Mike Figliuolo – Page 95 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

Do You Want Magic to Happen? Just Pick Up the Phone

December 14, 2009 /4 Comments/in Career, Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Your business needs all the help it can get. A big part of that help comes in the form of customers, partners, and associates you hire. The problem is, all of those things are hard to come by. Sure it’s easy to find them on the Internet. LinkedIn brings you a bevy of new candidates, websites point you to potential business partners, and if you don’t know how to find your customers, you need to step away from the computer right now and go file for unemployment. For many of you it’s hard to convert all this information into real impact. Sure there are thousands of websites out there and profiles to look through but it’s not clear how to move all that data into the real world. Even worse, I’m sure you know that one person who’s a rainmaker. They’re constantly landing new clients. New partnerships pop up on every side of them. Their team is always fully staffed with great talent. And we hate them for it. They make it look so easy. I’m here to tell you that you can be that rainmaker. What’s the difference between you and them? They know how to punch 10 digits into this odd little machine called a phone. Here’s how it works:

Want People to Think You’re Brilliant? Then Don’t Say a Word

December 7, 2009 /13 Comments/in Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

We judge people based on our interactions with them. Their clothes, their looks, their coiff (yes, I’m looking at you Blagojevich), and most importantly, what they say. But remember, we are also judged by others on the same basis. In difficult financial times, you’re eager to make a great impression. You want to blow away senior management with how brilliant you are. You want your customers to love you. You strive to influence business partners to work with you. The thing is, you’re probably trying too hard. I recently had a couple of experiences that reaffirmed an important lesson I learned long ago but have occasionally forgotten. One of those experiences reminded me I hadn’t been applying the lesson and the other experience confirmed the power of the technique. There’s one surefire way to guarantee people think you’re amazing: don’t say a word. You read that correctly. Shut your pie hole and great things happen.

Some Families & Little Kids Need YOUR Help!

December 2, 2009 /2 Comments/in About Us, Balanced Lifestyle, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Let’s face it – you’re pretty fortunate. You’re reading this by accessing the Internet over your laptop while sitting in the comfort of your home drinking your Starbucks quad shot venti caramel macchiato. Imagine NOT being able to pay for Internet access. Imagine NOT having your laptop. Imagine NOT being in your home because you no longer have one. Pretty grim, huh? Well that’s EXACTLY the situation some folks I’d like to help are in. The Ohio State Psychology Club is sponsoring the Giving Tree Project, through which we all can help needy families during the holiday season. The families being helped are the victims of domestic violence. They’ve escaped from some terrible situations in their homes sometimes with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They’ve found shelter and protection at Turning Point Domestic Abuse Shelter. They need YOUR help. Thanks to everyone who contributed. We’ve closed the contribution window but you can still reach out to the shelter using the above link and help them out on your own. Due to a difficult economy, the project to give them a happy holiday has not raised as much money as they’d like. I’m asking your help to solve that problem. I’m asking you to donate whatever you can to this great cause. All funds will be used to purchase items these families desperately need.

Don’t Waste Your Time Hiring High Performers

November 30, 2009 /30 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s all about the people, right? If you hire right, you’ll do well (so states the conventional wisdom). The problem is hiring high performers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Doing so can create tremendous problems for your organization and you’re the root cause of those problems. Yes. You. Hiring high performers can work out great if you do it for the right reasons and if you create the right conditions to bring them in. More often than not, however, we hire for all the wrong reasons and never think beyond our immediate needs for hiring that superstar. When we do so, all we’ve done is arm the timer on an employment bomb that will go off in our faces. Why do we want to hire high performers in the first place? There’s the belief that their amazing skill set can either save us from the dire situation we’re in or can create that massive new growth idea we’ve been desperately seeking. We believe their stellar track record will rub off on our teams and make us all better at what we do. Sure those things might happen. Usually what happens though is we bring that high performer in, they burn brightly at first, and then they either sputter or get frustrated and quit. Those are the problems you cause. How? It’s pretty simple… To successfully hire high performers, you have to first understand the near-term rationale for hiring them and also think through the longer term implications of their personal growth rate relative to opportunities the organization can provide.

Did You Blink? 4 Leadership Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss

November 23, 2009 /1 Comment/in Communications, Customer Service, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Social Media, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s been a crazy year. Bank implosions, wars, Adam Lambert not winning American Idol… craziness I tell you! It has also been a crazy year for leaders. Leading organizations through a turbulent economy has been a Herculean effort. Fortunately for me, I sit in a position where I can watch leadership trends unfold across the many industries and companies we work with here at thoughtLEADERS. We’re blessed to have the opportunity to train some of the brightest client organizations out there. This year, we’ve seen four major trends take center stage. If you’ve missed them, you’re missing huge opportunities to improve your organization. As a leader, you need every edge you can get so I encourage you to explore these trends and figure out how you can take advantage of them. So in no particular order, here are trends you can’t miss as a leader:

Want A Great Year-End Review? Write It Yourself

November 16, 2009 /5 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career /by Mike Figliuolo

My favorite time of year is rolling around (and no, it’s not the holidays with their nauseatingly excessive tinsel-before-turkey consumerism). I’m talking about time for end of year progress reviews. They’re those agonizing, mandatory, and often confusing reams of paper we’re forced to suffer through. Many times you’ll find yourself nervously wringing your hands wondering what’s going to be on the form that determines whether you get a 1.63% raise or a 1.67% one. Once you get your review, I’m sure you’ve wondered more than once if you received someone else’s because nothing on the form looks remotely familiar. Ah yes… the joys of working in Corporate America. But you don’t have to subject yourself to this pain. You actually have a tremendous say in what ends up on that form but you’ve likely been too lazy or timid to take advantage of the opportunity. There’s one very easy way to ensure you get a fair review that shows you in the best light possible… Write it yourself. Crazy? Maybe, but let’s analyze this situation:

3 Keys to Getting Projects Approved by Slow Decision Makers

November 9, 2009 /5 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

You have a brilliant idea. It’s going to transform your business. It will help you get a huge leg up on your competitors and drive tons of money to the bottom line. Heck, if you can get this thing implemented you’ll probably get a big fat bonus and it’ll be a great holiday season at your house. Here’s the catch – this idea is a little risky. It’s not fully proven in the market. There’s a chance of failure and with it, the loss of any investment the business makes. On balance, the risk-adjusted return from the project is astronomical but you have to get past the most difficult gate of all: the senior decision maker who has to approve the idea. That’s no mean feat. Realize that many of these decision makers are busy and they might not have the same risk appetite you do. They might have a strong financial interest to NOT take on large risks (e.g., they have a large bonus coming if they hit their numbers this year and the risk of losing the investment you’re seeking would torpedo that bonus). So how can you move the business forward in a climate where senior management is slow or hesitant to make a decision? Here are three things I’ve found to be extremely helpful in those situations.

Lessons from Leonidas the Spartan King: Why Shrinking Your Business is Smart

November 4, 2009 /2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is written by Brian Ahearn (no, that’s not his picture at left). Brian’s one of the most knowledgeable guys I know on the subject of influencing people (which is why he’s been a guest here before). Enjoy! I conducted a workshop recently called Principles of Persuasion. During a break, one of the students said she’d had a conversation with her five-year-old son and expressed parental surprise over something he said. She told him she was going to a meeting about leadership at work. He told her they had talked about leadership at school and he knew what a leader was. He said leaders were people who had followers. Simple and to the point, his definition was right on. Out of the mouth of babes! Let’s look at this leader/follower idea as it applies to the online world. If you’re on Twitter then you follow people and people follow you. In a sense, for those who follow you, you’re a leader. You might be a leader by virtue of your expertise in an area or simply because people find you interesting. But, by definition of our young friend, people have chosen to follow you and therefore you’re a leader.

Are You Telling Customers You Don’t Care if They Die?

November 2, 2009 /5 Comments/in Communications, Customer Service, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

If you have kids, you know the nauseating feeling of one of your kids going down for the count and having to rush to the emergency room. I had that wonderful experience very recently. What I learned from that visit to the ER is businesses can make very strong statements about how little they care about their customers simply through the processes they use to run the organization. I’m betting you have a few standard business processes that leave your customers and prospects feeling like you don’t care if they die. First let’s understand the ER story then evaluate how it might apply to your organization. Yes, I’m back on the kick of talking about how stupid policies can destroy customer relationships. My daughter was curled up in a ball on our couch. She was grabbing her stomach and howling in pain. After a quick set of questions, I made the decision to take her to the ER. I’ve done some consulting work in health care so I understand and appreciate that the ER is also a business. Once we arrived, she laid down on a couch howling in pain while I was subjected to a barrage of questions to get her registered. Net time: 5 minutes. We then headed to triage. That’s when it started getting stupid and infuriating.

4 Ways NOT to Run an Internship Program

October 28, 2009 /2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

An internship program can be great for your company, but don’t do it simply because everyone else is. Just like Mom used to ask, “If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?” Make sure you can provide a mutually beneficial opportunity, and make sure you’re thinking from both perspectives – the employer and the intern – when you’re developing your program. One of my favorite references of real-life internship nightmares (and how to prevent them) is Krista Reaves’ “Do Interns Take Lunch Breaks, Too?” It’s a pretty candid look at shocking internship debacles, including some of these common mistakes:

How Blowing Up Your Business Can Drive Innovation

October 26, 2009 /6 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Innovation /by Mike Figliuolo

Last week I pounded on folks for being wimps and not making decisions. Out of fairness, many of you want to move your organizations forward but might not have all the tools or resources to do so, Given that, I’d like to provide you some explosives. These are the good kind of explosives. The kind that enable you to blow up your business model and find innovative new ways of doing things. Too many times we get trapped by our routines. Have you ever tried to change your personal routine? Uncomfortable and difficult, right? Now multiply that by the number of people in your organization and you have a sense for why nothing ever changes. Sometimes the only way to change things is to (mentally) throw away everything you’re doing and declare a “do over.” In doing so, new opportunities might pop out and innovative ways of doing things can emerge. Far too often, we wave our arms at innovation. We spew consultospeak like “think outside the box, push the envelope, and break the paradigm” with absolutely no clue what those words mean or how to do pursue those tasks. For those of you who know thoughtLEADERS well, we see it as our charge to provide you practical tools for taking action (shameless plug: we teach classes on this stuff too). Enough blathering – here’s how you can (constructively) blow up your business and find potentially innovative new ideas:

5 Reasons No One Reads Anything You Write

October 21, 2009 /4 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Please give a warm welcome to our guest blogger Chandra Clarke who is the founder and president of Scribendi.com. It’s cool to complain about “information overload.” It’s less cool to realize you’re a big part of the problem. Yes, you. When we think about information overload, we tend to think about web sites, RSS feeds, videos, and podcasts – things other people produce. But you know what? You produce information too. Tons of it. Go have a quick look at your outbox. How many e-mails, memos, manuals, and reports have you sent out today? Know what else? Nobody is reading it. Here’s why: