Corporatedojo #8

 Do The Cover Tunes

My business. My way. I have some funky business practices and early on it bothered me. I spoke too much. I listened too little. I told too many personal stories; I used bad language, etc. I never really considered changing because I can’t really get away with it. I yam what I yam. I’d rather find clients who extract value on what I give them rather than what I look like or dress like or whether I say fuck a lot. I consider all my clients enlightened individual and we are lucky to have each other. So raise your pirate flag of your company and revel in your rock n’ roll rebellion but…

You better have done / do the cover tunes. When you’re in garage band, before you can play the weak – ass love song you wrote, you as a band better make sure you can play Layla. Doing the cover tunes gives you a foundation and maturity to then go off and be creative.

My company and my career have one valuable asset. Experience. I’ve seen and done it all. Two hundred plus individual and thirty-five corporate accounts… believe me I’ve done the cover tunes. The cover tunes in business are the basics.  Take a particular aspect of business… the agreement. I once read that you only do work on a handshake. I personally don’t use contracts and I’ve never sued or have ever been sued. But I earned the right to do that because after closing X amount of deals, I’m a good judge of character. I’ve had good and bad experiences, with and without contracts. I’ve played the cover tunes.

Same thing holds true for your corporate kit, brochure, and resume. No one gets hired based on these things. “Gee Bob, what a cool folder with information about this guy’s company, we have to hire him.” It doesn’t work that way, but when it comes to corporate kits, brochure, web site, bio, resume, business card… you better dam well have one! Do the cover tunes in order to rebel.

corporatedojo #7

I like to refer to this as business tip #1. If it looks like a

Bad deal, and sounds like a bad deal, it’s a bad deal.

Entrepreneurs need to develop a fine tuned sense of people.

You have to be able to sum someone up. You have to be

able to seek out and find people of character to work with.

Quickly correct miscommunication when they occur. Trust

your gut! Trust your gut! Trust your gut and hold to your

terms. Anytime I’ve altered my terms (the way I do

business), I’ve gotten screwed. Some red flags are blindly

Obvious. Create a rhythm in which you enroll someone to

hire you, do the actual job and complete the relationship.

Don’t deviate. In other words: I run my business my way. I

sell the perfect product/service at the perfect price. This is

how we begin our relationship (negotiate and close the

deal), this is the way I do the job, this is what it looks like

at the end of the relationship (we’re both happy). If you are

being asked to or find yourself doing anything different,

and especially if it’s not to your choosing; then you will

probably end up in a fucked up work situation.

So, choose your clients wisely, make sure they are in

sync with how you like to work and then you’re free to do

what you do and do it well for the client so that he shakes

your hand at the end and says,” Thanks”.

That’s why looking for, or at least paying attention to red

flags (things that don’t sound, smell or feel right) will save

you heartache. Finally, I’m not suggesting you be paranoid

and create evidence against a potential client, but in your

discussions, just keep in mind that if it looks like a duck,

and quacks, then it’s probably a duck.

Dojo #6

The customer is not always right

The customer is always right…….Says who?  Sometimes they are wrong and in fact you are probably being paid to let them know they are wrong.  If they were always right, they would not need you.  If you are in personal service business and you tread lightly and not speak the truth…then all you are is yes man.  Do you really think that is what is best for a client?  I should say not.  I do not think the customer is paying you to kiss there ass.  I may be wrong…but ever hear the expression: “It is better to be loud and wrong, than quiet and right”?

I am fortunate in that I get to choose whom I want to work with and I choose carefully.  I have two secrets of success that I’d like to share: 1- Return 3x the value of what you are paid and 2- guarantee your work.

If I take a client on and I deliver three times the value of what I am paid and I guarantee my work, you better believe that I am very clear that before getting into bed with this person, job or project that is something I want to do.  The project /job has to be, for me, as well as the client, fun and adventurous.

Dan Pink in his book The Free Agent Nation, talks about the “My Size Fits Me” School of Business.  I work when I want, with whom I want, on the project I want, for the money I want.  I look for clients and projects that are going to challenge and inspire me to do better and better work.  I do not take on a job because I know I can easily get it done.  I play a bigger game.  Customer care is giving the client more than they paid, more than they expect.

