In this issue...
Point to
Ponder
The magic power of "What if?"
Last minute thoughts and
ideas
Upcoming changes for the Ideas At Work
e-zine
Thanks for
reading
|
 Point to Ponder
"Who are the happiest people on
earth?"
"A craftsman or artist whistling over a job well done.
A child building sand castles. A mother, after a busy day, bathing
her baby. A doctor who has finished a difficult and dangerous
operation and saved a human life. Happiness lies in a constructive
job well done. Get your happiness out of your work or you will never
know what happiness is."
Elbert Hubbard
March is definitely a month for personal
motivation. For many of us in business, March is the end
of first quarter of the year. March is a great time to pause,
reflect, and revise what you have been doing. March is also a great
time to pause, refresh, and push ahead on those critical,
constructive projects and activities which move your career or
business to a more productive level.
March is a time to make sure you are doing what you love,
something that brings a sense of satisfaction, feeds your
passion, and, yes, even adds happiness to your
life. Nothing is tougher than working in a role or for a
company that saps your energy, devalues your contribution, or
ignores your potential.
A wise man once told me, "If you love what you do,
you'll never work another day in your
life." After a decade and a bit, working as
a motivational speaker, sales and leadership writer, business
success coach, and inspirational author, I am begining to
understand what he meant. Simply, I love what I do and the
chance to leverage my learning to help other folks. I love the
feedback I get from our readers and audience members as to how we
have been able to encourage or equip them to make positive changes
and reap profitable results. That keeps me going and feeds my
passion.
That is not to say I don't work at it or even struggle at times.
Any business has times of challenge and change that impact our
day-to-day motivation. I have endured periods where I truly wondered
about the wisdom of choosing this path, like the period following
911. I have disciplined myself to stay the course, to keep pushing,
to keep working, to keep writing, to keep speaking, and to keep
believing in what I offer to the world. You can too!
If you are not working in a role you love, look for ways
to change it to be more reflective of what you want and value in
life. If that doesn't work, then give serious thought to
brushing off your resume and look for a place that fits and allows
you to grow. If that doesn't work for the short term, look for
community activities that feed your soul and give you an enhanced
sense of purpose. Life is too short to labor while undervaluing
yourself, your gifts, and your expertise.
Make March a motivational month. Move ahead with
productive activities and involvements that make sense to you and
make you a happier person. You'll be glad you did and so will
everyone around you.
©2008 Bob 'Idea Man' Hooey
Picture was taken at one of our CAPS National conventions. I love
my work!
|
 The magic power of "What if?"
"FedEx became an international powerhouse and
one of the most trusted global brands by implementing leadership
practices that tapped into the discretionary effort, creativity, and
commitment of its employees at all levels of the organization the
foundation of a thriving innovation and performance culture."
Madan Birla, FedEx Delivers
by Bob Hooey
Some of the greatest
businesses and business innovations have been built on the creative
answers generated around this simple, yet probing question, "What
if...?"
Fred Smith of Fed-Ex pondered, "What
if we launch an airline committed to providing overnight express
service to a growing need? What if we built it around a hub and
spoke system?" It worked very well!
Walt Disney, after taking his
granddaughter to an amusement park and seeing the dirty park, run
down rides, and bored adults wondered, "What if there was a
place where adults and kids could play together? What if it was the
happiest place on earth?" Figure that worked pretty well, don't
you?
Sam
Walton asked lots of what if questions when he met
with his Wal-Mart leadership team each week. One of them was,
"What if we find a way to connect the cash register to our
inventory planning systems and use this to continue substantial cost
reductions for our business?" When he discovered something
interesting in another business or operation he would ask, "What
if we adapt that idea to our business here at Wal-Mart?" He
was successful in his quest.
Jack Welsh from GE asked, "What if we
focused on being either number one or number two in each of our
product divisions and sold off the rest?" He also asked,
"What if we work to create a borderless work environment where
departments actually talk and work together?" It worked
successfully to build a world class company!
Eiji Toyoda and his successive Toyota
design and management teams asked, "What if we look for ways to
decrease waste in our process and make what we do better for our
customers? What if we involved our teams in the quality control
process as our vehicles are on the production line and empowered
them to stop it when they saw something wrong?" Toyota went on
to revolutionize manufacturing.
What if you
took your company or organization and helped it evolve into a
"company of leaders" or a "team of empowered leaders"?
How would that impact your performance or profitability? Would it
help you and your team be easier to do business with?
Ask yourself, What if:
I took
increased personal responsibility and leadership in my current
role?
