(note: not holiday related, just cool)

also…

mp3: flying lotus remixes shafiq husayn’s “evil man” to great effect.

[jacked from weiss]

My name is Kurt and I’m 2 years old!

Day 8: 

Hello!  My name is Kurt and I’m 2 years old!  I’m sporting my miniature Santa’s hat in anticipation of Santa Paws coming to town.  I think it may have fallen off of one of Santa’s elves last year, but I’ve got it now and it’s my favorite hat.  I like to wear it at Christmas time. 

I’m in training to become a service dog and I participate in C.O.P.E.’s High School Assistance Dog Program at Nantyr Shores S.S.  I love to help.  Everybody tells me how much I’ve helped already, and that makes me happy.  All I have to do is behave and do what the kids tell me to do.  They teach me commands and then they feel good because of what they’ve accomplished.  They do such a great job!  Some of the parents, teachers and students have said that the kids are able to get along better with others, they have more confidence, they are becoming more responsible and their patience has improved.  This is all because of C.O.P.E. 

Some people tell me that I’m a little obsessed with my Puppy Raiser, but that’s because I’m so grateful and happy that I have such a wonderful puppy raiser and I want to show my appreciation.  One other thing I can tell you about me is that I’m really tall.  I’m so tall that I can reach places that you didn’t think that I could, so be careful when you hide the doggie treats (actually, forget I said that…….).   

So, there’s only 8 days ‘till Christmas……I hope you’re done all your Christmas shopping for your furry little friends!  Don’t leave it until the last minute or all the squeaky toys will be gone!  By the way, just so you know, we like peanut butter treats and doggy bones, so stock up for your poochie this year ok?  See ya tomorrow!

让我当多几天的宅女　。。

this mixtape is being passed around hip-hop blogs like a blunt at a devin the dude concert. good thing for us it will last more than 10 minutes. here we have eLZhi  proving once again why he is one of the best without even really breaking a sweat. the nas-like emcee debuted on jay dee’s welcome 2 detroit some 10 years ago, joined post-jay dee slum village and released a couple borderline classic solo LPs, all under the radar because its detroit. production from black milk, jake one, and oh no makes this a necessary download for all hip-hop enthusiasts. free and legal.

download: eLZhi – the leftovers

mp3: “dream” (prod. jake one)

-c

new jersey folk-rockers alex bleeker & the freaks released their debut LP november 27th on underwater people recordings. a fine tribute to neil young “ditch triology”-era stoned americana, the freaks are a sort of lo-fi/folk-rock all-star group with bleeker (real estate bassist), matt mondanile (ducktails, real estate), martin courtney (real estate), and julian lynch roudning out the roster. over the course of the 30 minute self-titled LP, the freaks show off whiskey-soaked guitar noodling and delicate vocals. the stand out is the mountain man cover animal tracks, perfect for a sunday morning coffee/cigarette sesh.

alex bleeker & the freaks – animal tracks (mountain man cover)

alex bleeker & the freaks – dead on

mountain man – animal tracks

-curt

(via)

i’m going to ask for a late pass for playboy tre. a really late pass. this dude has been at it for 10 years in the atlanta underground and as a fairly big southern rap fan, i’m losing head points quickly. in the early century tre ran with youngbloodz and did a brief stint with lil’ john before going independent. the atlanta/decatur rapper put out a mixtape* over the summer called liquor store mascot and it’s shaping up to be one of the best releases of the year.

the album begins as many great southern rap albums do: with a narrative of street life. tre wakes up, looks out into the streets, thinks about the poverty and violence, and feels sad. i can’t help but think of similar intros on outkast’s atliens, goodie mob’s soul food, and ugk’s ridin’ dirty. on the next track tre sets up the major theme of the album by asserting himself as a man of the people, “i do it for the have-nots/and keep an ice-cold bill like i’m the liquor store mascot”. over the beat’s triumphant horns tre travels through atlanta. he sees dope slangin’, gun totin’, project dwellin’ hopelessness and then reflects, “i see the struggle and i paint it, man.” on the next track, “living in the bottle”, tre confronts alcholism–his family’s, his community’s, and his own. tre tags himself a “bloodline sippa’” in a tone that is regretful and honest. “we are the robots” is an evaluation of present-day racism and classism with lines like “they feed us like hampsters, prisoned and enslaved”. a-town comrade and major label signee B.O.B. comes in to drop a powerful verse about black youth over a somber post-crunk beat. tre explores these themes of struggle, racism, and addiction on every track.

but don’t get it twisted, liquor store mascot isn’t all serious, tre has a sense of humor. like the southern greats before him, he toes the line of serious life reflection and learning to live with the life you have. this music is fun to listen to. i mean, you got all those classic southern backing vocals like, “YEEAAHHH”, “NAAHHHH’, and my personal favorite, “MAANNNEE”. in true southern style, the beats are big, lavish productions that fall somewhere inbetween mid-90s atlanta production team organized noize and lil’ john’s computer crunk. still, at the end of the album it is playboy tre’s voice that resonates. this man is a writer, pure and simple.

gotty of rap blog the smoking section gave his advice to playboy tre’s career in a recent review:  “What the man needs to do is take up pen & pad to scribe his autobiography or a few Donald Goines-eque paperbacks. Sure, his words sound melodic when done over music. But there’s a wisdom to his ghetto scriptures, reading like tomes for manhood. Words that should be shared on a wider level. There’s nothing cryptic or “deep.” It’s the starkness and the way he develops round, dynamic characters in his rhymes that attract. They aren’t heroes, just average cats working their way through the world”.

amen.

as the direct descendent of blues, gospel, funk, and soul, southern rap is pure emotion. it is unfiltered african-american culture full of pain and struggle, family and tradition. it is sincere and honest, and the great southern rappers are natural storytellers. not to take anything away from the boom-bap birthplace of the NYC, the laid-back, non-concerning west coast stylings, or the working class hustle of the midwest, but if you want to hear rap that most reflects american culture and history, go south, and listen to playboy tre’s liquor store mascot. this shit is free people!

*liquor store mascot, like most ‘mixtapes’ released nowadays, is an album. its all original, written material. a true mixtape is a dj mixing popular tracks for a mc to rap/freestyle over.

-curt

download:

playboy tre – liquor store mascot (zip)

Bolt on hitches are a great way to carry extra cargo, bikes & skis.

Rack attack is also a full service hitch installer in addition to roof racks. We install light duty hitches on cars, vans, and pick ups. Most of our installations are done for bike racks, but we also do basic wiring hook ups to tow small trailers. There are only a handful of vehicles that we can’t mount a hitch to. There are three different classes of hitches (I, II, and III), 3 main brands (Hidden Hitch, Draw-tite and Curt) and all are bolted on. We never weld any hitch on. Most hitches mount into factory mounted holes, that either need to be cleaned before installation, enlarged or sometimes drilled. In some cases we have to cut the bumper or fascia on some vehicles as that is the only way to install the hitch. The instructions include templates so it’s never a blind cut.

Hitches have a 1 year warranty, and offer a great way to carry bikes or tow your utility trailer. Prices range from $200 and up. We do all the work or we can order in the hitch for self-installation. Hitches usually take a day or two to get in, and we need minimum 3 hours. Call us today to see what your options are.

best coast is a singer-songwriter out of l.a. equally influenced by ’50s doo-wop as she is modern diy, lo-fi. over the summer she released a dope cassette called “where the boys are” and then a 7” called “sun was high (so was i)”. find most of these tunes at her myspace. she has a new 7” single coming out in a week or so called “make you mine”. this stuff is candy. still waiting on someone to make a modern pop song as good as the drifters “there goes my baby“, maybe best coast will do it.

here’s a nice live acoustic version of “sun was high (so was i)”

-curt

shabazz palaces is butterfly from the classic early ’90s seattle/brooklyn trio digable planets. i guess he has returned to seattle, calls himself ish, and has made some very creative ‘conscious’ raps with a g-funk tempo. baaadddddaassssss.

avatar young blaze is pretty much seattle’s young jeezy. he rocks a slow, slurred, style-heavy flow over club ready beats. now hold on a sec. before you write him off as a mainstream-wannabe gangsta cornball, give his new mixtape a listen. born in russia, raised in seattle, avatar young blaze has been a fixture in seattle battle-rap circles for years, where i’ve been told (by kzuu concert vet BMC) that this kid has destroyed dudes twice his age.

“from russia with love” picks up where last years “warm blooded, cold hearted” left off: inner-city raps about guns, drugs, and being a “boss” and a “gangsta”. played-out? definitely. but you don’t have to take this stuff seriously to appreciate avatar’s wit, style, and knack for a hook. avatar got some love from national players on this one with super-producer the alchemist (dilated peoples, mobb deep, nas) contributing some really catchy club beats. rick ross, young jeezzy? nah, avatar young blaze. GET IT STUBBLEFIELDS!

download/stream:

avatar young blaze – “from russia with love”

new video for “zone out”. the vodka shooting chess match is awesome.

-curt

two mice scurry around a house until a transformation occurs…a totally kick-ass transformation.