Customer Service is not just about making him or her right.  You have to listen carefully and  collaborate but don’t acquiesce because he or she is the customer.  This hold true especially if your opinion is different from  theirs.  A truly enlightened client will always appreciate candor.  Each client or project that you get involved with is going to require your absolute best.  If you are a Rock Star in business then you also put your ass on the line.  If you are not nervous before going on stage, you might want to check the humility meter.  Confidence is good but hard work and humility is better.  Just please do not confuse giving your client your best, at the expense of “looking good”.  Give and do your best but do not be a people pleaser or a brownoser or yes man.  It serves no one.

Again I thank you to all those who have read my material.  I again urge you to tell a friend, come back again and again, contact me at kiproth@yahoo.com  and make no distinction between work and play.

Business is Personal….Make it So

MR

Dojo #5 The death of the middle class

Welcome back to Corporatedojo.  Today our discourse is taking little turn from the normal syllabus to discuss a topic which is extremely important to the landscape we are involved in.  The great gap between the have’s and have not’s.  There is no more middle class or maybe the first time in history, our children are not guaranteed a better future than the previous generation.  Now here is the startling fact that no one wants to admit.  I will share it with you, for again, I get paid to tell the truth. Not only is the middle class dead…but it is our fault!  Not the government, not outsourcing jobs, not our failing educational system… But us. Most of us think this is a dress rehearsal and are more interested in diversions…like self help programs and silly reality television, etc.

You think there is a recession?  I say nonsense.  I live in Los Angeles, and I see all these new Bentleys and I ask myself “Who is buying these six figure cars?  An important rule of thumb for any businessman is “The deal drives the day’.  Do not kid yourself, every minute, of everyday…someone is closing business, getting a deal, getting paid, buying a Bentley, etc.

Why is it foreigners come to our country, work there asses off and thrive?  Yet, we Americans cannot?  Here is so much available to the forward thinking entrepreneur to embrace.  New Green enterprise, Cottage Industries that you can tailor to one or more of your interest, new Branding and Content outlets., etc.

Let’s look at some;

1-     Green Enterprises; Why can’t we start a new industrial revolution by creating green businesses.  I urge you to check out companies like HP Lovecraft Biodiesel and wind power startups, etc.  See who is going to monopolize the future of these green industries and join the fray.

2-     Cottage industries; This is a great way to build a mini-empire.  Find or create a niche and own it!  Think about mergering two of your interest.  Here in Los Angeles there is a man who has a company or store rather called Choke.  He Repairs scooters, motorbikes and motorcycles and creates amazing coffee (I mean this guy is a coffee artist)…  Soon, I imagine he will have a Choke magazine, or a Choke online community, etc.  He will be able to leverage his company into a brand that he can attract a possible investor or even a buyer.

3-     Sales and Marketing, Sales and Marketing…that is what it is about.  Today with Web Sites, Blogs, E Books, E Postcards, Guerilla Marketing ideas, etc there are more and more ways to get your brand, company or message out.

I will be discussing all these ideas in future classes and will also be turning you on to cool companies and people.  Today I want to introduce you o my associate. Samantha Moske. She is a world class athlete and entrepreneur.  She has done a very insightful thing by wrapping her business and brand around a revolution, as it were.  Meaning her business is about a crusade, a call to arms and that is the best way to advance and promote your business…wrap it around a crusade.  I urge all of you to visit: www.yourkidsdeserve better@wordpress.com to read what she has to say.  Her message of child obesity, obesity in general, eating habits, exercise, etc. are from great research, experience and personal conditioning.  This woman knows what she is talking about. Finally, her message fits right into the point of today’s post:  In business, like life …everything is about you! Mastering your Career, Business, Health, Balance, Emotions, Attitude, etc. is a part of what one needs to be successful and then perhaps instead of a nation of underemployed, outsourced, in debt, fat, couch potatoes watching Deal or No Deal, we can begin to rebuild the middle class for our children and again be a nation of state of the art business people we truly are.

I urge you to come back often to the corporatedojo, for I am a machine with much to teach and offer.  I urge you to subscribe and tell others.  I urge to email me if you want to talk in depth kiproth@yahoo.com.  I urge you to make it Personal!

MR

“Business is Personal”

I know three brothers who are all high earning dentists and I asked them what compelled all three to become dentists and they told me about there father.  There father was a Willy Loman type salesman.  He traveled the country selling cheap clothes to department stores and he died young and broke from trying to eek out a living for his family.  His only advice to his son’s was that they should go to school and become professionals, because in the real world No one is looking for you. Great business advice!  I do not want to come across as a cynical jaded individual; although I may be…but it is true…No one is looking for you.  I am not so sure anyone is looking out for you either, in fact, I may so bold as to suggest, most people do not care about you.  Being self involved today seems to be the norm. Outside your small circle of friends, family and loved ones, most people are busy taking care of their own business, as it should be.

