmanship" type traditions are you holding onto that no longer apply to the current marketplace?

6. Compare the computer of 1995 with the computer of 2009. Compare banking services of 1995 with services of 2009. Compare the reading habits of 1995 with the reading habits of 2009. The Internet has shifted everything dramatically, how have you shifted your business dramatically in the last 15 years? Is it enough? Where will your business be in 15 years?

7. More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day. MySpace has 58,000,000 unique users. Twitter has 54,000,000 monthly visits. What is your corporate strategy on social networks? They are no longer an idle curiosity; social networks are a real business application.

8. Free is the new discount. What are you giving away as your lost leader to demonstrate how good your products and services are?

9. In music we remember the one hit wonders with fondness for a few years. In business companies try to ride out their one hit product or service for a few years. Those days are gone. You need a new hit annually. What is your big hit for this year?

10. Giant businesses are not built to shift fast enough for today's markets. Small businesses will have infinite opportunity to grab a niche to be nimble in. How are you positioning your business for the new economy?

10 Ways to Sharpen Your Saw for Kick Ass Friday

1. What are you doing to prepare yourself for success in the new economy?
2. What is more important in your company the science of doing business or the art of doing business? Which area needs sharpened for all of your employees? Get to it!
3. What is the defining moment of your career thus far? How do you plan on topping that in the next 12 months? What do you need to be doing today to make that career-defining event possible?
4. How can you create a career-defining moment for another person's career?
5. What personality trait do you need to give up?
6. What is the best business book you ever read? Did you buy all your co-workers a copy? Reread it and refresh your mind, energy and enthusiasm.
7. When was the last time you did something that scared you to the point of shaking? Time to put another one of those events on your calendar soon.
8. Schedule a day to go off the grid and commit the entire day to focus on your occupational future. What do you want to accomplish, how do you want to leave your legacy? What do you need to acquire to reach that target?
9. What one thing could you start doing today to make your body stronger?
10. What was the most fun day of your life? How long ago did that happen? How soon can you put another one of those days in your life?

10 Motivations to Make it a Kick Ass Friday

1. Do you perform excellence for your internal recognition or for someone else's recognition? You can never be disappointed when you are performing at your best for yourself.
2. In what ways have you lost ground from five years ago? Make a plan to recover that lost ground because you know how good you can be.
3. Pick one area of your job you can make an improvement today – and knock it out.
4. Think of today as a marathon race, how are you going to do your final kick at the end of the day to cross the finish line a winner?
5. Look in the mirror and tell yourself, "Today, no one can make me have a bad day unless I let them." Repeat daily.
6. Every day is a performance, the show must go on regardless of obstacles, always deliver your best and remind yourself to make today an "It’s Showtime!!!" day.
7. There is no better feeling when you give your best effort and the results exceed your expectations. Give today your best effort.
8. Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby against 50 to 1 odds. How can you be the long shot winner today?
9. You have family and co-workers counting on your performance today – how can you just sit there?
10. Pick an ass you want to kick today and let your performance blow them away.

10 Wacky Ideas for Kick Ass Friday

Either I've used one of these ideas or my clients have and each of them had a very positive impact on the team to get them motivated, focused and enjoying their jobs.

1. Take your management team, sales team, or if you are in a small office, the entire team to a summer blockbuster matinee during work hours complete with popcorn and drink!

2. Have a video camera record an employee doing their job for an hour. Watch it together and both of you offer commentary. What did you learn? What could be done better? How much wasted effort was there? What was done perfectly?

3. Create a birthday recognition. Everyone likes to be appreciated on "their day." Be sure the appreciation is what the employee wants not just what you want to do.

4. Put a keg tap in the conference room (under pass-code lock) and gather the management team or sales team for a beer after hours weekly. The conversations will make your company thousands of extra dollars.

5. Take your team to lunch but they don't get to look at the menus. Have them roll dice to see which lunch entree they get to eat. Unless food allergies are involved, it's only one meal, it's learning to deal with being out of control, and it builds comfort with trying new things. If a food allergy is in the first choice, let them roll again. They don't get to know what they ordered until it arrives at the table. Watch how each person reacts to the situation. What did you learn?

6. Have each team member write done on a separate piece of paper the one thing that hate about each of the other team members. Fire up a grill and have everyone throw those papers on the fire. Tell them those issues are now up in flames, let it go and let's move on. So as not to waste good charcoals, grill some burgers in your parking lot and make lunch for the team.

7. Have each team member write down on a separate piece of paper the one thing they love about each of the other team members. Have them presented one by one to each team member. Do it right, and it will be very powerful. (After wards a group hug and singing of Kum Bay Ya is optional.)

8. Have management prepare and feed every other employee in the building. The sacrifice done in the right spirit will be greatly appreciated. I found grilled steak dinners were the most well received.

9. Set a big hairy goal for the company, as people contribute to that goal they get drawing tickets into the drum. When the goal is met, draw for a big hairy prize like a Cooper Mini. If the goal is missed draw for something much smaller like 100 gallons of gasoline. Sure that's a big difference. You want them to work toward the goal.

10. Offer an amnesty day where people can admit any major mistakes without any fear of retribution. If you though "Yea, right." Your company needs this more than ever! If you thought, "But we do that every day now because we are solution-focused not blame-focused." Give your team a huge pat on the back – you are in the groove already.

10 Freaky Facts for Kick Ass Friday

Maintaining your focus on your job on Friday is critical. Let these 10 bits of information keep you focused on why your job is important to you and your organization especially on the day most people want to start the weekend early.