“losing feeling” is the title track off of the bands sub pop EP released earlier this month. find it in the preview rack and play it. not a suggestion, an order.

-curt

Here we have another one of the classic Mr. Perfect vignettes, this time of him playing horseshoes.  This one also features the hilarious Genius character.

the back of 2004’s masterpiece madvillainy read:

mf doom: rhymes

madlib: beats

and that was that. two of the most prolific and creative forces in hip-hop—underground or otherwise—penned a classic over bong rips and jazz records.

so when pitchfork caught wind of the mysterious duo’s recent activity, i almost pee’d my pants. according to p4k’s report madvillain are working on the follow-up to their debut collaboration. there is no release date but mos def and tv on the radio’s david sitek are rumored to be contributors. not surprising as upon the release of madvillainy the entire indie community instantly declared it to be the savior of indie-rap (as if they knew better). personally, i just want to hear doom and madlib, i don’t know what the white bro from tv on the radio is going to add, other than played-out atmospherics.

to my hip-hop djs: go scour the library for madvillian madvillainy and remind kzuu listeners of a classic.

while you wait here is stones throw dj j-rocc working some new madvillain material into a recent set:

via pitchfork

-curt

fresh out of high school and onto the sub pop roster? that shit doesn’t happen outside of your day dreams in algebra class when your crappy high school band stops playing maiden covers and starts touring with modest mouse. la’s avi buffalo has that “wise beyond his years” thing going on something serious. the 18-year old has a ridiculous knack for rock/pop composition, showing he has listened to more than enough neil young and beach boys records. he can sing, man can he sing, and the guitar is likely to put lead guitarists ten years his elder back into the bedroom for some scale practice.

dig on “summer cum” and “where’s your dirty mind” off his myspace, shimmering acoustic pop with more than enough wit and style. i heard avi buffalo opened for beach house in seattle a few weeks ago which probably left beach house muttering “damn” as they walked to the stage. his debut album is slated for a spring release on sub pop.

in the meantime check out his first single “what’s in it for”. i can’t describe it any better than la times writer jeff weiss who calls it an “irrepressibly catchy slice of Shins-esque jangle pop just waiting to be snagged for a crucial contretemps in a Michael Cera vehicle.” touche sir.

thanks to passion of the weiss.

-curt

A few months ago I had the opportunity to speak at a large consumer trade show. Before my talk I was walking around the show floor trying to understand their business more (and hoping to spend some money too!). As I looked at all the booths I noticed one in particular. At this booth they sold “painted” plates and I remember thinking to myself that they were really nice plates that were likely brought in from overseas like everyone else does. Not that a plate from another country is bad it was just my assumption that this booth was likely just like everyone else. As luck would have it I ended up speaking with the business owner and he told me that each plate I had been admiring was actually hand painted in Canada by a single artist in Alberta. In fact, as we spoke he constantly came back to this same compelling point of difference. In the space of ten minutes he likely mentioned it 5-6 times. I finally looked at him and said, “If I was your perfect customer and I agreed to give you two minutes of my busy day what would you say to me?” He looked at me and said, “All of our plates are exclusively hand painted by one artist in Alberta.” I said, “Great!! Show me how you communicate this powerful message in your booth.” He walked across the booth and pulled out a flyer and handed it to me. I said, “WOW you are making a few big assumptions aren’t you? One, you are assuming that I will enter your booth. On top of that you assume that I would be interested enough to stop and have this conversation with you. If I don’t, I completely miss your compelling point of difference, don’t I? The look on his face said it all. He knew I was right. If his selling value was all focused around a single artist designing every plate he needed to communicate that message in everything he did. He needed to communicate it in the name of the store, in the advertising and in the way the products were displayed. He needed to ensure that message jumped out at people. We spent the next 30 minutes redesigning simple things that would allow him to clearly communicate his message… “one Canadian artist, hand drawn, every plate is exclusively unique.” We designed a place for the artist’s photograph. We changed his slogan and we even turned some of the plates over so people could easily see the single signature on each and every plate.

I share this with you because my chance encounter that day really got me thinking about the question, “If you had two minutes with your perfect customer what would you say to them?” If you know the answer, great! If not, you better set aside some time to think about it. However, once you know the answer start asking/challenging yourself on how you communicate this important message in everything you do.

At Microsoft we called this our eight second elevator pitch. The idea was, what could we say to someone in the span of eight seconds that would get them to say, “Stop… I want to know more.”

So how would you answer this question? Would you even know what you wanted to say if the perfect customer came along? Is your message compelling enough for people to want to notice? Does your business communicate your perfect message in everything you do? More importantly, ask yourself does your message resonate from a distance. You see, most of us can do a reasonable job selling our value if we get close enough to the customer.