All you need to start a business is a pen, a pad and a telephone and out of that you create a business. You develop relationships, you create value and guidelines, and you create an idea or tipping point and you spread the word. You are the CEO of your own business, and even if this blog finds you in a job, you are still the CEO of your career.

If you are a well seasoned business person, you become in a sense bullettproof.  Many of us are doing our business month by month, client by client, season by season, dollar by dollar, gig by gig..  We are bulletproof and recession proof because we are always starting from scratch. Sometimes every thirty to forty days. we are starting from scratch with our pen, pad and phone.  We will always survive.

Seasoned business people are always selling and will pull deals out of thin air, they keep showing up day in and day out and constantly change and reinvent themselves.

It is vitally important that your business does not depend on a handful of clients.  You must constantly be creating a new rolodex and never be at the mercy of losing one account.  A true businessperson knows that they can always start their business from scratch again and again and again.

As far as no one looking for you here is the answer.  When someone asked the comedian Steve Martin “How do you break into show business? his response was “Be So Dam Good, They Cannot Ignore You”.  That is the answer.  If no one is looking for you then you find them, you attract them, you bring them in and be so dam good they can’t ignore you

I, again, remind you to subscribe to this blog, tell others, keep coming back and please call if you want to really talk about your individual situations with me in greater depth.

“Business is Personal”

MR (kiproth@yahoo.com)

This is a modern weekly discourse on the essence of business. Whether you are a mid to high level executive (or aspire to be) or an entrepreneur, it is a very unique place to be.

This is a school, a training academy, a master’s course, a dojo for the entrepreneur or businessman who wants to know the real strategies for business. That is correct, there are indeed secrets, strategies and information that only experience can teach you. I intend to teach them to you in this dojo.

My name is Michael Roth and I have been advising and strategizing for over twenty years. However, I am very different from what you have seen or heard before. For example….I am not going to tell you that I am a retired, wealthy guy who is doing this program to be altruistic. If I was a multi millionaire you and I would not be talking. I take a true Zen approach to what is being done here, and as a businessman myself, I am always striving for pure mastery. That means the training never really stops. It is fair to say that after twenty years of running my management consulting firm, coaching and advising people and serving approximately 300 indivdual clients and 40 corporations, II have something to say…so you might want to listen. Truth be told, I believe the core of growth lies in being infinitely curious and I for one, as a businessman am always seeking a community of like minded people to connect with.

The Corporate Dojo is an exclusive place to go to to learn what being an entrepreneur is really like. It is a place to learn how to become a great leader, someone who learns skills that are applicable in any work situation and maybe, dare I say, life situation. But here is the rub…it is a dojo, not a short film or short easy to read pamphlet. Meaning you cannot come here just to read and absorb, you have to understand that the principals we teach are based on real time experiences and being truly committed to excellence is a hard and arduous task. This is not for the weak of heart. The corporate dojo goes beyond just tips and techniques and trains you to embrace our belief than success comes from Commitment, Sacrifice, Discipline and lifestyle change. That’s what we teach.

Faster, faster faster till the thrill of speed, overcomes the fear of death

HT

I make no overblown promises about how you can buy a yacht in 30 days, and improve your love life and create an unlimited cash flow. What the dojo is is a handbook for survival and a place to learn how to use these new tools. I encourage you to commit and subscribe, because I personally pride myself on being different and unique and I again assure you that by being a part of this dojo, you will develop skills that will serve you greatly.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.  This being entry #2 I have decided to continue to share with you the structure of this classroom.  Ergo the Rules.  The “what we can expect from each other”.  In fact, the definition of Standards is …an agreement of how we are going to be with each other.  Since this is my dojo, I have written these rules.  I call them…The Rules of Me.

1-     I do not preach dogma.  Use what you like; do not use what you do not like.  Simple.  What I won’t do is argue, discuss or debate whether the technology is good or bad.

2-     In the real world, you are a person of action or a guy / girl with a story.  We at the dojo do not believe in the “a – ha” experience.  We stress that change, growth and evolution come from Commitment, Discipline, Sacrifice and Lifestyle Change.  So the rule is: No Stories.  In the Entrepreneurial world the currency we are time and commitment.  If you want to tell your story, start a blog.

3-     I encourage you to try to connect with me…But……. with a caveat.  I am from the streets of New York and I do not “suffer fools gladly”, meaning, only connect with me, if you are real and committed.  I only work with thoroughbreds. If you want to discuss a cutomized bespoke program for you or your business, then call  email me at kiproth@yahoo.com and on the subject write  Looking for Mr. Smith.

