The One Minute Millionaire, The Enlightened Way to Wealth - Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen

OK, I cheated a bit with this book. I picked it up on CD and listened to it on my way to client sites, but I can still tell you that this book is worth reading (or listening to).
The One Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen is a great way to think about your worth and your wealth, differently than you were brought up to think about it. The book is presented in three parts on three disks. Each disk has one part of the book and is delivered like two books, a Non-fiction audio book (for the engineer type learner) and a novel (to engage artists). The non-fiction part of this book is the "How To" with tips on everything from self-enlightenment to property investment. The other is a story about Michelle. Michelle's Story is so compelling, filled with emotion and empathy that I had to stop listening to it when going to my client's sites because I did not want to arrive with tears in my eyes. The authors take turns reading the two styles.
Hansen and Allen talk about the two key requirements to build wealth:

1. A commitment driven by desire and faith
   
2. The ability to take action.

They call this the Millionaire Map. They state that there are only four ways to create wealth.

• Investments - stocks, bonds, funds, etc.
  
• Real estate
• Business - marketing product or service
• Internet

Part One
In Part One the authors talk about the 24 -principles of wealth (or Aha's as they refer to them). These are all inspirational, enlightening views of ourselves and our environment. Some of the Aha's covered are things like "Words Transform". Remember your mother telling you "if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all". Well this elaborates on the notion that negative thought and words produce negative results. Another Aha "Clarity is Power" describes how to use your goals to get you to where you want to go. They attribute a success philosopher named Neville for this thought:

• "Don’t think of your goals, think from you goals"

For the entire list of the 24 principles visit:

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/downloads/misc/24AhaPrintouts.pdf

At the end of Part One they open the story of Michelle and how she looses everything: her husband, her house, her job and her kids all because of a car accident. It takes us through her emotions of disbelief and frustration and into a world of powerlessness. We are left contemplating the parallel between the 24 principles and Michelle's situation. Her situation and her negative reaction to her circumstances really emphasize the power of the 24 principles in a inverse way. We see what happens when we don't apply the principles.

Part Two
In Part Two the authors talk about the team. This team is part of the lever required to create wealth. A team should consist of 2 or more people with a common purpose and they state that, "Attitude is critical and can make or break your success." Use their H.O.T.S. Survey when building a team to discover your strengths and those of your team members.

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/tools/hots.asp

H.O.T.S. defines people as four different categories of workers: people that look for solutions, strategies, problems, or results, known as the Hares, the Owls, the Tortoise, and the Squirrels. The four types of workers are needed to have a well rounded team. A tortoise as an example brings attributes like the ability to "make sure a concept is thought through and how it can be improved and implemented". I am a Tortus according to the H.O.T.S. survey and when I read the full description it pretty much describes the qualities I would bring to a team.
Part Two of Michelle's Story continues on in her life, if you can call it that. She is a broken women, spending most of her time blaming her situation on everyone and everything else. She is of course not responsible for the accident that precipitated her current situation, but she was responsible for letting her insurance laps. When she meets Sam, a woman that takes on a mentoring role in Michelle's life, she starts to change. With her desire to reclaim her children and her faith in her abilities Sam helps propel Michelle forward into action. Michelle's first task was to build a team of people as dedicated and driven to getting to a goal as she was, and she succeeds.

Part Three
In part three of the book the authors describe the details for many different models of creating wealth including how to purchase real estate using OPM (Other Peoples Money). Some of the models are quite complex and I found I had to listen to it a couple of times to understand how they arrived at the final values, but the ideas are simply brilliant.
On this CD they conclude Michelle's story with the final tally of her wealth and where her money comes from. It is unbelievable to think that someone could make $600 000 with no money for a down payment or $250 000 in a few minutes giving away a free book, but this is the concept that lead to the creation of The One Minute Millionaire.

I love this book, both for the engineer in me and for the artist. There are plenty of reasons (at least a million) to read or listen to this book and lots of resources on their website to take advantage of.
Enjoy

• www.oneminutemillionaire.com/

Talking to Sarah - A Darwinian Lexicon

As I have said before, I have a very wonderful, fortunate life and in that life I have a fantastic family and many close friends. One friendship that I cherish dearly is with my neighbour Sarah. We are companions in the treacherous sojourn through motherhood, where we motivate each other to exercise, participate in girls-night-out regularly and enjoy a coffee or beer on many occasions.

Sarah is another one of those women. A mother of two and college instructor, she is also getting her degree, as well as working on potential business opportunities.

I love talking to Sarah. We have lots in common: our status in life, our education levels, our family life growing up and our sense of self. I also love her "Darwinian lexicon". I mean that she, although being highly educated and very intelligent, chooses to develop her own words, evolving the English language all by herself.

We know we have a living language when the dictionary gets revised yearly to include new words. These new words come from people like us. We develop these words to describe new products and situations brought about by our quickly changing society and then incorporate them into our technical jargon, marketing, and product description and finally back to the consumer and into common use.

I want to share a couple of Sarah's words with you and I really want you to share with us the words you hear and see being created. If you send me words with a description I will add it to this post.

Word	Meaning or Use
Noon-thirty	Half past noon or 12:30pm
Midnight-thirty	Half past midnight or 12:30am
Side-by-each	Beside each other
Ginormous	When I started drafting this article this word was not in the dictionary. Since the spring of 2007 Merriam-Webster has published their list of new words and ginormous is one of them. Good on you Sarah for being so trend setting. (Note - Websters New Millennium Dictionary shows the etymology of this word dating back to 1948-53 and describes it as a composition of giant + enormous)
re-donkulous	Meaning incredibly ridiculous - Contribution from Amanda
RetroTech	outdated or ephemeral technology which still may elicit a level of fondness. Fads and trends may witness some RetroTech being re-manufactured for consumer sale such as rotary phones, or other modern electronics made to look vintage / classy. - Copy Kowal Portable Typewriters 56K Modem Sound Emulator This one brings back memories - aah!