The challenge is getting the opportunity to get that close. As the world gets busier and time gets shorter you need to have a strategy for the customer to start seeking you out. Your message of value has to jump right out and stop them in their tracks.

If I go back to my story, I was very busy that day. This show was huge and my time was extremely limited. I wanted to spend money but I really needed someone to reel me in because every booth was becoming a blur. In your industry chances are there are lots of people who sell what you do. But no one does it quite as uniquely as you. At least you hope! This month take the time to capture the essence of what you stand for and then figure out how to communicate it loudly and clearly in everything you do.

Einstein once said that in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity, which is the inspiration for the following question.

Many years ago my brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a devastating situation with absolutely no recourse. While many of us would have gotten stuck in the pain of the situation, my brother saw things differently. He looked at the news he had been given and asked himself, “What if this was meant to be good news?” He knew he couldn’t change what had happened to him, all he could do was change how he interpreted the situation. My brother chose to believe that the cancer that had invaded his body was there for a reason. Armed with this passionate belief, my brother shared his story with everyone who would listen. He visited churches across Canada; he spoke to friends and strangers alike. He spoke of hope, awareness and the bountiful life he would lead in Heaven. He opened hearts and healed old wounds; he gave back life to people who had been dying inside! He moved countless people with his story of seeking out a greater purpose.

When my brother passed away he left as an accomplished man, someone who had lead his life with meaning and shared his pain so that others could heal in theirs. I still think today about the awesome lesson he taught us. How he looked at a devastating situation and how he asked himself, “What if this was all meant to be good news?”

Think about your own business, where could you apply this lesson? If a new competitor moves into your market space, a new technology threatens your existence or your VP of Sales resigns, how would you handle the news? Too often in most companies panic sets in, pessimism and skepticism are a natural and common reaction. However, what if instead of panic you were to look for the underlying opportunity in the cards that have been played.

For example, what if a new competitor was in fact moving into your market space? How could you turn this into good news? Here are some ideas:

You could leverage off their branding and awareness activity to build your own name.
The new competitor could cause your other competitors even more pain and distraction therefore allowing you to take an even bigger step forward?
This new competitor could help reinforce the significance of your product or your market sector therefore leading to more people wanting to buy what you sell.
You could learn new ideas, new ways of positioning and new insight from a new competitor.
A new competitor could reinforce to potential customers just how complete your solution is.
You could welcome this as a wake up call and start connecting more with your own customers.
What are some of the other possible benefits that would support the belief that a new competitor in your industry could in fact be good news?

Every company needs a strategy for turning the low points in their business into good news? What could you do to reshape your interpretation of the world as it has unfolded for you? What new beliefs could you have? Shifting your thoughts from negative to positive can give you a whole new view of the situation, a whole new perspective of what lies ahead. Shifting your thoughts can turn a negative stranglehold into an empowering view of the future!

BRAINSTORMING IDEAS

List as many ideas for the following questions …

1. What are the current aspects of your business that you have been treating as bad news?
2. How could you shift each of these situations to be considered good news?

Spend a few minutes and think about this, share your thoughts with others and explore the possibilities that will uncover themselves.

This month’s article really came as a fluke. Here I was looking up famous quotes on the Internet when I stumbled upon this quote from Bill Gates, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” * It took me less than a second to realize Bill was right!

When was the last time you stopped to think about what your customers might be unhappy with? What part of your service would they like to see changed? Its sad, but often times most of their problems can be resolved so easily. What do you think would happen if once a month you met with your team and found one service shortcoming and you corrected it?

Many times we find that the reason our customer is unhappy is because there is a simple misunderstanding between the way we think they want to do business and the way they really want to do business. We think they want to work with us between 9am and 5pm and they need us available 24 hours a day. We think ordering off the Internet is a good solution and they don’t have access to outside websites. Whatever the problem is, if more than one customer has it, you need to be concerned!

So, do you really know what makes your customer unhappy? Who in your organization is listening and looking to find out? Are you searching for trends to understand if others are unhappy too? Finally, who is taking action to make sure these customers become happy? One word of warning though, don’t wait for your customers to tell you they are unhappy. Most customers never do, they just leave you!

At Microsoft, in order to ensure we were able to anticipate our customer’s needs, we had an expressions that stated, “We are a company that eats their own dog food”. This means that long before customers ever used our products, we were our own customers. If we didn’t like the way it worked, if we found it too difficult, if it broke too often we would let the Product Management group know and they would start finding resolutions. The idea was, if we didn’t like doing business with us, we knew our customers wouldn’t either.

