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Pierre Basson

Executive Coach and Profitability Expert, helping business leaders to find and leverage their Sweet Spot in business and life. Zoning you in on what produces your best results with least effort - at all times. Creator of the 7 Secret Sweet Spots in Life book.
Jun
15

What Does Passion Have to Do with Business?

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

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Passion For Business

How do you imagine your world would be like if you consistently lived your life aligned with your passions? I propose that you would be much happier simply because you would then make all  your decisions based on what is right for you and works for you; and attracting to yourself more of what you want from life. You would take action toward your goals with more ease, affirmed by the clarity about what’s really important to you in each situation. The clarity and focus an awareness of your passions would bring, would increase your experience of success and satisfaction. Magic does happen! Are you ready for that type of magic in your world?

So What Does Passion Have to Do with Business?

Recently, I was came across three amazing tests. Surprised to hear those two words together: amazing and test? These passion tests are ones you cannot fail, just one of the reasons they are so wonderful. Secondly, no need to study for these tests, although they are hard (thinking) work. So take the tests, and let the learning begin.

The tests I am referring to are Passion Tests. One is from a book I am reading by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood. The other two I wrote about recently under the blog title – Discovering Your Life Purpose. Why is living with joy and passion important for you and your business? Here it is, plain and simple. When people are happy and living a life they love, they are more successful. When will you increase your Joy Factor and become wildly happy on a regular basis, enjoying increased success and truly loving the life you live? How about today?

Begin with these three simple tips that will connect you to your gut. You have heard the term listen to your gut or your hunches? Here is another way to live out that understanding:-

1. Get clear on your passions.

2. Use your passions like a compass

3. Trust your passions to help direct you “When you are clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent you are clear.” Janet Bray Attwood

It is simple. When you are fuzzy about what you really want, then all you get is fuzzy results. Take for instance the ” So You Think You can Dance” show. During this past season, I was rooting for Brandon to win. He is a wonderful dancer and I could tell that he was hungry to win. But clearly not hungry enough! Jeanine, who was crowned the eventual winner, had a much stronger desire to win. She was always clear and sure that she was going to become America’s favorite dancer, and so she was! Her desire gave her energy, excitement, drive and drew out her best strengths.

Do you have clear or fuzzy goals about what you want to create in your life? Do they align with your passions, your deepest desires? You may be saying, “I am not even sure what my passions are!” This is where The Passion Test comes in.  Get the clarity that will support you in living the life you you love to live. Even if you just have a very basic idea of what your passions are, and what your ideal life looks like, spend time pondering what it would look like in your life if you were living it now. How would things be different, how would you feel and behave different if you were living out your deepest desires.

One of my deepest desires is to be living in my sweet spot, where my business is focused only on those activities that meet three criteria:-

1) I must love doing them,

2) I must be good at doing them and

3) they must vividly connect with the deepest desires of my ideal target market or ideal client.

Once you get clarity on your passions, you can use your awareness of your strong desires to support you in making decisions. How many times have you come across an opportunity to do or have something in your life, but you just could come to a decision? Once you get clear on what your passions are, you’ll be able to use them as a compass to support you in making decisions.

One of my colleagues who took The Passion Test training with me, got very clear that one of her passions was to make a positive impact in the world through encouraging adoption. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to do it with a full time job, yet she was certain that sharing this was what would bring her the most fulfillment. About a week after she claimed that passion, her boss came to her and offered her early retirement. You can probably guess what she did? She used her passion for sharing about adoption as a compass to guide her decision. She chose in favor of her passions, even though she had little idea of how she would pay the bills. She has now started to build a career as a speaker and been invited to several international conferences to speak about adoption in both the USA and Russia.

It becomes a lot easier to choose when you get clear on what brings you fulfillment. As a business owner, you come across opportunity decisions daily. So what do you use as your compass to decide these? You have to learn to trust what you have learned about yourself- your strengths, your passions, your purpose, your style. If you get clear on your passions, lean into them and expect the best. Things will start to happen in the way that match your desires, not always in the way that you are expecting, but surprisingly they come to you anyway.

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of person that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” – Golda Meir

Many of the people that inspire me in my life, Dr. Billy Graham, Martin Luther, Dr. D. James Kennedy, Dr. James Dobson, were all clear about their passions and chose in favor of them consistently, no matter how hard. Now it is your turn – to go and live a life filled with passion and strength. Listen to your inner you and in the words of Nike, “Just do it!”

Try this! If you are ready to get clear on your passions, buy “”The Passion Test” book from Amazon and take the test. If you are like me and enjoy doing these things with the support of other people, you have two exciting options. The first is to experience a one on one passion test with me in a private telephone session. In just 2 hours, I will walk you through the process, so you can design your life around your passions. The second option is to take the test at one of my Passion Test workshops online. If you want me to come to your city, let’s talk on the phone – I love to travel! Click here for more info on these offerings.

“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” ~ Julia Childs

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Categories : Passion, Purpose, Sweet Spot
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May
26

10 Steps to Convert Your Passion into Business Profit

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (4)

10 Steps to Turn Your Passion into Business

Passion is business

Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move and without a pilot she would be lost. – Proverb

Do you have a dream of what you really most want to do, plus you wish you could get paid handsomely for doing it? Perhaps enough to support your family and your chosen lifestyle whilst still being fulfilled in life?

I always enjoyed watching nature and travel shows on TV. It seems to me that the hosts of these programs were the luckiest people on earth. They would travel around the world, do all the fun stuff and still get paid for it, and loving every moment of it! Now that’s a life!

Sadly I never became a TV host of any of those programs and I am not a celebrity either, BUT now I actually do earn my living doing what I love most! I have been pursuing my passion for many years and eventually I have turned it into a fun business too.

Following your passion is a powerful way to become great at something. It is the most delightful path that thrills and fulfills your life. However I must caution you that if you follow only your passion alone, you are most likely to find yourself broken-hearted person somewhere down the road. Your dreams will just remain your dreams and your life reality will return to boring and unfulfilled again. Deciding to follow your passion requires that you combine it with expertise and connection to people for it to provide you with sustained satisfaction and enduring rewards. Combining these three into your business adds a new dimension to your experience.

What you need to know to turn your passion into a business.

1. Expand on your passion. Look at your passion from different angles in order to see what the real source of it is.I have been a fitness instructor for 8 years and I considered it my passion. However, a few years ago I realized that my true passion lied in helping people perfect their bodies, improve their health and find their life balance. Do not choose a very narrow passion that you might outgrow within a couple of years. Look at the broad picture by analyzing everything that makes you feel fulfilled in life. Do you see a connection?

2. Make sure that you have found your passion and just your hobby. There is a big difference between what we like and what we are passionate about. I like cooking, it is my hobby but I am not passionate about it. The thought of spending the entire day in the kitchen cooking for hundreds of people is horrifying to me. Ask yourself this simple question “Am I ready to do this every day of my life for the next 5, 10, 20 years?” If your answer is “yes” then you have likely found your true passion.

3. Get the support of your family. If you are married then this is a must before you even start thinking about making business out of your passion. Misunderstanding, arguments and constant nagging can kill your passion quickly.

4. Think of all possible ways how you can pursue your passion. This is the opposite of the previous tip. Brainstorm all possible ways how you can pursue your passion. Let’s say that you are passionate about cooking. You can become a chef and eventually open a restaurant, you can write a book of recipes, you can have a blog about cooking, you can give private cooking lessons or cater for private parties. The more business opportunities you see the easier it will be to find the one that will work for you.

5. Be prepared for the boring stuff. Every business has its boring side. Even though your passion will be your business you won’t escape this part of being an entrepreneur. Whether it is accounting and tax preparation, cleaning the dishes, fighting hundreds of spam messages on your blog or dealing with difficult customers, you will have to get used to it. There is nothing much exciting about it. But this boring stuff lets you enjoy what you are doing 90% of the time.

6. Treat your passion like business. A lot of people when they venture out in the pursuit of passion make a mistake of treating it like a hobby. There is a common misconception that when they love something they must do it only when they feel like it. In terms of writing it will mean writing only when you have inspiration (whether it is once a day or once a week). Treating your passion like business means:
– Having a to-do list or some plan that must be completed in a certain amount of time.
– Doing it whether you feel like it or not.
– Getting dressed for your work (you will need this if you are going to work from home. I can never come up with post ideas while I am wearing my pajamas).
– Having regular work hours (do not let your family or friends disturb you during those hours even if it means skipping a cup of coffee with your best friend or missing that great movie at the theater).
– Having an organized uncluttered work space (even if your office will consist of a chair and a table, make sure that you do not have any clutter or anything that will distract you from work).
– Having days-off and vacations (otherwise you will experience burnout really fast).
– Not expecting to earn a lot at once (at first you might even have to do everything for free just to gain the experience)

7. Try a few different ideas. It is important to experiment with several different business ideas to see which ones will work for you. A passionate writer might be great at writing childrens’ books but they will suck at writing personal development articles. Figure out what works for you.

8. Get some critique. You might think that your passion and idea for business is awesome but in reality it might be a disaster waiting to happen. Talk to your friends or family and let them evaluate your business to make sure that your expectations are realistic. Do not get offended when they criticize but rather use this information to come up with better plans for business.

9. for 6-12 months) or have a half-time job that will let you survive even if your business idea fails. Business laws have nothing to do with passion and your business might be a failure. Be prepared for any consequences and be ready to readjust your plans if needed.

10. Do not turn your passion into obsession. When you love doing something you must still be realistic about your plans and expectations. How do you know that your passion has turned into obsession? It is when you start thinking about your passion/business 24 hours a day and when you give up any other opportunities in your daily life (spend an evening out with your friends or take an unexpected trip to the ocean with your family). Always have a backup plan. When you are just starting out it is good to have some funds built up in your account. It is also when you stop noticing any critical comments of your friends or relatives and keep following your passion even when you are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Follow these tips and turn your passion into a successful business. Live strong, play big and enjoy the adventure every day.

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Categories : Accelerators, Million Dollar Story, Positioning, Sweet Spot
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May
18

Unique Value Proposition

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (8)

The True Value of a Unique Value Proposition

The idea of using a unique selling proposition (USP) isn’t unique or new in business.

So what is a USP? Do you have a simple statement about your brand or business that tells your prospects how you are the only alternative for to solve their problem? You have one already that just rolls off your tongue? Not? It is Business 101 yet most businesses simply do not have an answer that pops into their mind for this?. Even worse there isn’t one on their letterheads, business cards or on their website home page! What a wasted opportunity!

By unique selling proposition (USP) I don’t mean a slogan or a phrase that appears in your advertising. I mean that powerful yet concise and memorable phrase that answers the main question in your prospect’s head, “Why should I do business with you instead of somebody else?”

A unique selling proposition is very important. Let’s ask ourselves…

Why should your ideal customer purchase from you rather than from someone else?

So ask yourself, what one single thing about your company, or your product selection, or your customer service or your customer loyalty is so compelling a value, that even if your product was out of stock, or some par of the supply chain was broken (e.g. your website checkout), it would make a customer stick around and buy something anyway? Can you answer this? Why not? If you can’t answer this what hope has your customer of answering this, who has less insight into your business? Nothing closes clients on using you more easily than showcasing a unique unbeatable edge that they value.

Many marketing experts believe so strongly in the importance of having clarity in your Unique Value Proposition, that they proclaim that if you get your unique value proposition correct, you can afford to do many other things wrong and still get great results!

Whether we are helping our clients determine their Unique “Selling” or “Value” Proposition, we still find it is the biggest energizer you can have in your business. It is one of our 7 Business Sweet Spot Keys that enables your entire organization to zone in on the edge that you have over your competition and turn it rapidly into more sales at every level. Helping you find and clarify your unique value proposition for use across your whole organization, gives you a powerful guideline for your marketing decisions.

I was reminded of this recently when one of our shares their most recent success story. He was testing a variation in the wording of a client’s unique value proposition on their website. The result was an increase in his conversion rate of 36.2 percent. What did we do for our client that worked so well? We started by writing several suggested unique value propositions, since this company didn’t have one to begin with. Then we tested several different and unique value propositions, until a clear winner emerged in our testing. Not only did our client see a conversion rate increase, our customer took their new unique value proposition (UVP) and put it on all their stationery and other marketing materials. Within twelve weeks their sales had increased by over 47%, their sales team was pumped and all their staff felt like they had a new secret weapon, part of their not so secret sauce.

Unique Value Proposition Supporting Headlines

Recently we have seen even better results by surrounding their Unique Value Proposition with supporting headlines. These are often derived from the initial brainstorming to find their Unique Value Proposition. They are supporting value statements that paraphrase, or dimensionalize an aspect of the Unique Value Proposition. e.g. In support of lowest price in UVP, you may offer “We will beat the lowest price you can find – guaranteed”. Or in support of guaranteed service quality, a guarantee that if the solution is not 100% then the labor charge is waived. These headlines are great to add to your PPC ads and for enhancing the landing-page consistency. When visitors take their precious eight-second first impression, you want them to know why they should buy from you and not your competitors.

Strengthen Your Unique Value Proposition

Creating a unique value proposition and supporting headlines that are sticky, isn’t for chumps or posers. Your unique value proposition must be clear, relevant, and easy to understand. Here’s a quick, easy process for creating a more powerful unique value proposition:

* Ask your clients or potential must have clients what they value most about your product or service – make a list. Ideally use our use our 5 killer Ideation Creator questions to max the value of your answers.
* On your list, look for repeating themes.
* Review your list and using the answers you gathered write 5 to 10 versions for potential unique value propositions or headlines.
* Select three of the most promising unique value propositions and test them.
* Pick the best-performing unique value proposition and apply it everywhere in your business.

How strong is your unique value proposition? It is the key to conversion rate increase and boosting your business success.

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May
14

To Have Versus To Be

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (1)

Our modern society has only three major mindsets, and those are: “to do” and“to have” and “to be”. “To do” is the mindset which favors productivity, long hours, getting stuff done, competence. “To be” is the mindset which favors enjoyment, freedom, detachment, and continuity. “To have” is the mindset which favors possessions, acquisitions, disruption, control .  In our lives we switch from one mindset to another over time.  At some point, “to have”  or “to do” seems more important and is preferred. At other times we prefer to be more “to be”.

Our western society  has a huge leaning towards the “to have” mindset. Our social structures are designed to support acquisition or to facilitate control. Most success is portrayed in terms of  power, influence or possessions. Almost every type of value creation promoted to us is some form of control or disruption. The “to have” mindset is ubiquitously prevalent (everywhere all the time). It seems we so easily forget the value of “to be”.

Spontaneity Versus Addiction

Having things is a gravitational activity. The more you have, the more you will attract. As you shift your mindset towards having, you will draw into your life more and more possessions. And that habit will create addictions. You will want more and more and it will tie you down to the path it demands like links of an endless chain. The more you have, the bigger the chains, the ,ore powerful that addiction.

Instead enjoy now. Even as you read this blog. Without stuff as a prop you can have the feelings you long for. Remember that you are as happy/satisfied/joyful/pleased with yourself as you choose to be. It doesn’t take weeks to achieve. Just decide and you have it. Be spontaneous just because you can and it feels great. Release from not having something to protect or to acquire will un-stress you from driving yourself like a slave. You can spontaneous, in this moment. Yes, right here and right now. You’ll be acting directly and focused, no hidden strings to control you. Addiction always comes from the “to do” and the “to have” mindsets, if you chose “to be” you can’t help but  be spontaneous, living in this present moment.

Limited Value Versus Continuous Value

When you have something, you have it only for a limited period of time, this we usually get from commodities. From the moment you first “owned” that thing it’s value value started to decay in a destructive path towards obselete and useless. Every economic theory confirms the  fact that there is a devaluation of things based on the time once  we’ve had possession over them. You can only benefit from your stuff for a  limited period of time.

On the other hand, “to be”  or being is continuous. By choosing “to be” rather than to have or to do, you become what you want now and maintain as long as you like without decay. When you obey the “to have” mindset, you only have that beautiful something temporarily until you buy a similar item again to try to recreate the feeling. When you’re enjoying the “to be” mindset you can internally generate “joy” and delight without being dependent on externals like stuff or performance.  “You are as happy as you choose to be. Right Now!”

Past, Future or Present

When you “have” something you have it only in the past. You may have the illusion that you have it in the present moment but it is passing away. Getting passes very quickly and having is rarely as fun as getting. Think about your presents from Christmas last, what do they mean to you now?  In your present moment there is only a presence,  being you.

