Books – Page 59 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Grow Your Business and Career by Asking for Help

June 15, 2009/1 Comment/in Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s hard asking for help. Getting rejected stings. But by not asking, you’re probably missing out on some great opportunities.

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up I was a little bit of a dork. Okay, okay… a HUGE dork. I sold comic books (and incidentally made 100x what my contemporaries made in allowance but that didn’t stop them from teasing me). I weighed 98 pounds and my nose was 11 of it.

What came along with this dorkiness (aside from therapy bills I still pay today) was a fear of rejection. If you ask out enough girls and get laughed at enough times, you become conditioned not to ask for things in the purest form of Pavlovian conditioning a young man can endure.

While request avoidance as a mechanism for pain avoidance is wholly appropriate as a skinny pimply teenager, it can destroy business opportunities as an adult. As I was launching thoughtLEADERS, I had this fear of asking people for favors or for help. Why? I don’t exactly know. It was a combination of not wanting to impose upon people and not wanting to hear “no” or be rejected.

“So what?” you say? “So you didn’t ask for help. No big deal, right?” Wrong.

Joseph Michelli on Distinctive Service and Seeing the Future – Guest Blogger

July 7, 2008/0 Comments/in Books, Customer Service, Guest Blogger, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s an honor and a privilege to bring you some thoughts from bestselling author Dr. Joseph Michelli (author of The Starbucks Experience) on using distinctive service as a strategic competitive advantage. Enough of me… here’s Joseph.

We all know businesses that at one time dominated an industry. Whether it was a company like Polaroid which kept a strangle hold on instantly available pictures or Ford Motor Company with its early market prominence, many great businesses ultimately have struggled to maintain their relevance to the customer.

As Mike shared with you in an earlier blog post, he and I attended an NYU/Ritz-Carlton Leadership Training course together. That program, along with an additional year of access to leadership at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, reinforced for me the importance of maintaining a constant focus on the changing wants of the customer.

In my just released book, The New Gold Standard – 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, I address this issue of relevance through a business principle I termed “Define and Refine.”

Much of the historic success of The Ritz-Carlton can be linked to its well-defined service culture complete with a compact and operational mission statement, a credo card carried by all employees, and daily line-ups reinforcing corporate values for every staff member. Given this tightly defined culture and iconic business status, brand relevance became a major challenge for The Ritz-Carlton.

New Book Recommendation – The New Gold Standard

June 16, 2008/2 Comments/in About Us, Books, Customer Service /by Mike Figliuolo

Heads up all of you who love to better understand customer service as well as those of you who love to read! Dr. Joseph Michelli (author of The Starbucks Experience) has released his newest book on The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

The book is called The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. I actually had the privilege of attending the same training session at the Ritz-Carlton as Dr. Michelli did when he was doing his research. I’m even quoted in the book (you have to read it to see what I had to say)! As all of you know, I’m pretty big on customer service, so this book is a must read from where I sit.

I know you’ll value the insights he provides because I was there when he was gathering them. The Ritz-Carlton is a unique place we can all learn something from. Rather than me trying to explain what you’ll be getting out of the book, I’d rather let the professionals do it so here goes:

Discover the secrets of world-class leadership!

Creating a Career Brand the iPod Way – Guest Blogger

March 18, 2008/0 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m pleased to bring you Susan Strayer as a guest blogger this week. You’ll find background on Susan at the end of this post. Enjoy Susan’s thoughts:

The past week hasn’t been a good one for the economy for sure. Whether you’re on Wall Street or at the corner store, everyone is asking “what about me?”

Recently, I was advising a mid-career business professional about his next step. The biggest shock for him wasn’t the difficulty of doing his resume or the importance of networking. It was the shock of the realization that there are thousands of people who are just as qualified as he is with the exact same experience and skill set.

For years I have been underscoring the importance of professionals creating their own career brands, to get specific rather than generalize a resume for any and every opportunity. And in a tight economy, there is no more important career realization than this: there are a thousand more just like you. Whether you’re planning your career within one firm, one industry or one field, you’ve got to find a way to become a constant—known and relied upon. You need a brand.

Here’s why it matters. You may remember when Apple first introduced the iPod. They were certainly ahead of the game. But Apple always knew there would be competition. So they planned for it. Instead of relying on the things all mp3 players could do, they got specific—white earbuds, a click wheel, smooth simple operations, engraveable backs. These were all very specific, very differentiated options. They were easy to market, they mattered to their customers, and they became valued and desired by consumers looking for an mp3 player.

How can you use a marketing strategy to create your own career brand?