One last thought. An unhappy customer can easily be your happiest customer, it just depends on how you go about to solve their problem. Customer research has shown that companies that take customers complaints to heart and take action to correct the situation, build strong business relationships that endure very tough times.

This month, ask yourself, “What are my customers unhappy with?” Make a plan to correct some of their concerns. It won’t take long and it will make a world of difference. Its a sad reality, but somehow with all the hustle and bustle we are all attending to, we seemed to have forgotten we need happy customers to stay alive!

Brainstorming Ideas

What are my customers most unhappy with?

My niece was staying with us for a few days and she had just finished her one-hour of devotional reading for the day. Just by chance I met her in the hallway and I asked her, “What did you learn today and how will you use it tomorrow?” You see, I know how important her commitment to devotional reading is, but I also know that there is a difference between reading for the sake of reading and reading for the sake of learning and growing. I was pretty sure that I had surprised her by my comment but she got a chance to return the surprise. About one week later I went to our mailbox and there was a letter from her. I was most intrigued because in her 19 years, I think maybe she had written two or three times. I stared at the envelope and wondered what it was that she had written. Here is the essence of what the letter said…

Dear Uncle Buck,
I didn’t know what to say to you that day but you got me to think about what I was really doing. I realized, you were right, if I was really going to make a difference, I needed to stop going through the motions and start asking everyday what does this all really mean to me? I find now that my daily devotional is having more meaning and I am starting to see signs of how it is really changing who I am…

I tell you this story because I wonder how often we go through the motions in our business. How often do we get customer feedback that goes nowhere? How often do we observe new ideas or find new approaches that never get implemented? My niece learned a wonderful lesson that day. She learned the importance of asking, “What did I learn today and how will I use it tomorrow?”

Can you imagine how quickly you would grow, both as a business and a person; if you stopped to ask this question every day? What do you think would happen if you took just 5 minutes after meeting with a customer and you wrote down everything new that you learned about them and how you will apply that knowledge to future activity? What do you think would happen if at your weekly team meetings everyone was asked to share one thing that they had learned in the last week and provided examples of how they were going to use their new knowledge?
In this world of constant change, knowledge is a critical success factor for getting ahead. This month I would like you to think about all the new knowledge you capture everyday and how you will start applying it in your life so that it makes a difference. I read somewhere that if you learned one new thing about your area of expertise every day, you would be a “genius” within two years. Do you think customers are attracted to industry geniuses? You bet they are! Do you think your margins will improve if you are the industry genius? You bet they will! Do you think your relationships will flourish and grow if you commit yourself to learning a little bit more about the people who mean the most to you? You know they will!

Five minutes a day is all it takes to lead you to greatness!

Brainstorming Ideas

1. Ask what did you learn today?
2. Ask how can you apply this knowledge to be better in what you do?
3. Ask who else would want to know what you just learned?

LETTER TO EDITOR – BURLINGTON POST (DEC 7, 2004)
I remember reading a wonderful article in your paper a few years ago about the “Mayor of the Burlington Beach ”. While I know she wasn’t really the Mayor she sure acted like she was. I had the opportunity to meet her myself many many years ago. While our relationship never went as I had hoped it would, I know she was a lady who lived for the water, lived for tranquility and lived for making our beaches a little more spectactular for all of us to enjoy. I recently learned that the “Mayor” passed away in early November. She was young, heck at 72 years old she was still wearing bikinis. I can’t pretend to know her well, it has been twenty eight years since I last saw her, but I have heard from many in these last few weeks how she touched lives with her spirit, her drive and her passionate desire to keep the beauty of nature alive. Yes, I also heard that she was a lady that never minced words and she fought bitterly if anyone dared to wreak havoc on the splendor of her beaches. Yet, I wonder if maybe some of us, myself included, could learn from her passionate resolve. Upon learning of her passing I took the time to walk the beach; I just wanted to learn a little more about the place she called home. The “Mayor” was right; it really is a wonderful place. Maybe just maybe, I will throw aside some of my appointments, forget some of those never ending “to-do’s” and take my own family on a wonderful walk along the Burlington lakeside. We could laugh, we could sing, we could even tidy it up and yes, we could think about the “Mayor” and the wonderful lesson she left us all, “Death is not about dying, it’s more in fact, about learning to live!”

Making a tough decision is probably one of the hardest life skills for any of us to master. No one can really teach us. There is no scientific formula or structured process, the tough decisions need to turn us inside and allow us to seek out guidance from our heart and soul. They really don’t teach you anything like that in Business U.

No action in your life will happen unless you decide to make it happen. You will never have full control unless you decide to take full control.