-
I looked at everything I do with
an eye to improve it?
-
There was an easier, faster, more
cost effective way?
-
I looked at ways to help my team
members succeed in other areas?
-
There was a way I can help them
succeed here?
-
I looked for ways to help our
customers or community deal with us?
-
I explored new ideas for products
or profitable services we could provide to our customers and
community?
-
I looked at educating myself to
be better equipped to lead?
-
I looked at better ways of
communicating my ideas upward?
-
I looked into ways to become a
more effective team player?
WOW! Just
imagine!
Asking questions like these is the
beginning of wisdom. It is the gateway or first step to increased
productivity, success, and profitability in business and your
career.
The second step in this business
success formula is acting on the answers drawn from your research.
Ideas At Work! The application or action is
important.
Madan Birla, author
of FedEx Delivers, made this point; "True,
Fred Smith had the original business idea, but it was the creativity
and commitment of employees that turned it into a successful
business. The employees of FedEx have designed and delivered unique
customer value propositions (what customers value) that have kept
FedEx one step ahead of the competition." Hmmm! Might we
learn from this example?
© 2008 Bob Idea Man
Hooey, All rights reserved. www.ideaman.net Excerpt
from Bob's, "In the Company of Leaders" coming summer of
2008
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison
asked lots of these questions and thier leadership created some very
profitable business ventures based on their answers.
|
 Last minute thoughts and ideas
February was an active month; but, I think I might have
taken this multi-tasking a bit far tho'
- Finished a new Motivational Sales Quotes
series for inclusion on Secret Selling Tips website. We have upwards of
100 unique visitors each day visit the site and we want to create
something to capture their emails and get them involved. Have also
created, "How to generate more sales" as a
complimentary e-book for those signing up for this no-cost
introductory series. It is now available on-line, so you can
check it out. Simply visit the Secret Selling Tips site and sign up. (We are
already having people sign up... how cool is that?) This series
will evolve into a paid one with a shorter, introductory
series being used to capture our visitor's attention and email
addresses. So feel free to beta test it in its present format.
- Created a larger "Sales Success" ebook as a
bonus for those signing up for our paid subscription to
Secret Selling Tips. We now have it available for single and small group
subscriptions. Follow this link to find out how to subscribe
and get this new bonus book along with your paid subscription.
For a limited time, you can get
the bonus book and subscribe for only $50 for the first year.
- Have created the templates for our Motivational
Leadership Quotes and Motivational Success Quotes
series. Now, I have to write them...smile. Again, we will
use these to get folks started with us and hopefully they will
upgrade to our upcoming paid subscription programs.
- Moving along nicely with year two of Secret Selling
Tips - half way there with the 2008 issues, so that is
good. Sandrine is translating into French for our French version,
so doing well.
- Hoping to get into the studio in March to record a few more
tips and ideas.
- Feb 15th: Was included on CITY-TV's "Your Town" segement along
with an amazing image consultant and CAPS friend, Joanne Blake. We were both invited to view video
clips of the major Alberta leaders running in the provincial
election and made comments on their media image and how they came
across.
- Had my consultation with my friend Barbara Seminuk. Barb was one of the three
speakers who each paid $625 for a half day coaching and consulting
session with me at our joint CAPS Edmonton/Calgary session in Red
Deer last June.
- Feb 16: Going away party for a young friend Graham who is
being posted to Afganistan for up to 9 months. He has always
wanted to be a soldier, but his mom is understandably concerned
about her son.
- Feb. 22: Was invited to appear on Breakfast TV (6:45AM) to
offer comments following the Leader's debates (Alberta
provincial election) the night before.
- Feb. 29th: Conducted my "Speaking for
Success" workshop in Hinton, Alberta. Had a few insurance
agents attend who needed credit hours. This course is one of the
ones we provide that is accredited by the Alberta Insurance
Commission. What a great group of folks, including 4 who worked at
the local Brick franchise store.
March
- Just registered for this year's Drop Zone in
support of Easter Seals. I hope some of you would support
me again this year, as I would love to raise over $5000 this year.
Follow this link to safely make an online
donation to Easter Seals.
- March 1st: presented a multi-topic, hands on workshop in
Hinton. Covered ideas such as how to be an effective Emcee, power
point, and other presentation skills topics.
- March 8th: CAPS Edmonton professional development meeting
with Kristin J. Arnold and International Federation
President, Joseph Sherren. It will be great.