When you chose “to be” you chose to live in the present, in this moment only. You can’t live in he past or in the future, you can only be in this present second. Your focus is then fully on living this moment to the maximum it is offering you. Your energy is not last o either the past or the future , since you can do nothing with them except what you do now, by choosing to be.  This second is all you have. You can’t be in the future because the future doesn’t yet exist  and you can’t be in the past, because the past doesn’t exist anymore . Having something is always in the past, being can ONLY be in the present.
Journey Versus Destination

Having something is spending most of your time waiting for the the destination, while being is all about enjoying every step of the journey. Relying on the satisfaction experience  for something you just had, or obtained, is deceptive value, it is fleeting and unless you understand it’s limited value it will seduce you into doing it again to get more of it. Like reaching a performance goal or obtaining something, once you have reached it, now what? You to have more, in order to feed that satisfaction feeling again. You reached your destination and now you have to be another the trip again. There is no end.You have to define another travel, bigger goals, more expensive things. With “being” you will enjoy your a continuous experience of delight, no matter how fast or slow you move towards your goals..

If you prefer the journey to the destination, then you into being. You are no longer bound to a specific outcome because the journey itself is your destination. This may seem passive but it is not. It is more active to be each moment, fully human , fully alive. Fully engaged in the people, and your experience of now. You are a delighted traveler, not a milestone grabber. Your journey is fulfilling regardless of the actual point in your trip.
Having Versus Being Language

The “to have” mindset is such a habit in our lives infecting even our language. We swap “to have” for “to be”. Like we want to have love, or make love rather than just be in love, be loving. We make what controls our happiness to be outside our lives, beyond our control so that we just have to have that thing. Instead of seizing the day, living now we make our own happiness elusive. Notice how often you say “have” when you really meant “be”.

Consider the “having versus being”difference in these areas:

Money versus Abundance.

So often we define our abundance by by figures, numbers  and empty concepts like money and positions of power. The more we have, the more our abundance? What a limiting mindset. With little or no money you can experience most of what life has to offer. Of course, money can make the journey easier. But money is only a small portion of the bigger picture of abundance.

To have friends / kids / a wife versus being blessed with friends, kids or a wife

You really don’t have those persons, nobody can possess another person, rather you are sharing a fantastic life long journey with them. Instead you attempt to treat them as your possessions. So you become frustrated when they don’t behave as “things”, when they are having a bad days or they won’t agree with you. So you treat them as possessions, believing that you have control over them. If you chose to view  them as blessings, and wonderful life companions on a moment by moment  journey, you will instantly have a new attitude. Instead of being frustrated by their lack of cooperation you’ll engage, share, converse towards common needs and desires. You won’t need to “drive” them, you can influence them to delight by sharing your delight in them and in the moment. You’ll measure your journey by attitudes and shared moments rather than by measuring the value of your possessions.

Being in abundance cannot be measured in numbers or money. Being in abundance means being internally resourceful, making your trip more enjoyable, not needing to spend more money just because you can. By striving for having more money you grow the  “to have” mindset instead of aligning yourself with an abundance mindset, and being resourceful. Remember that money is only a consequence of abundance, not the source of it.

Having versus Giving.

We think that a successful lifestyle comes from “having” a career. We hunt careers and prepare ourselves continually for better careers. But just “having” a career merely diminishes your desire and ability to contribute which is opposed to the “to have” mindset. Having a successful career makes us strive too much to hang onto it, service opportunities to share and add values to others. We fight to keep our seats on advisory boards, we strive to get the next promotion, to reach the next rung of the corporate ladder, before the guy in the next office door does. Without a career where you can genuinely provide value for others, you’re  stuck in the “to have” mindset. When being instead, you are no longer afraid of losing anything because you don’t have anything to lose. You have measured yourself by service rather than “power”. You’re now being instead of having.

Disease or Misalignment

We usually say “I have a disease”. No, it’s not true, you don’t have anything. You are actually in a  state of misalignment. By using the “to have” mindset you have empowered that misalignment to become more powerful than it is. Having a disease is a completely different thing than acknowledging your misalignment. Keep saying that you “have” a disease, you will make it a  part of you. Because you own it, you “have” it. Instead if you think of the disease as only a temporary  misalignment, you can then change your attitude, It’s only a temporary glitch along your journey. You’ll even turn bad into good in the moment. Diseases are just wrong paths on your journey, they are simply signals that you’re pursuing the wrong path. Just be willing to change course.

Pierre Basson

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May
13

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (13)

Simply put, a brand is the “unique” experience evoked when people remember about an item or person.

For example, Coke is a brand not just because you recognize it as an icon for a familiar soda, but because you’re familiar with its commercials, logos, advertising,  colors, designs,  taste, and its sizzling sound.

Branding is the marketing process of achieving brand impression.

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now?

Branding is what helps people to connect with a distinctive characteristic that causes them to retain the experiences from their engagement with that brand. The goal of branding is to stimulate prospective customers to identify with that brand as their prime reference or “go to” to solve a specific problem they have.

Brands create audiences and evoke emotions. They motivate new behaviors and establish reputations. Ultimately it’s how a brand can differentiate itself and create a perception of value,  that really determines the brand equity – its real value.

Brands are everywhere. Look at the shoes you wear, the car you drive, the restaurant you eat at and the cell phone you prefer. You chose to go with that brand because you thought it demonstrated a clear and real value for you.

A brand can be a company, service, product, or person. Branding is about “standing out” from the crowded competition in their category and then about creating a “buzz” like the Apple-like buzz .

The Power of Personal Branding Today

In recent years the term “personal branding” has taken on a whole new meaning.

Just as in business or product branding, personal branding is the sum of all the experiences you create in other that are memorable. It is simply you and all you do. You are a distinctive brand that people will engage with, recognize and form opinions about. Your email address, your website url, and your social network user names for instance are all part of your brand today.