4-     Do not base your decisions on the verbiage, bumper stickers or anecdotes you receive here.  I often tell my clients that I do not give advice.  I offer up opinion, counsel, perspective and strategies…but ultimately, you make your own professional decisions.  I do not want t hear “well you told me to”.  I do not tell anyone what to do.  I also, over the many years have received letters and cards even paintings from clients stating that I changed there lives.  I do not change people’s lives!  They change there own lives, I am only a catalyst.  How does this evolution to mastery happen?   Practice.  If you go to a gym or boxing club or any martial arts studio and you work out three times a week you get stronger.  Same here!

Zen Teacher: by definition, a Zen teacher challenges and disrupts what you have been taught before.

I am a pebble in your shoe, a splinter in your finger, a thorn in your side…training you and reminding you that there is a higher level to go to.  I hope I piss you off and make you laugh and most importantly look at things differently.  This is top of the line, and state of the art.

Business is Personal!  

Again, I welcome you back to the dojo and today is the day your training begins.  Let us start with the basics.  Just as there is a finite amount of training and transformational technology available, there is also a finite amount of areas of skill a successful business person and/or entrepreneur must learn.  Time Management, Prioritization, Sales, Marketing, Networking, Controlling your emotional states (away from panic and toward calm), Overcoming bad habits and obstacles (procrastination), Organization, etc.  These are skills and habits you must learn to master, job out or attract those who can do it for you…  Ultimately you cannot succeed without handling these things.  Most of my clients usually start of with all or a combination of problems:

1-     Bad Habits

2-      Foolish  beliefs

3-     Ignorance

These are all correctable.  Replace bad habits with good ones, eliminate any disempowering beliefs (easier said than done, but do -able), Ignorance can be overcome by knowledge.  Power is knowledge and that knowledge is inside the information tent.  This corpoatedojo is that tent.

In business, work and career, everyone, and I do mean everyone; pretty much wants the same thing:

 1- Do what they love?

2- Do what they are good at

3- Make a good deal of money doing it

The first barrier they seem to need to cross is The Impostor Syndrome.  You know what this looks like: What if they discover that I am in way over my head, or what if they discover I am under qualified or what if they discover that I do not know what I am talking about.  The answer is that Perception is Reality.  No, I am not advocating that if you are a trained podiatrist that you attempt to transplant a liver…  In most entrepreneurial work, however, Fake it, till you make it will get you thru.  In other words, you do not have to be right all the time, or have all the answers…  In fact a really great leader distinguishes himself by asking great questions.  When a CEO asks me what he should do, I often counter with what do you want to do?  I then, (more often than not), tell him to go do it (trust his gut) and thus he calls me a genius.

If you over deliver, work harder than most and love your client, then you are worth what you charge.  They will see your passion and commitment and you will succeed.  Doubt does kill the warrior.  Have you ever worked in a company where it seems like no one knows what they are doing?  Want to know why? Because in most businesses, and most high level executives; Do Not Know what they are doing!!!  That is the truth.  I have advised world class, Harvard MBA CEO’s and they know nothing, absolutely nothing about leadership.   These individuals do not worry about looking good.  They hire guys like me and the perception than they are great leaders becomes the reality.  Even an iconic leader like Jack Welch has stated many, many times that his true talent is hiring the best people, delegating and inspecting.  You do not have to be the smartest guy in the room; just let yourself and your ego acquiesce to that guy.  In Business, being right is not as important as being happy.  In business you must not be a pompous arrogant leader, or a meek quiet one, you just have to know to listen, think and talk.  If you do ready, aim, fire you will hit you mark.  Most people do ready , fire, aim.  That leads to chaos and being an impostor will get in your way.  If you focus on team, inspire those around you, encourage the heart, have fun and challenge the process, a great result will occur and no one  is going to question how credentialzed or experienced you are.  Final note on this…if you had two teams of individuals competing for the same goal,  one team were all the best trained and equipped and the other team a bunch of misfits with incredible heart, who do you think always wins? …The guys with heart.

I thank you again for your interest and participation in the corporatedojo and urge you ( as I will, constantly) to spread the word, subscribe, add thoughts or comments and again, if you are not worried about looking good but feel compelled to really kick your business to it’s highest level, then call me for a consultation. 310 318 4831.

Welcome to the information Tent

“Business is Personal”

MR