- March 10th: Chris Ford, International President of Toastmasters International will be speaking in
St. Albert. I am going to attend, reconnect with Chris, and ask
him a few questions as I prepare for my Leadership Keynote at
their world convention in Calgary this August.
- March 15: Schedule permitting attend CAPS Calgary.
- Lots of design, filming, recording, writing and marketing work
to create and complete. Lots of new ideas to develop and get out
there. I love what I do...smile.
- Irene from Vitrak Creative Services is helping create our
online store where folks can purchase books, CDs, sign up for our
various online programs.
- Ramping up our 2008 Alberta Speakers online promotional team. A few
changes, but the majority of our partners have signed on for year
two and many have reported it was helpful in landing paid
engagements over the past year. We will offer a few spots and then
move into year two. This program is a bit different than our our
sites (eg. Edmonton Speakers, Calgary Speakers, Vancouver Speakers) in that we have agreed to
place print advertising and conduct other promotional approaches
to create interest in our website. The value of leveraged
teamwork.
- Working on two new leadership books for
publication prior to my leadership keynote at the Toastmasters
International convention in Calgary in August. One will be a
pocket wisdom book, similar to the one we did for Secret Selling Tips. The second will
feature guest experts on leadership and teamwork, similar to
what we did for Quantum Success. Already getting
responses from expert guest authors for the second one.
|
 Upcoming changes for the Ideas At Work
e-zine
Did you know that this
is Alexander Graham Bell Week?
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3,
1847, in Scotland .
He received a patent for the telephone on
March 7, 1876. And on March 10, 1876, he transmitted the first
successful phone message when he yelled to his assistant, "Mr.
Watson, come here!" Change
happens...
We will be moving into
our 4th year with our upcoming May 2008 issue.
Where does the time fly? We will be making
some changes in both format and delivery of our ezine to better
serve you and leverage our investment.
We have been designing and delivering e-letters for our
successful Secret Selling Tips via our aweber account now
since last summer and have found it to be a good system. Nice, as it
is a double opt in system for subscriptions: What that means
is you need to confirm your subscription following an email you will
get from me or Ideas @ aweber.com. Very simple
really.
Awber will automatically send you a confirmation
email asking if you want to subscribe, sometime
later this month, once we import our subscribers list from My
Mailout.
This confirmation is for the new subscription service via aweber.
Please open it and click to confirm to be put on the new aweber list.
For anyone who does not confirm that initial email, we will send
you another email requesting confirmation about a month later.
Following that, anyone who has not subscribed via the new aweber
service will be taken off the subscription list. We may send
one more aweber confirmation following our last issue via My Mailout
in mid May.
We hope you will confirm and continue to enjoy our ideas
and articles for many years to come.
We will be creating the new template for our 4th year launch in
May. We will be creating sign up links for Ideas @ Work on our
various sites to replace those used now for My Mailout.
We will continue duplicate delivery of the Ideas @ Work
ezine via mymailout.com for both the April and May issues and then
discontinue delivery using that service.
We have been very happy with service we have gotten from My
Mailout and would highly recommend it to anyone starting a
newsletter or ezine. However, we have found we can
create our Ideas @ Work subscription list in our aweber account
without any additional cost. We also have further room to grow the
list.
|
 Thanks for reading
Bob 'Idea Man' Hooey would be pleased to be a
part of your success team and to work with you to help
make your conference, meeting or training event a success. For
more information about customized keynotes, professional/personal
leadership training and coaching, seminars/retreats, please visit www.ideaman.net or call our Creative Office at:
(780) 736-0009
Ask about a customized conference, coaching or
training package to suit your specific career, company, or
organizational needs.
Ask about our innovative leadership and/or sales
leaders' motivational training programs.
*****
PS: Can one person make a difference? Yes!
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Professional
speaker, author, leadership, sales, and business success
expert
Bob is a long time (over a
decade) leader and professional member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, a
member of NSA-Arizona, as well as the International Federation for Professional
Speakers.
He is proud to be an active
professional member of these amazing groups of people dedicated to
polishing their craft and to better serving their clients and
audiences.
Bob is the co-founder and a past
president of CAPS Vancouver, an honorary founding member of CAPS
Sask., an honorary member of CAPS Halifax, as well as being an
active member of CAPS Edmonton. He served as CAPS National Director
(2000-2002.)
He would be happy to discuss how
he can work with you to equip and motivate your leaders, their
teams, sales teams, or volunteers to grow and to succeed.
Call him today at
1-780-736-0009 to explore leveraging his innovative Ideas At Work
with your organization. Or, email him at bob@ideaman.net
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