Having a strong personal brand can be key in putting your company’s name on the map. Think about celebrity endorsements: Oprah can instantly help sell your book for you, simply by her recommending it. Billionaire, Richard Branson made Virgin Group popular by connecting the fascinating story of his life and entrepreneurship to it. Powerful brand become credible leaders in their category.

How Can I Differentiate?

What is Personal Branding and Why It Is Important Now?

Personal brands connect your audiences to the perception of your fame and renown. They can create visibility, trust and loyalty for your audience. Brand experiences are subjective perceptions, but that’s OK – the goal is to earn votes from people around you, regardless of how much they know you personally, as long as they are comfortable with your brand.

As skills and knowledge become ubiquitous, the value of personal branding becomes more important now than ever –especially in a recession when the value expectation is for greater delivery for less.

Under pressure the top few brand duke it out, because only the top few will win the lion’s share of the market choice.  It’s simple: if you are a powerful brand, you get more leverage. More leverage means more business opportunities. More opportunities to generate more wealth, a greater likelihood of winning  jobs where you couldn’t before, more  opportunities to network and meet other movers and shakers in your category.

How do you become a powerful personal brand?

You must start now if you haven’t already. Here are seven tips to help you differentiate your brand:

1. Network, network, network – remember  it’s who knows you…not who you know that counts
2. Become an expert at something that has high value and stay focused on that “one thing”
3. Help others to succeed. Leave your mark by becoming best at what you do
4. Treat it like a business. Focus on pragmatic outcomes and customer feedback
5. Have a vision, a mentor, be a leader, an entrepreneur
6. Market yourself. Build a platform for your audiences to see you often
7. Never stop educating yourself to establish your slight edge that will put you over

There is no magic bullet to success in personal branding. It’s a combination of all the above. You must be in charge of your personal brand. You just have to start building  your brand equity in everything you do. Here is your opportunity to emerge as a brand that people look up to want a piece of!

Simply put, your personal branding plan is your growth strategy, to create deep lasting value that is wrapped up in a powerful brand: “YOU.”

Why not share your personal branding strategies, share what worked and what didn’t? What marketing tools do you use to establish, differentiate and enrich your brand?

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May
10

Discovering Your Business Sweet Spot

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (0)

In Jim Collin’s classic business book “Good to Great”, dozens of companies are analyzed to discover the characteristics and habits of great companies. One of his key discoveries is “The Hedgehog Concept” : simplifying a complex world into a single unifying idea that underlies and guides everything. He illustrates the idea with the story of the fox and the hedgehog. The fox is cunning, creative, sleek and able to devise complex strategies in pursuit of the hedgehog. The hedgehog, on the other hand, simply defends himself from the repeated attacks by rolling himself into an impenetrable prickly ball. The hedgehog always wins.

In his acclaimed book, Good to Great, Jim Collins uses the behavior of the hedgehog as a metaphor explaining the success of today’s great companies. His book is a treatise on the common characteristics of 11 public companies that went from a period of providing investors with mediocre total returns, m companies providing the very best returns, exceeding those of other companies by an average of 700 percent or more over an extended period. These are, in his view, the truly great American companies.

Any actions that take away energy from the core concept need to be pruned. Defining your hedgehog concept is not easy and can’t always be accomplished overnight. However, it is a worthy exercise. Once your underlying concept is defined, all of your marketing efforts should be viewed through the prism of this concept. If the event, promotion, advertisement or sponsorship does not feed the vine, then it needs to be eliminated. Your marketing efforts will be rewarded when your budgets and energies are unified toward a common goal.

The problem most businesses face is that no-one has properly identified the underlying causes of why they are struggling, they just know they are struggling and they don’t know why? Develop the ability to immediately identify the underlying causes of your business pains and struggles.

Using this Business Assessment Tool that I show case at speaking engagements and business conferences, to gain access to a strategic assessment of your business that will enable you to measure what’s working and what’s not in each of your 7 critical business profit centers.

Inside of this system that you are going to get access to, I will show why the conventional business models will never be able to help you overcome your limitations.

I am also going to show you how to integrate these 7 critical areas to hit your business sweet spot every time. I am going to share how to get yourself into your “peak performance” zone, to access your hidden strengths and give you a huge edge over your competition.

With this single focus you will achieve 10x more, with 10x less effort. You will enjoy every minute you’re in your business and experience the personal success you’re always wanted but never been able to achieve before.

Access this stealth process that allowed a lowly engineer to turn his expertise into a marketing goldmine of profits in less than 30 minutes per day. Using this simple yet effective monetizing formula you can conquer any market category, and make your competitors wonder how you did it so quickly.

Charles Shadee, Atlanta GA had this to say about this ….
“This system is magnificent. We moved from fuzzy thinking
and shotgun ad spend, to laser precision marketing and cut our
ad spend by 90%. The quality of our clients has jumped,
and we no longer have to fight them to keep them coming back,
now they almost beg us to sign up again and again.
Highly, Highly Recommended”

Pierre Basson – Business Mentor Extraordinaire

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May
06

Finding Life Purpose in Business

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (1)

Finding life purpose has several aspects. Firstly, knowing what is important to you, secondly knowing the contexts in which you want to express your purpose, and thirdly having a sense of direction to guide you. These ingredients are wrapped up in a clear concise personal mission statement. This captures a vision that inspires and guides you to the most fulfilling business career you can have.

So let’s start in the beginning shall we…

What is the point of finding life purpose?

It is nothing short of an answer to the age old question, ‘what is the meaning of life’. It may not be the answer but it is an answer!

It is our personal answer to this poignant question, that informs our desire to do something that really matters with our life. Remember though that your mission is a journey not a goal. It is not something that you can and must achieve so much as something that you are, and something that you can be experiencing every moment of your life.

