#1 Question That Gets Overlooked

What is the #1 question that most often gets overlooked?

You will have to wait a bit for the answer. However, I will give you a hint. The answer is shown in the image below.

As we begin to wind down the 2022 fiscal year, most business owners are thinking about or already beginning their planning cycle for the new calendar year ahead. They’re going through the early stages of the goal-setting process, reviewing the quarterly performance, and putting together annual budgets, forecasts, staffing plans and financial projections for the coming year.

It’s an exciting time of the year and right now, looking through those rose colored lenses, the future looks exceedingly bright. But what is missing? What’s missing is a reality check. Have we done our due diligence? Have we asked the most basic, fundamental question that should be answered before we charge ahead? Probably not. Continue reading…

Don’t Miss It! Register TODAY and Invite a Friend!!

M3 Power Network Breakfast

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21st at 8:30 AM

JOIN US AT …

THE REC OF GRAPEVINE, GRAPEVINE, TX

Leave a Legacy of HOPE. Make happiness, joy and purpose a part of your life.

Do you want to grow personally, professionally and spiritually, while making those great new personal connections? If you want to GROW, then you have to GO!

Our GOAL is to get YOU connected. So, join us for GREAT FOOD, NETWORKING and INSPIRATION at the M3 Power Network breakfast on Saturday, October 21st at the Rec of Grapevine.

M3 Power Network is DFW’s faith-based Premier Networking Group engaging dedicated professionals like YOU to focus on Missions, Marketplace, and Motivation. Our purpose is to Encourage, Educate and Empower You.

Our good friend, Tom Ziglar is back with us, and will be the Keynote Speaker for our October 21st event. Tom is the current CEO of Ziglar, Inc. and is a highly recognized motivational speaker, author and trainer. He not only shares a last name with his father, Zig Ziglar, but he also carries on his philosophy, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” Come, learn and be inspired!!

You can register TODAY at the M3 Power Network Events site on Facebook or on Meetup to reserve your seat.

Meetup Link to RSVP

Facebook Link

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, October 21st!!!

John

REGISTER NOW

Is Today the Day?

From the day we are born, our lives move us toward what will be an inevitable ending. It’s part of the circle of life. We are born, we die, but everything in between is where life truly happens. Each day we are given is a blessing to be celebrated. The most extraordinary thing is that our lives can be forever changed in the blink of an eye, by a single event or a single step.

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24

Our lives move in ebbs and flows, much like our breathing. Some movement occurs as a result of outside forces beyond our control. For the most part, however, our choices are what ultimately determine the direction our lives will take.

Is today the day? The day you finally take the first step toward making those life changes required to make your goals and dreams a reality? Is this day one, or just another day in the life? The choice is yours and yours alone. You decide. Continue reading…

Accountability Is Over-Rated

Ha, ha … gotcha! I know what you were thinking when you read the title of this article. The old guy has lost it! He has flown over the cuckoo’s nest. The Texas summer heat must have finally done him in.

For years I have been extolling the virtues of focus, accountability, consistency and execution in achieving world-class results. Why then the sudden change of heart? Why do I now believe that accountability is over-rated? To be clear, I don’t. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

Have you ever stopped to think about why the word “accountability” carries such a negative connotation in our modern society? Even the very definition of accountability is punitive and makes it sound like one of those bad four-letter words we were told not to say when we were children.

“Accountability is not a bad four-letter word.” Continue reading…

Don’t Give Away Your Power

“If you think you have power, you have power. If you don’t think you have power, you have no power.” – Michael Korda

Our brains are vast neural networks comprised of knowledge, experiences and thoughts, both good and bad. It has been scientifically proven that negative thinking and chronic complaining, can rewire the brain. Likewise, 12 minutes of daily prayer over an 8-week period can change the brain to such an extent that it can be measured on a brain scan.

Let go of ‘stinking thinking’.

When I consider how negative thinking and chronic complaining can affect our lives, and infect the lives of others, I’m reminded of the Israelites. According to Scripture, they were enslaved by their Egyptian rulers for 430 years. When they were finally able to obtain their freedom, it took them 40 years to travel from Egypt to the Land of Canaan (the Promised Land).  A journey that should have only taken approximately 30 days.

Why did it take the Israelites 40 years to travel 250 miles to reach the Promised Land? Continue reading…

What’s Your Wild Rabbit?

Five years ago, Hennessy first launched its $70 million award-winning Wild Rabbit advertising campaign about the drive and determination needed to accomplish goals. The commercial featured Boxer, Manny Pacquiao. His Wild Rabbit was to “Fight the fights that really matter”.

