I love working out to Jillian Michael’s videos.  They aren’t perfectly polished.  Her demonstrators lose their balance, give out before the circuit is done, politely curse Jillian for pushing too hard.  Even Jillian hasn’t mastered everything in her routines.  She wants everyone performing on the edge of their abilities, including herself.  And she wants you to know that there is more on the other side of that edge.  How do you do this in your professional life?

We studied this in our Top Performers research and learned four ways that these elite professionals keep their learning on the edge to get the best return on their efforts. And all MBA bashing aside (kinda), you can’t learn on the edge in the classroom.

1. Build a Mastermind Group. The timeless masters have told us, we become who we surround ourselves with.  Top Performers surround themselves with, well, other Top Performers.  These are people who are better than them in ways that they want to improve.  Mastermind group members show each other the professional edge, and what is on the other side.  That is the only way you can aspire to be more than you are today – you need to know what it looks like.  Fellow masterminders often mentor each other in different ways, so everyone gives as well as gets.  They also hold each other accountable to perform on the edge, or else they are not worthy of being in the group.

2. Nurture a Network of Experts. I have 1200 newsletters waiting to be read in my Inbox right now.  I have found an efficient way to keep up with them when I have time, but is this the best way to keep my learning on the edge?  Top Performers streamline the overload of information from trade journals, conferences, e-mails, etc.  Instead they stay in touch with a select network of experts that keep their knowledge on the leading edge.  The noise is deafening in the information space.  Networking with the key people who will keep you on top of trends, breaking news, and uncommon success practices is your route to sanity and to high ROI learning.

3. Seek out Diverse Experiences. Someone who does the same things in the same ways everyday has no creative reserve.  When it comes time to spark a new innovation, what can you possibly draw from?  Top Performers told us that investing time in their families’ activities, seeing plays, reading novels, talking with neighbors and friends from other walks of life give them a reservoir to reference when they need.  Consider it a two-for-one:  you get to have a life and build your innovation capacity at the same time.

4. Run Experiments. Top Performers design low investment ways to test out new ideas.  They know how to NOT let experiments become a distraction or an endless pursuit.  Whether it is to build a new skill, evaluate a new marketing program, or test a new product concept, they know how to leverage others to conclude and learn from the experiment, without it taking over their top priorities.

You can get the full summary of our Top Performers Research by clicking here:  The Five Strategies Every Top Performer Uses

Everyone has the potential for greatness – in their careers, marriages, parenting, friendships. But greatness isn’t the default. You have to work at it. Top performers consistently perform on the edge of their abilities. They learn more and achieve the best return on their efforts – so they can hit huge goals and still have time for a life.

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity.  Simple can be harder than complex.  You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.  But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Talk about a model for top performance – Steve Jobs exhibited the platinum standard for Top Performer principles and strategies.  What product developer wouldn’t want to emulate his clarity of purpose, his confident vision, his constant pursuit of elegant design excellence?

We recently synthesized research into how to recognize top performers and how they work differently.  While Steve Jobs wasn’t on our interview list, he certainly confirms our findings of what it takes to be at the top.

Three Principles Every Top Performer Lives By

Principle 1:  Integrity, or honesty and consistency of character.  Steve Jobs was known for his sometimes brutal honesty.  His clear purpose to deliver on his vision freed him to say what needed to be said, and skip with the niceties that didn’t help get the job done right.  He remained true to himself and his own character even in the face of having to leave the company he birthed.

Principle 2:  Focus. Steve was the epitome of this principle.  Why he and other Top Performers stand out is because they have done the hard work to develop and maintain a laser focus.  How easy is it to say, “I’m not working on my top priority right now because the CEO asked me to do this special assignment instead.”  Or, “I know from all of my knowledge and instincts of our target customers that our design needs to look like this with red accents.  However, our management team told us to change it and also make it blue, so that’s what we are doing.” Would Steve compromise his focus and his vision just because someone told him he had to?  He would rather leave his own company first.

Principle 3:  Work without Fear. Steve’s epiphany at age 17 that guided him every day made this principle easy for him to live by.  He once heard a speaker say, “Live every day as if it were your last, because one day you will be right.”  Steve was empowered by this thought and used it to eclipse the typical human fears of ‘what if this doesn’t work’ or ‘what if they don’t like me’.  At the end of the day, just in case it was his last, he wanted to know that he maintained his integrity and focus on his vision.

Even Steve’s critics can’t help but admire this top performer who lived every day by these principles.  The gifts he has given the world as a result are immeasurable.  56 is way too young to live your last day.  But since Steve made every day count, his legacy will last many, many lifetimes.  RIP

About iCanPilot’s Top Performer research:  after interviewing a network of top performers and synthesizing their findings, iCanPilot published a manifesto of the 5 Strategies Every Top Performer lives by.  It can be downloaded by clicking here.

How do you get to mean that much to a customer regardless of the product you sell?

I got the answer listening to Dean Graziosi, of real estate infomercials fame, while he gave a talk at the recent Experts Academy.  Dean does quite well.  His company has about 100 employees and they can sell $100 million in a WEEK with their infomercials.  Who wouldn’t kill for that kind of productivity.  His secret?