Who do you want to Be?

Some of us only experience this clarity for brief moments in our lives. In athletics or music or art or drama it has been described as being in flow, being in the moment or being in the zone. It’s hitting the sweet spot, that place of seemingly effortless peak performance. It’s that sensation of being completely aware of and connected to everything around you. It feels almost timeless or seeing life in slow motion.

Finding your life purpose for business has both an inner and an outer component. Looking inward you discover and incubate value. The external things you do and have are the specific context in which you choose to live out your inner purpose. This context is your outer purpose, this is where by looking outside yourself you discover powerful perspective on yourself and all around you.

Your values and principles are your essence, and together with your passions define what it means to be you. Becoming aware of your own true core values is critical when it comes to finding and living out your mission. Your values are define what is most important, and hence most meaningful to you. From this meaning you can draw inspiration, significance and motivation for daily life.

What do you want to Achieve?

Your vision for your life will determine what you consciously do to live out your values. It is possible to live out your set of values in many different vocations. The prison guard, the artist and the engineer can all do ‘love’. However, if your passions and talents lie in being a artist then you will not be fulfilled by doing an engineering career.

I like what Nick Williams says,
“Our true purpose and vocation lies where we find the intersection of our gifts and talents and the needs of the world and our fellow beings”

It is likely that you are already using some of your talents and gifts. Stop and survey yourself to find where you are currently most talented and most passionate. Think and write down all the ways you can think of to express these in ways that touch the needs of the world. Wherever you meet a need you can earn a reward, financial or otherwise.

* What are you really talented at?
* What comes to you easily? Skills? Understandings? Knowledge?
* What are you most passionate about?
* People come to you for what? Advice? Care? Motivation? Action? Perspective?
* Would you still want to do what you are doing, if you had to do it for free?
* In what ways can you contribute the most? Money? Service? Leadership?

Trying to follow your life purpose in an unsuitable business career will leave you frustrated, and drained of energy. To take back you life, you will need to identify the contexts favorable to living out your life purpose.

What do you want to Have?

The next vital ingredient in your life purpose is about setting direction.

Maxwell Maltz said of goal directed living … “A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only as long as it is going forward towards something. In the same way, we are engineered as goal-seeking mechanism. We find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without big obstacles to conquer and meaningful goals to achieve.”

Career objectives are targets to move towards, they provide a sense of direction. These are about the stuff you want to have. An important boundary element of goal setting is to ensure that you define the conditions under which the goal is to be achieved. Which values you are pursuing and which values you will not violate en route, and what you are willing to sacrifice to get there.

You may want to start or lead a big corporation but you may not like the impact on your home-life. Finding life purpose needs a big picture focus. When your values and talents are aligned the resulting life goals will both inspire and fulfill you.

Creative visualization is a helpful method for designing your career. This way you can “try on” your goals and “see” how well they fit, before you commit to them. If after a while they lose their appeal, they were probably not truly aligned with your values and abilities.

Setting the right goals and then facilitating their achievement will give you a clear sense of direction. As each goal is reached, keep setting new ones, using to the same criteria. Your Life Purpose momentum will grow and your mission will become more and more believable and achievable.

Unifying Your Life Purpose

People interact with their lives on three levels. 1) What they are, 2) what they do, and 3) what they have. We all are “being, doing and having” all the time. Their is no one that supersedes the other, we must be all three at once.

Finding your life purpose is a continuous process of optimizing and harmonizing these three areas. The development of this is more a step by step evolution rather than a nice curve. Keep growing in self-knowledge on each level, continually refining your mission statement.

Don’t miss this important final step. The doing process of taking your vision and committing it to paper is incredibly powerful. It produces clarity, narrows your focus and energizes your commitment to achieve a fulfilling career. Discover more about finding life purpose . It is fundamental to the pursuing a rewarding career in any business.

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May
02

How to Define Your Life Purpose 2

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (1)

So How do You Intelligently Define Your Life Purpose

I’m going to suggest two different processes for locating your life purpose. Ideally you can use both of them, since each one will help you understand the different aspects of your purpose. Warning – this is going to be a lot of work for you, but the end result will be worth it because you’ll eventually reach a point of powerful clarity. Then it will be far easier to make lasting decisions and take strong action, and you’ll find that your life just seems to work effortlessly once you know and are living in line with your purpose.

If you missed the first process go to How to Intelligently Define Your Purpose 1

Process 2: Rational Intelligence

The second process is to use your reason and logic to work back from your context. The clearer and more accurate your context is observed, the easier this will be. It basically works like this.

To identify your purpose, you basically project your entire context of reality onto yourself. Given your current understanding of your reality, where do you fit in to it? If you buy into the social context that most people seem to, this will be virtually impossible. Social contexts don’t provide sufficient clarity for accurate feedback. At best you may end up with a wishy-washy purpose statement that addresses the basics like making money, having friends, having a family, and being nice to people, but there won’t be much authentic substance to it. If you gave it to someone else to review it, they might come away impressed, but not knowing you any better – it’s too general.

It works like this, and there are no shortcuts
Fuzzy context = fuzzy projection = fuzzy purpose.
Clear context = clear projection = clear purpose.

My context of reality is linked to seeing life as a growth process, then when I project this context onto myself, the result is very simple — I’m a vital participant in the process of my own growth and change.

This is such a simple approach that it’s so easy to miss. In essence you’re really just looking at your overall context of life and projecting those same qualities back onto yourself. This projection becomes your purpose, your true identity, your role in reality.

Imagine a hologram. When you cut off a piece of a hologram, the entire original image is still contained within the smaller piece. Reality is the big hologram, and you’re a piece of it. You inherit all the properties of a bigger reality. Your beliefs about reality become your beliefs about yourself. If your beliefs are accurate and accurately match your environment then, you’ll end up with a sensible, and achievable purpose.