1. 24% of all newly hired sales associates will not prospect -- ever! Improve your hiring profile.

2. 45% of all newly hired sales associates will not close a sale -- ever! Leave the closing to the experts.

3. 79% of all leads generated at a trade show are never followed up.

4. 82% of all homeowners can't tell you the name of their Realtor if they bought their home more than two years ago. How lasting is your customer impression?

5. With the economy on life support, many health professionals are worried that even more folks will put on "recession pounds." How is your exercise program coming along?

6. 90 per cent of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to close within two years of the disaster. How effective is your disaster recovery program?

7. If your household income was $150,000 or higher last year, you were in the top 5%.

8. Through our social training we have allowed interruptions to eat up 2.1 hours of our day (28% of the average workday.)

9. Spam accounts for 14.5 billion messages globally per day. In other words, spam makes up 45% of all emails.

10. Over 141 million cans of SPAM are sold worldwide each year. If you pay too much attention to socializing and email spam, you may find yourself dining on more of this SPAM.

Instead of falling into the common trap of coasting into the weekend, why not Kick Ass today.

Today is Kick Ass Friday -- 10 Q's for U

To make sure you drive into the weekend and not use today to coast, ask your self these 10 questions and don't simply make your business go, make it grow!

1. Because Plan A doesn't work every time, how well defined is your Plan B?
2. How linear is your thinking? What steps are you taking that aren't getting you to where you want to go?
3. Who is your current mentor and how are they inspiring you today?
4. If you could recreate your business how would you do it? How could you reinvent what you have?
5. What one sporting event in history would you like to have attended? Why? What could you learn from the winners of that event?
6. What does fame mean to you? How famous do you want to be?
7. Would you rather be known as a great orator or writer? How do you best communicate?
8. How do you communicate with those who have the opposite communication style you do?
9. What is the most unusual thing you've done as a leader? What was the reaction?
10. Would you rather be recognized by many, or have close relationships with a few?

Kick Ass Friday: 10 Ways to be a Better You

1. Insecurities are costing you plenty. Take action starting today on one of your insecurities.
2. Define the meaning of your life. Not what it should be or could be, what it is now. If you aren't happy with that meaning, work to change it.
3. Where does your happy come from? How much happy are you putting into those people around you. Spread around some happy in your workplace today.
4.Passion is doing something because you love doing it. Demonstrate your passion at work. If you can't, get another job.
5. Play to win instead of not to lose. Prevent defenses only work when you have a huge lead and limited clock. There is no clock in business you always have to play to win.
6. Work on a long-term strategy today and forget the short-sightedness for an afternoon (for starters.)
7. Pick a lane. Do you want to be in the lane of safety and security or adventure and uncertainty? Make a choice.
8. Apply yourself in a project you've been avoiding lately.
9. Do something ridiculous, fun and cool at work today. How did that feel?
10. Book a dinner date for Saturday night with someone important to you. Make it a place you've never been to before. Eat something you never have eaten before. Feel your self grow.

10 Questions to Answer to Make Today a Kick Ass Friday

1. What are the threats in your mind that are holding you back from your potential? (What must you do to control those thoughts?)
2. Who have you mentored today?
3. What motivates the motivator? (That's you!)
4. If you had unlimited resources for your business how would you spend them? (What can you do in those same areas with the resources you have?)
5. What lessons did you learn in your first year as a manager that you never forgot? (Teach them to the people reporting to you.)
6. Who brings the most value to your life? (Tell them and thank them.)
7. What about you is the "differentiator?"
8. What is the source of your fears? (What are you doing to remove those?)
9. What price are you paying for lost effort?
10. What questions should you be asking to grow your business?

10 Things to Do to Make Today Kick Ass Friday

1. Take action on something that has been sitting on your desk all week. Make it happen!
2. You know that crap that is piling up on your desk? File it, delegate it or throw it away.
3. Write one Job Well Done (JWD) note to an employee and mail the handwritten note to their home address. You will make their week next week, I promise.
4. Set one Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to get done by the end of this quarter. I mean BIG!
5. Call your buddies and plan a cookout for Saturday night and party like there is no tomorrow.
6. Now you have a party to look forward to. Get your ass back to work and focus -- HARD!
7. Pick one employee to energize. Ask them insightful questions about their career and show you care, and want to help them succeed.
8. Forget a heavy lunch today. Take a brisk walk for an hour then eat an apple with peanut butter at your desk.
9. Notice you missed your post-lunch coma? Great! Be more productive than you thought possible on a Friday afternoon.
10. Call a customer or client just to wish them a great weekend and let them know how pumped you are about your job.

10 Ideas to Make Today a Kick Ass Friday

1. Embrace the day and stop saying, "I'm glad tomorrow is the weekend -- it's finally here."
2. Pick one project you are working on and make a focused effort to take a giant step to move that project forward.
3. Consider removing all meetings from any Friday so everyone can drive business on the last day of the work week.
4. Plan to come in Monday renewed, reinvigorated, and thrilled to tackle a new week.
5. Call a customer or client today to thank them for their business this year.
6. Make lunch count. Who do you need to take to lunch today? Client? Boss? Employee who never gets to go out for lunch?
7. Create a list of 5 things you must get done by next Friday. Go for some hard stuff.
8. Make today a no whining, no bitching, no complaint day. Ask everyone to focus on the positive.
9. Refuse to listen to the news or read a paper. Take a day off from the "News Terrorists."
10. Give your best effort until the very last minute of your work day……no coasting. THEN you can celebrate a great work week.