This month, I hope you take some time to make the tough decisions in your life. They won’t be easy to make but I gaurantee you, you’ll be better off for them. I remember at the age of fifteen, deciding it was time to go. I wouldn’t wish that kind of decision on anyone, let alone a fifteen year old kid but I knew, I needed to leave. Now at forty two years old, you won’t ever catch me saying I was happy making that decision but I will always tell you that I am better off for the decision I made.

I always said I would be there at the end and I am proud to say I was. It wasn’t easy stepping back into a life I left twenty eight years ago. But I can tell you that for me, it was the right and honourable decision to make. Quite frankly, it’s not easy writing and sharing this with you but if just one of you makes a decision, and that decision changes your life then the awkward pain I feel right now will be well worth it.

Here’s to your decision, whatever you decide.

SPECIAL NOTE: As you probably know, I am passionate about helping people “Master their Make It Happen Mindset” in their Business, Career and Life. If you know someone who could use my expertise please feel free to forward their name to me (and this newsletter to them).

A couple of months ago I was having lunch with a friend that I worked at Microsoft with. We were talking about what made Microsoft so successful in their marketing and what we agreed on was that Microsoft was a master at shifting the playing field to suit their needs. Think about it, Microsoft Word took away a 90% market share lead from WordPerfect, Windows NT took away a 70% market share lead from Novell and Windows Explorer took away a 90% market share from Netscape. Were Microsoft products that much better? No. Microsoft was a master of shifting attention and changing the landscape. Instead of focusing on wordprocessing Microsoft focused on the integrated suite of Office products, instead of having a network discussion; Microsoft spoke of the Windows Open Service Architecture (WOSA) and instead of discussing browsers Microsoft targeted the seamless desktop where the browser was the operating system and the operating system was the browser. In a product to product comparison there is never a clear winner but when Microsoft shifted the playing field no one else could compete with them. So this leads me to ask, how can you shift your playing field?

Are you finding yourself focused on a product/service comparison and struggling to create a sustainable difference? That can be very painful process. I like the way Harry Beckwith expresses it, “Your opportunities for growth often lie outside the confines of your current market. Fighting within these confines, particularly in mature markets, causes you to spill too much blood and money.” It’s true, you are setting yourself up for a losing battle. So are there ways for you to shift your market position by bundling in other services so that others can’t compete. Ask yourself, what do you (and your company have) that no one else has access to? How can you shift it so that you are in a world all on your own?

Years ago when Crest and Colgate were fighting the cavity battle Close Up came out and said their toothpaste will get you more dates. Yes, your teeth may fall out by thirty but by then you’re married so I guess that’s ok. Many times when you look at your competitor’s strength you can find their weakness by becoming the opposite. Coke had one hundred years of tradition so Pepsi became the choice of a new generation. Hertz was the number one car rental company so AVIS focused on being number two and trying harder. Ask, where is your competition dominant then look to the opposite. A large company can’t be the little one that cares.

Another question I like to ask is how can you go against industry tradition? What can you do that no one else is doing? Can you offer different hours, a different mix of service or a different level of expertise? Often times we get set in doing things exactly like everyone else. Note: Remember if you are going to be different you may have to help your customers “unlearn” the way things used to be.

Finally, have you considered ways to create more of a niche business for yourself? Recently, I have started to brand my sales training so that it is focused entirely on Engineers and Consultants. While there are tons of sales training programs out there the Effectivation one is the only I know of focused on this market. In response, Watson Wyatt, McKesson Canada and Gartner Lee have all endorsed this program as their national standard. Why? Because we are experts in helping engineers and professional service organizations sell. How can you position your business so that you have a distinct new advantage?

This month take time to look at your business and ask are you spilling too much blood trying to be a clone of everyone else. Is there a way to position yourself differently in the customer’s mind? It’s true you may lose some market opportunity by making a shift but isn’t 100% of something a lot less painful then fighting to get a little bit of everything? I tend think so…

I had the opportunity to meet Alison Korn a number of years ago when we were working on a video for Microsoft. Alison was a Canadian Olympic rower and I asked her, “What was it like rowing in the Olympics?” She said, “It’s funny, even though we practiced for years, we couldn’t find the passion or the energy until we saw our finish line. But when we knew we were a thousand metres from the finish and that everything we worked for would be lost, we found passion and energy that we never thought we had.”

I remember that race. Alison and her partner went from forth to second and they narrowly missed winning the Gold.

How is it that the losing team often monopolizes the final minutes of a sporting contest? They know if they don’t get the puck in the net, the ball in the hoop or score that last minute touchdown, everything they have worked for will be lost. Why they didn’t figure it out earlier in the game? They just didn’t see their finish line.