This process will also help you identify problems in your own context because you’ll then notice that something is wrong when you project a false belief onto yourself. It simply does not fit, it does not feel authentic.

For instance, let’s suppose your context of how reality works is whatever the Catholic Church teaches. The result is that when you project this context on yourself, you find that your purpose is to serve God, obey the Church in religious matters, and to strive to be like Jesus, as proclaimed by church leadership.

If you have a null context of reality (nihilism), you get a null purpose. When you project nothing onto X, you get nothing.

If you don’t like the purpose you end up with when applying this method, then what you’re really saying is that you don’t like the context you’re using. This is a conflict you’ll need to resolve. You must either accept the context and the purpose that accompanies it, or you must change the context.

Blending the Two Methods

I think it’s helpful to use both methods for defining your purpose, and then see where they lead you. If your context is sound, you should get similar answers from both of these two approaches. Your emotional and rational intelligences will each phrase your purpose differently though, but you should see that it’s essentially two sides of the same answer. But most of the time that won’t be the case, and the answers will be different, which tells you that your context is incongruent. What this means is that you rationally think about reality in one way, but you emotionally feel it in another way. Perhaps you hold religious beliefs but only apply them sporadically — they aren’t fully integrated across your entire life. You may feel that in your heart that your beliefs are really true, but you don’t think the same about them in your head. In this case you will have to identify the difference, the gap, figure out where it lies, and work on it until you can get both thought and emotions to match or you can find the one that clearly dominates. Use your consciousness to listen to both the emotional side and the rational side, and then be like a negotiator between them, listening in and asking the tough questions of each.

For example, if emotionally you feel that your life purpose is to become an artist or musician, but rationally you think that you should be serving specific people in need, you have to work through this discrepancy by reviewing what your context or surroundings are telling you about it. Remember that your own context is a collection of your beliefs about reality. When you experience a specific conflict like this, it usually reveals a gap in your context, a fuzzy space that you haven’t clarified yet. For instance, you may discover that you have mixed feelings towards the intrinsic value of art and music. You see them as serving people, but another part of you perceives them as a waste of time compared to other pursuits – unproductive. You’ll have to referee over these views.

At this point your purpose is likely to be very abstract and high-level, so in my next post we’ll explore how to break it down into goals, projects, and actions.

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May
02

How to Define Your Life Purpose 1

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (7)

How do You Intelligently Define Your Purpose in Life

I have suggested two different processes for locating your purpose. Ideally you can use both of them, since each one will help you understand the different aspects of your purpose. Warning – this is going to be a lot of work for you, but the end result will be worth it because you’ll eventually reach a point of powerful clarity. Then it will be far easier to make lasting decisions and take strong action, and you’ll find that your life just seems to work effortlessly once you know and are living in line with your purpose. Here is the first one.

Process 1: Emotional Intelligence

The first process is to learn from your emotional intelligence. Passion and purpose go hand in hand. When you discover your purpose, you will normally find it’s something you’re tremendously passionate about. Emotionally you will feel that it is resonates with you.

How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes.
Here’s what to do:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type .
2. Write at the top this question, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write any answers that pop into your head. They don’t have to be a complete sentences. Short phrases are fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write that answer that makes you cry. This is the key to your purpose.

That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a coach or an architect or an athlete. For some people this exercise will make perfect sense, it will just click. To others it will seem too simple or too stupid. Usually it takes at least 10 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter that keeps trying to interrupt your finding your answers to your question. Many answers will come from your mind and your memories, not all true.

But when the true answer does finally arrive, it will feel like it’s from a hidden space in your life.

For those of us who are entrenched in regular low-awareness living, it may take a longer to get all the superficial answers out, it may take more than an hour or two. But if you stick with it, after 100 or 200 or maybe even 300 answers, you’ll be struck by the answer (or set of answers) that causes you to surge with emotion, the answer that breaks your numbness and stirs you deep within. If you’ve never done this, it may very well sound silly to you. You may feel a little embarrassed. So what – even if it is a little silly, go somewhere alone and do it anyway.

As you go move through this process, some of your answers will be very similar. You may even find yourself coming up with similar or duplicate answers. At other times you might move on new tangents and generate another handful of answers on another theme. That’s great. Just list whatever answers pop into your head while you keep writing.

At some point during the process (after a few pages), you may want to quit and you just can’t see any clear results emerging. You may feel tempted to get up and do something else – but it’s only a distraction. That’s normal to want to feel it’s done. But don’t, because when you push past this resistance, and simply keep writing, this resistance will pass and melt into another stream of fresh answers.

Sometimes you will discover a few answers that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite make you cry — they’re close but not there yet. Simply highlight these answers, (and possibly circle back to them later and generate new permutations). Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but by themselves they’re not complete. When you start getting these kinds of almost answers, you can know you’re getting warm.

Just keep going.

It’s very important that you do this alone and without any interruptions. It doesn’t matter if your first answers start from, “I don’t have a purpose,” or “Life is meaningless,” just keep going, and you’ll still get there.

When I did this exercise, it took me about 20 minutes, and I reached my final and true answer at step 186. Partial pieces of the answer (mini-surges) appeared early on at answers 50 and 61. Whilst the main elements converged around the 150 mark and was refined through steps 175-186.

I felt those tempting feelings to stop (wanting to get up and do something else, expecting the process to fail, feeling very impatient and even irritated) around steps 90 to 110. After taking some short one minute breaks where I closed my eyes and rested from bombarding my brain with the question. I tried to relax, clear my mind, and to focus once again on the answers I wanted — this was really helpful as the answers I received after this bio-break had more clarity and I had more mental energy.