Send in your words

High Trust Selling, Make More Money in Less Time with Less Stress - Todd Duncan

Overview

Mr. Duncan writes a great "how to" book on becoming a better sales person by becoming a better relationship person. The lessons, tips, ideas, suggestions, and advice are all valid and resonate with the truth of how strong trusting relationships impact how and who we will deal with. Mr. Duncan promises that by applying the fourteen 'Laws' described in the book "your sales business will do more than merely improve-it will explode."

It is definitely a mental shift away from cold calling and into a relationship building process that will increase your income while decreasing the time you spend earning it. The more valuable benefit is the increase in quality of life which is what brought Mr. Duncan to pursue this avenue in the first place.

The Laws

Each 'Law' is a chapter that defines sales in a way that helps us grow and change the way we view sales, our clients, our products, our approach, and ourselves.

Personal Growth

In the first chapter “The Law of the Iceberg", Mr. Duncan describes how a good foundation gives us stability in our relationships. To determine our foundation he walks us through a short exercise to define our purpose at work by answering the questions "What's important to me about being successful".

He builds an excellent understanding of why this foundation is so important in the second chapter "The Law of the Summit", when he talks about our perception of failure and success. He decants the thought that, "You need more than a capacity for psyching yourself up. You need to be inspired at your core." This is so true and he makes you feel it with the stories of personal and professional failure that he faced in his own life.

"The Law of the Shareholder" defines the characteristics of an owner or CEO. As a high trust sales person you must take responsibility for your relationship with your clients and this means that you are alone in charge of your client's experience, not your assistant or your boss. To take on this type of responsibility, especially if you work for someone else, is difficult, but once past the "it’s not my company" mentality into a "these are my clients" we start to see the value of investing in our position. This kind of investment will not necessarily require more time, but most likely dollars and definitely passion. Mr. Duncan lists 10 key investments you can make in our future:

1. Invest in your relationships with those you love
2. Invest in a long-term personal-development program
3. Invest in a sales coach
4. Invest in a competent right-hand assistant
5. Invest in your personal image
6. Invest in a personal financial plan
7. Invest time in an exercise program
8. Invest in a client-retention program
9. Invest in a library
10. Invest in technology
    

When I read these it was like getting permission to do the things I knew should be done but was afraid to pursue because it was not work that was "in my business". It is very true the more we invest in ourselves the more we will get out of ourselves and we may all fundamentally understand this but still we ignore our health, pass on the contact management software, stop learning, and thus stop growing.

The Business Foundation

The next four chapters ("The Law of the Ladder", "The law of Leverage, "The Law of the Hourglass", and "The Law of the Broom") talk about how to establish a strong business foundation. He lays the groundwork for defining our High Trust Plan by having us thoroughly investigate "The Core Four", which consist of a life plan, a business plan, a time plan, and a client plan.

An effective sales strategy uses "The Core Four" and applies a three-level leverage approach to reach these goals (personal leverage, associate leverage, and professional leverage).

The Law of the Hourglass and the Broom both deal with the effective way to manage time. If you have ever had a sales coach, or any coach at all, you will have no doubt run into many of these ideas and exercises in the past, (like time blocking). These exercises are so valuable, that it is worth the time to revisit them regularly to ensure we have not forgotten.

Sales Processes

In these next five chapters (“The Law of the Dress Rehearsal”, “The Law of the Bull’s-Eye”, “The Law of the Scale”, “The Law of Courtship”, and “The Law of the Hook”) Mr. Duncan compares the sales relationship to a marriage and the process of getting there as a great performance. It takes a great deal of practice and dedication to put on a world-class performance. Our best performances should not go wasted on prospects that are not our core target. He helps us define our target or bull’s-eye so that we are performing to the people that want to watch. Mr. Duncan says, “It doesn’t matter how many prospects you see. It matters how you see the right prospects.” It’s easier to sell when we are talking to the right person from the start. Follow his advice to reduce the number of prospects and focus solely on the ones that will bring us the exact match to our core service or product offering.

Mr Duncan details how to create the scripts we need and how to practice these scripts to ensure we earn our prospects trust. By rehearsing a well scripted interview, which includes knowing how to address objections we captivate our audience so that they will continue to listen, ask questions, and then buy from us.

This process will save us money, time, and anxiety as we build our businesses.

The High Trust Relationship

In these last two chapters (“The Law of Incubation”, and “The Law of the Encore”) Mr. Duncan encourages us to give back to our clients. Like any good relationship, trust is won and keep because there is value, even when there is no request to purchase. Incubate the trust that was earned by implementing a genuine customer service process to continue to see the relationship grow. The cost of a good customer service program will result in more purchasing and more referrals from our clients to other prospects. Mr. Duncan quotes some statistics on the indirect cost of poor service, which I think we have all seen, and it can be devastating to a company. If we are genuine about wanting to give good service and we make a mistake then Mr. Duncan advises to apologize in a meaningful way and he demonstrates this through several stories of good and bad service.

Conclusion

This book is a MUST read and not just for the sales person in a company. It covers everything about sales that is important to the sales professional that wants to excel in their business and live a quality life. I honestly believe that if a company wants to give the best service, have the best clients, provide the best product, and operate as a world-class corporation that every person in a management, sales, and customer support position should read and understand this book . Todd Duncan really defines everything required to build the most successful sales relationship possible.

Count me in.