I know that most of us have goals and objectives and we write them down faithfully every year, but do we treat them like a finish line or do we allow ourselves to defer them, reschedule them or forget about them completely? A finish line is permanent; it’s the stake in the ground that doesn’t move. It’s that point of no return that gives us power and authority to do better than we ever thought was possible. For most of us we need the finality of a finish line to open up and really make things happen. We see it in business all the time, a sales rep waits until the last quarter and then starts pushing themselves in order to achieve their quota. Companies allow their accounts receivable to get wildly out of control and then they scramble, trying to collect it all in one day. Relationships that have failed for years try to repair themselves in the final hour to avoid breaking up. We put off buying life insurance until we are old enough to believe we actually just may die some day? My point is, if we don’t have that point of finality few of us ever move forward.

So where are your finish lines? Do they even exist? Are you treating your goals and objectives with the “finish line” discipline that you need? If you watch successful companies you will notice how they create finish lines long before they are forced upon them. They are proactive vs. reactive when it comes to achieving the things that are important to them.

One of the reasons we drift away from achieving our goals is because the target is too far out in the distance and it is hard for us to create the urgency we need. Have you considered breaking down your goals into smaller manageable chunks that you can focus on now instead of sometime off in the distant future? One of the unique characteristics of our brains is that it works in the here and now. Your brain doesn’t know how to work in future tense. People who are “going” to start losing weight are still fat and will likely stay fat until they say I am losing weight now.

The pain pleasure principle states that we are attracted to pleasure and we avoid pain and when the two come in conflict the avoidance of pain will win out. This is why we need to commit and set finish lines. If we don’t we defer, postpone and put off until we are cornered and trapped.

This month take the time to go through your goals and commitments and start defining your finish lines. When will you do it and will you commit to it? Great runners spend their whole career focused on the finish line. However, here’s an interesting twist, a great runner knows that the finish line is really only the half way point and if they really want to win the race they need to be accelerating when they cross, not starting to slow themselves down.

Over the last few months I have been working a lot with Pitney Bowes helping them train their sales force. After one of these sessions Kevin Fancy, Pitney Bowes Vice President, came to speak to his team and he asked them where do they struggle the most?” His point was, “If you really want to make great strides in your business then master your weakness.”

So when you think about all the things you need to do in order for you to “Master your Marketplace” where do you struggle the most? Is it time management, selling, networking, organizational skills or follow up? Whatever it is I want you to pick the one thing that is your real nemesis and make a commitment to make it your strength. Commit yourself to become absolutely brilliant at it. Invest the time, the energy and dedication to making this weakness your greatest ally. Kevin spoke about how his organizational skills used to be a real challenge for him so he became obsessed with being brilliant at it. Now, today if you walk into his office it’s almost scary, everything is neat, organized and he is a man who is on top of his business… and it shows!

Too often we can find ourselves falling back on the excuse that we simply can’t change. Well, that’s not true, you can change if and when you really want to.

If I were to ask you how much business you’ve lost because of your weakness, what would your answer be? Would it be 10, 20, 30%? When I think about my own personal experience I bet you I could double my business.

Now you may have heard others say that you should simply delegate the stuff that you are lousy at and that’s a valid option too. However I believe there are certain skills that each of us have to take personal responsibility for. So, in this exercise I am really focused on challenging you to improve one of the core competencies that every successful business professional needs to have. You can’t always delegate someone to return all of your calls, ensure you are on time, treat customers nicer or dress you properly. That was Kevin’s point. We all need to take some of this responsibility ourself.

This month my personal challenge is I am going to become brilliant at generating leads for my business. My partner, Steve White, commits to a minimum of one client meeting everyday that he is not billable. Adopting his strategy will surely help me grow my leads. If you have other suggestions that might help I would appreciate hearing from you.

Make a commitment this month to pick one thing that you need to improve upon and make it your strength. Seek out guidance from others you admire, make it a topic of conversation when you are out for lunch, do whatever it takes to change your current behaviour. The process may be painful but I guarantee that the business you generate will surely help to ease that pain!

Now I will be the first to admit that I am no artist. Heck.. I even make drawing stick people a chore. But real artistry in business isn’t drawn on paper it’s neatly crafted in the back of the customer’s mind. It’s the picture we help them paint when they think about our relationship with their business. Let me explain.

Years ago I was speaking to a group of over 300 business owners about demonstrating customer value. My point was customers don’t trust what they can’t see. We can yell and scream and make all the claims we want but unless the customer can see it, it’s a struggle.