Here’s my final answer – to live fully alive and present, to live courageously, to focus on sharing love and compassion, to awaken the heart of love and passion in others, and to leave a bread crumb trail of hope and benefit for others.

When you find your own unique answer to the question of why you’re here, you will feel it resonate with you deeply. The words will seem to have a special energy to you, and you will experience that energy whenever you read them again.

Discovering your purpose is perhaps the easier part. The hard part is keeping your focus on it on a daily basis and reflecting and directing yourself with integrity towards that purpose that is uniquely yours.

If you’re curious why this simple process works, you’ll just have to wait until you’ve successfully completed it. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably know for yourself why it works. Most likely if you ask 10 people why it works (10 people who’ve actually completed it), you’ll most likely get 10 different answers, each one colored by their individual belief systems, and each one reflection their own truth.

Obviously, this process won’t work for you if you quit before convergence. I’d estimate that 75% of you will achieve convergence in less than ninety minutes. If you’re really entrenched in your beliefs and resistant to the process, maybe it will take you several sessions over several hours, but I suspect that most people like that will quit early (like within the first 30 minutes) or they won’t even attempt it at all. But if you’re drawn to read this blog, then it’s doubtful that you will fall into this group.

So give it a shot! Find the space and time and just do it. Now. Why wait. Take back your life.

The answer you get from this process, however, depends largely on your ability to generate good input. Basically what you are doing is exploring your mind space for possible purposes, and you’re using the gauge of your emotional reaction to each idea to evaluate how close you are.

You may notice certain patterns in this purpose statement that link up with my overall concept of reality:
a) Need to live consciously = awareness, required for conscious personal growth
b) And live courageously = courage, a virtue required to pursue conscious growth
c) To resonate with love = unconditional love, which isn’t an emotion but rather a sense of connectedness with everything that exists, implying that working on my own growth and helping others to grow are compatible
d) And compassion = another virtue, one which helps temper courage
e) To awaken the great spirit (the big heart) within others = to help others lock in at a higher level of consciousness/awareness, which will give them the means to pursue personal growth consciously
f) And to leave this world in peace = a double meaning here:
1) – world in .. peace = to do no harm, to work to improve life instead of destroy it, to leave a legacy; and
2) – leave … in peace = no regrets, knowing that I did my best and could have expected no more of myself, like refusing to die with my music still in me, inner peace

And now for the second method you can use to sneak up on your purpose to expose it to yourself. Read it at Intelligently Define Your Life Purpose 2

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May
01

Discover Your Purpose and Meaning in Life

By Pierre Basson - Business Profitability Consultant · Comments (1)

Do You Have a Pre-Encoded Purpose?

Many books and blogs I have read assume that we’re either genetically or divinely encoded with some sort of built-in purpose, and all we need to do is take the time and effort to discover it through private introspection or self reflection. You just have to sit down one day and write a mission statement and trust that what comes to you will be a reliable guiding force for the rest of your life. Perhaps every year you update it.

Mission Statement Map

Where are you now? Where do you want to go?

Personally I think that’s not good enough or helpful enough to steer the direction of your entire life. I see no evidence that there’s any pre-encoded purpose in any of us. You may have been strong conditioned towards a particular purpose, such as if you’re born a prince or princess, and certainly your DNA will control many aspects of your life options, but that isn’t sufficient by itself, and certainly isn’t evidence of divine guidance. I think in most cases you’ll just end up with a nebulous mission statement that doesn’t give you definite rails to run your life on.

If you begin with the assumption that you have a pre-encoded purpose and attempt to discover it merely by sitting down and writing a mission statement, I think you’ll probably end up building a house of straw for yourself. With this method you won’t have a rational foundation for trusting in the purpose you come up with. In most cases it will feel like you’re just guessing in the wind, and you might look back on your mission statement a week or two later and find that it’s not as interesting or as motivating as you thought it was when you first wrote it.

You’ll probably have on going doubts about what you’ve written, and whether you are just building your life on a one night dream.

When people just try to sit down and write out a purpose or mission statement for their life, they usually lack sufficient clarity to do so intelligently and coherently. So how are you exactly supposed to define your purpose? Can you simply squeeze it out of your brain like a sponge? How will you recognize it’s right? What if you find yourself imagining several different missions that might fit you, but you have no idea which is better for you? What if you can’t think of anything at all and that seems meaningful to you – is vegetating a mission too? What are you to do?

Just because you may not have a clear pre-encoded purpose, does not mean that you don’t have a specific purpose. It only means that it will take more work on your part to define your purpose clearly. Your purpose isn’t really something you only discover. It’s more accurate to say that your purpose is a combination of discovery, testing, evaluating and responding to life’s impact on you. It is closely tied to your relationship to reality. I wouldn’t exactly call it a free choice though. There will be multiple choices for you, and not all choices are equally valid or important. It also depends on how seriously you pursue what you recognize as meaningful. The more you pursue a purpose the quicker it will grow or recede in meaningfulness and importance to you.

What is needed is an intelligent method for developing your purpose, a definite process that makes sense, ensuring that when you arrive at your final answer about your life purpose, you will have high trust in it’s correctness.

How to Intelligently Define Your Purpose

I’m going to suggest two different processes for locating your purpose. Ideally you can use both of them, since each one will help you understand the different aspects of your purpose. The first is the more rational life purpose discovery process and the second is more gut level life purpose discovery process. Warning – this is going to be a lot of work for you, but the end result will be worth it because you’ll eventually reach a point of powerful clarity. Then it will be far easier to make lasting decisions and take strong action, and you’ll find that your life just seems to work effortlessly once you know and are living in line with your purpose.

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