Kick ass and hold noses!

 Just read a great quote over at Robin Elliott's excellent joint venture blog:

General George S. Patton believed he was a reincarnated warrior leader. He said, “Now there’s another thing I want you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that “we are holding our position.” We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose and we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!” He made no apologies and never compromised, in spite of massive pressure.

We're all guilty of "holding our position" at one time or another.  And that's only natural, because that keeps us in our comfort zone, right?

But how comfortable are we really when we're just "holding our position"? 

The possibilities once we get outside that comfort zone are endless.  And while that's exciting to think about, it's also pretty scary.

Because once we step outside the zone and start taking on "the enemy" (whoever or whatever that might mean for each of us), holding him by the nose and kicking his ass in true Patton style, then our reasons for limiting ourselves begin to disappear and we have to take responsibility for our lives - because there's nothing to hold us back anymore!

Love it.  Thanks Robin, just what I needed - a reminder that there really is no comfort zone, and that life is all about advancing, every day.

Have a good one.

Richard

Rebranding successes and disasters

As you've probably worked out by now, I'm not a big rap for branding as a marketing strategy for most businesses, especially small businesses.

I'm more of a direct response kind of bloke - if you can't track and measure the response you're getting from a marketing exercise, think long and hard about laying out your hard earned cash on it.

But branding is a totally valid and logical exercise for many large businesses, especially those that operate in mass markets.  Think Coke, Microsoft, Coles, Woolies.  They live and die on the results of their branding campaigns.

And if your branding efforts stink, you'd better be quick about rebranding before you lose your market and your shirt.

Even as small and medium business owners, we can all learn plenty about consumer behaviour and psychological responses from branding campaigns and strategies.

So take a few minutes and have a look at this - a great Business Insider article on the best and worst of rebranding, on the big stage.  I like the UPS story best.

Enjoy!

Richard

Best thing I've seen this week

Check this out guys, just brilliant.  (Thanks to Sam de Brito at SMH for the link.)
VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

Dealmaking 101, Arab style

This just in from my boys, who have lots of Arab friends and a great sense of humour:

Dad: I want u to marry a girl of my choice.

Son: No

Dad: The girl is Bill Gates' daughter

Son: Ok!

Dad goes to see Bill Gates.

Dad: I want your daughter to marry my son.

Bill Gates: No

Dad: My son is the CEO of the World Bank 

Bill Gates: Ok!

Dad goes to see the President of the World Bank

Dad: Make my son the CEO of your bank

President: No

Dad: He is the son-in-law of Bill Gates

President: Ok!

That’s the Arab way of doing business.

And that's also Dealmaking 101 right??  Look at the situation in front of you from every angle you can think of, and you might just be surprised by the possibilities.

Have a great weekend.

Richard 

 

It's all about the relationship, right?

Business - especially the professional services business - is all about relationships.

And the better you are at relationships, the more successful your business and the happier your life, right?

So if you’re sick and tired of losing clients and prospects to competitors who you know won't treat them as well as you, just because they're better at playing "the relationship game", then I'm sure you’ll find this a valuable place to visit regularly - because I want to help you turn that around.

My focus is on showing legal and financial services professionals - whether they're estate planning experts or not - how they can tap into the power that estate planning holds to build closer, deeper relationships with their clients, prospects and referral partners.

This idea sounds counter-intuitive at first, but once you start to get an appreciation and a deeper understanding of the way estate planning affects us all at such a fundamental level, you’ll begin to see the power of what I’m talking about.

Nobody else online or offline teaches professional advisers how to use estate planning in this way. The only place you can learn this stuff is with me.

Welcome aboard!

Big announcement from the Estate Planning Profiteer

A quick heads up on something new coming up very soon.

Up until now, Estate Planning Profits has been a coaching and consulting business - helping owners of boutique legal and financial services businesses who are already doing well but want to do even better- backed up by my flagship members' program, Marketing With Estate Planning.  And I'm very proud of it.

And today I want to let you know that there's a new Estate Planning Profits product on the way -  a new program that will be video and text based, that will help any boutique legal or financial services professional expand and strengthen their client relationships.  Can't announce the name of the program yet because it's not finalized, so stay tuned for updates.

I'm pretty excited about this, and about the potential for helping more people than I ever have before.  And I promise you'll be the first to know once everything's ready to go.

Have a great week, talk soon.

Richard

The Trusted Advisor Manifesto - a gentle reminder

Just a quick reminder:

If you haven't got your copy of my Trusted Advisor Manifesto yet, you're missing out on something that every legal and financial services professional needs to know - How to profit from estate planning, whether you're an estate planning expert or not!

All I need is your first name and email address in the box below (I promise I'll never spam you or share your details with anyone else) and I'll send you straight to the download page. I've added some videos too, as a way of saying thanks for checking this out.

First Name *
E-Mail *
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