More recently, Hennessy’s “Wild Rabbit” campaign has featured father and son, Auguste and Jacques Piccard. In 1931, physicist Auguste Piccard became the first man in history to reach the stratosphere (in a pressurized capsule and balloon). Nearly three decades later, in 1960, his son, Jacques, became the first person to reach the deepest part of the ocean. Truly extraordinary accomplishments.

“What’s your Wild Rabbit?”

In your drive to accomplish your goals and achieve success, what is it that you are reaching for? While it may not be to fight the fights that really matter, or to conquer the outer reaches of space or the depths of the oceans, we all have that one BIG THING we are chasing. What is yours? And more importantly, what is your plan to reach it? Continue reading…

Disruption Doesn’t Mean Dysfunction

Disruption as a noun means “disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity, or process.” To cause (something) to be unable to continue in the normal way. For business, however, disruption is viewed in broader terms as ‘disruptive innovation’, a term first introduced in 1995 by Clayton Christensen, the author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.

“A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leading firms, products and alliances.”

Fast forward to today, what does disruption look like in 2017? Businesses generally still have two options when faced with disruptive innovation. Try and hold on to existing market space by doing the same thing(s) better, or attempt to capture new markets by embracing new business models and technologies, and adapting to rapid change.

“Change is good if it leads to improved performance, highly engaged employees and more satisfied customers.” Continue reading…

Sales Funnel vs. Sales Process

“Sales Process” most often refers to the repeatable set of steps your sales team takes with a prospect to move them from an early stage to a closed sale. Many of the articles I have read on this topic refer to the Sales Funnel and the Sales Process as the same thing. However, my view of the two is somewhat different.

From my vantage point, you should have a clearly defined Sales Process for prospects and existing clients. Why? Because the sequence of events, hand-offs, deliverables and timeframes may be different for prospects vs. clients. These key differences should be understood by you and your sales team in moving prospects to clients, staying in-touch and building those long-term business relationships.

The “Sales Funnel” on the other hand, reflects all of the active sales projects that result from the various interactions with both prospects and clients.

Our BLF ELITE Mastermind group has been working on the areas of Sales Process and Funnel Management for the past two months. And I want to share some thoughts with you from our work in the hope that it will help you build more effective sales processes for your business.

Sales Funnel … Is opportunity driven. The Sales Funnel provides a visual snap shot of all of the active sales opportunities that you are working on, and their various stages of completion from warm lead to Customer Acceptance. It is also the virtual “lifeline” for your business to both new and existing customers in driving sales revenues. Continue reading…

2017: A Year of Triumph and Success?

Happy New Year Everyone!

It’s hard to believe that the New Year is well underway. We’ve already packed away the Christmas decorations, dusted off the holiday cheer and are slowly getting back into the swing of our daily lives and routines.

While we are just getting started on our prosperity plans for 2017, the Chinese calendar year for 2016 is coming to a close. The Chinese New Year does not officially begin until January 28, and is the year of the (Fire) Rooster. The Rooster symbolizes the dawn and awakening, where triumph and success can only be achieved at the price of hard work and patience.

“The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.”

This coming Saturday, January 7th, my mother will be celebrating her 103rd birthday with the Angels. I mention this because Mom was a wonderful example of what hard work and sacrifice is all about. Mom was adopted at an early age and grew up in the Depression era. Growing up she had to overcome extraordinary obstacles, including dropping out of school after the 9th grade, to help her adopted family out financially and “earn her keep” in order to survive.

Key to Success

Now we all know that success requires hard work and sacrifice, but what else? What is the key to success? Continue reading…

Bring the Other “I” Word Back

It’s time, or more accurately, it is long overdue. It is time to bring the other “I” word back. You know the one I’m talking about, not the “it’s all about me” I word, but the other one. Integrity.

Somewhere along the way we got lost. Exactly when did integrity get stricken from our vocabulary in terms of our conduct and moral code? Regardless, it’s time to find our way back. Both as individuals and as a nation, integrity should be one of the cornerstones of our value system. Otherwise, mankind’s future looks rather bleak doesn’t it?

Integrity

Integrity is defined as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness”. Words like honesty, honor, morals, righteousness, virtue, fairness, sincerity, and trustworthiness come to mind when we consider people with integrity. As a nation, integrity is defined as “the state of being whole and undivided”. In this context, the common synonyms include unity, cohesion, togetherness and solidarity.

The recent Presidential campaign has once again revealed the dark side of humanity. If this is a reflection of what we can expect from our new leaders in government, then we are in trouble. However, we are not immune to criticism here either. With the elections finally over, it is time to step away from the campaign rhetoric, the social media bashing that has consumed us these past few years, and take a long, hard look at ourselves. Continue reading…