Selling a tangible product is easy because you can touch it, feel it, try it and often times the customer can get a really good idea if this is the product for them. They even have the additional comfort of knowing that they can return it if it doesn’t do exactly what they thought it would. But the product is seldom where the customer makes a buying decision because in today’s highly competitive world anyone can create the product. Successful business leaders know that it is a matter of months, not years before the competition has their version of your product on the streets. So our real value is the invisible stuff we wrap around our product and everything we do. It’s the intangible that makes the difference and leads the customer to making a buying decision.

So here I was trying to demonstrate how extremely difficult it is to sell value because it’s invisible and customer’s don’t trust what they can’t see because there is nothing to grab hold of, nothing to try and nothing to return if it doesn’t suit your needs. Now You can define value however you want but I think of it as service commitment, ethics, level of caring, ability to anticipate needs and the wealth of knowledge/intellect we can provide to our customers.

Anyways, as I was sharing all my thoughts someone stood up and said, “Curt, if people don’t trust what they can’t see then why does ¾ of the world believe in God?” Well, I have to tell you, I had a divine intervention because I immediately looked back and said, “I think it’s because God has a better sales team!”

Think about it. When are the two times in your life you adopt a belief in God? One, you are cultured by someone you trust; a spouse, family member or close friend.

The second; a life crisis and you see how your life will be different with the belief of God in it. My point point is not intended to be a religous one but it is to demonstrate that your customers must picture in their minds how their lives will be different with you it. So if you help paint that picture I guarantee you will “own” the relationship.

It’s extremely challenging today because there are so many choices and so many broken promises. We all say we are great but admittedly some of us have lied. So today’s customer has become confused or cynical. Our word alone means nothing. You need to be asking how you can demonstrate your value in a way the customer can see it and better yet start to talk about it. You need to be one of the very few that understands that your product is not the business but a small part of the value you offer.

Take some time this month to start thinking about how you can make everything you do a little more visible. I can guarantee you most customers have no idea of what it takes to service them or how many people you have behind the scenes to support their needs. Yes, we all speak of great service but your challenge is to let them experience it first hand. The better you help them paint the picture, the quicker they will get the picture and in the end you win another great opportunity.

Let me leave you with one closing thought. If I were to ask who believes in God I bet many hands would go up, but when I ask who will be at Church on Sunday many hands would drop back down. My point is, it’s easy for the customer to say they believe but what we really need them to do is say they believe so much that they are prepared to commit to doing business with us.

For three years now I have been involved in my children’s Kiss and Ride program at their school. This is a program where parents drive by and drop off their kids and head off to work. In recent months I have started to notice an interesting thing. Whenever I wave to someone the next 4-5 parents feel obligated to wave back too. This then reminded me of my old boss who always asked that I ask him a tough question whenever he spoke at a company function. His believe was that if one person asks, others will follow. This of course got me to think about the dance floor phenomenon and how the empty dance floor always fills up as soon as one couple has the courage to dance. My point is once someone breaks the ice many others will follow.

So this month my question is, what are you doing to break the ice in your business? How are you influencing your customer to take that first big step? Years ago my father owned a well known donut chain, including a location on the Canada/US border. When he opened the shop, business was nowhere near what he expected. After thinking about it for a few days he had the answer, he hired three drivers to continuously go thru the drive thru and noticeably cut across border traffic leading people into the donut shop. The result – BUSINESS BOOMED! People needed to see others to make a purchase in order to get the idea themselves.

My point is we are all creatures of popular behaviour. The more we see others doing something, the more we think we should be doing it as well. How do you know where is a good place to eat? You look for the restaurant with lots of people in it. Where do people like to go drinking? At the place with the biggest lineup.

Some companies like to buy market share while others like to drive their message loud and hard and then there are the businesses who do nothing at all except sit and wonder where their business has gone.

Intel locked up the computer processor business when they added the logo “Intel Inside” on all the computers that used them. What are you doing to communicate to others about who is buying from you? What are you doing to let others see customers buying from you? When someone sees someone else make a buying decision a seed is planted in their ownmind. If you don’t believe me just wait until someone orders dessert the next time you are out. Ask yourself, how many seeds have you been planting lately?

Corporate professionals have an even tougher challenge because there is no store front for potential customers to see. That is why it is even more critical that you be out and around, reminding everyone about the business you are in and that there are many, just like them, who are buying from you.

Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of Needs) reminds us that humans have a basic need to belong. So if you want to Master your MarketPlace then you have demonstrate that same sense of belonging.

This month take some time to make your customer’s buying habits much more visible for others to see. Whether you decide to give away t-shirts, provide case studies or testimonials or hire drivers to constantly “drive through” do one thing this month so that everyone knows that lots and lots of people are waiting in line to buy something from you.