He has learned to go to where his customer’s mind is– to focus on what they are thinking, and believing, and aspiring to become right now – to dream their same dreams.  When he talks to the camera, he is focused on the one person who is negative about Dean’s products, negative about his own life, and wanting a change.

He focuses on that person’s opportunities and challenges.  He gets so connected to that person, and then gets so passionate about helping him achieve the change he dreams about, Dean is able to convince thousands of negative-minded people that he can help them have the lives they aspire to.  To the tune of $100 million in sales in a week.

In case you are thinking, “No kidding.  Any half-educated idiot knows to focus on your target customer,” you missed the subtlety of Dean’s approach.  Yes, he knows his target customer.  He has done his segmentation, knows their key pains and how he can help them.  He doesn’t start off with what he has that can help them with their pains though.  He starts off by relating to who they are and what they are thinking.  He goes to them instead of having them come to him so they are open to all of the great ways he can help them succeed with real estate.

This is a key distinction that will make your Value Proposition work world class.  Use this mindset as you go through our training to create a World Class Value proposition at

www.worksmartvalueprop.com

and your sales will be unstoppable.

How do you get started with dreaming your customers’ dreams?  Answer these three questions and let the results guide your value proposition design, communications, product design, and anything else that connects to your customers:

1. Who are you driven to help?  Get as specific as possible.  Who is that negative person on the other side of the camera?
2. Why do they need your help?  What is their current situation that they want to change?  What is stopping them?
3. What do they wish for instead?  What do they dream of for themselves if they could change their current situation?

Once you have these answers, you now know why your solution is the right choice for them and can passionately convey why this is true.  Because you know your customers dreams and how you can be a part of them.  And it is your duty to help them achieve their dreams.

This brings a much higher purpose to your selling effort than convincing customers to take advantage of a 20% discount if they buy today, don’t you think?

Wishing You Smart Success!

“Another emergency came up.”

“I got reassigned to a different temporary project.”

“I have been so busy I haven’t scheduled the team kick-off yet.”

We delved into the difference between the action-takers and the delayers and discovered who iCanPilot is meant to serve: Top Performers.

We realized the leaders who took action and got to the results quickly know how to focus.  They knew our software could help them achieve their most important goal, because they know what their most important goal is.  They know how to block out distractions, even when it is their CEO, and drive to record-breaking results.  What else could we learn from them?

We documented the 5 top strategies we learned from interviewing our network of top performers in a report you are welcome to download.

Just go to http://www.icanpilot.com/learn-the-5-strategies-every-top-performer-uses/

The first key for Top Performers is they maintain a laser focus. And a laser can point at one or two spots at the most.  You may be thinking, “I have a hundred things demanding my attention right now, and you want me to pick two? And forget the rest?  Impossible.” What is impossible is to achieve results on a hundred things at once.  One or two things accomplished with stellar results trumps a hundred works in progress every time.  Our network has great ways to find their top one or two priorities, which are included in the report.  We will share what else we learned from our top performers in future posts.

Once we got the focus thing, we wanted to know what the top factors for new product success are so we can help top performers with their most important tasks.  It turns out this is WELL researched.  And all of the research highlights one success factor as MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL OTHER FACTORS COMBINED:

Provide a differentiated solution that provides unique benefits at a superior value to targeted customers.

A.K.A. your Value Proposition.

How fortunate for us that we downloaded the wisdom from one of the world’s top experts in designing winning value propositions already, so we can help with this most important task.  We created to-the-point video training to help you get this most important task right.  We learned that most project teams fall into at least one of six failure traps that derail their new product success.  We help you get around the traps in the training.  You can access the video at

http://www.worksmartvalueprop.com

It is with our coompliments for you, a Top Performer.

(If you were not already one, you would probably be too busy to read about ways of getting better anyway).

The “Sphere of Knowledge” idea referenced in the video came out of our work with the Lead User Research method from Eric von Hippel. After two months of working this model, experts were coming to us for advice on future trends. Knowing what is likely in the future and doing something about it are two different things, however. You still need to determine the implications of trends to your business and devise solutions that make those implications favorably impact your business.

Trend Implications Worksheet

This tool, from iCanPilot’s Reinvent Your Business Model project software, helps you get to the “So What?” of mapping trends to get to the payoff for your business.

Enjoy your trend hunt. Please comment on your trend mapping experience so we can learn from you as well.
iCanPilot helps you Work Smarter for Better Business Results.

Read the full story in the article below.

What is common practice is that you spend a week in a class getting all revved up about new ideas that will help you work smarter. Then you get back to your desk at the end of class to play catch up on the 500 e-mails, 50 voicemails, and a line of traffic out your door. Three weeks later most people have retained only 15% of what they have learned if they are lucky according to a study by the Research Institute of America. In the end less than 10% of what is learned ever gets put into practice according to another study by the American Society of Training and Development. It looks like a great time to shift common practice. The funny thing is, when “training doesn’t take” the typical reaction is to bring in a different training class. Hmmm.

Learning and development departments do have a worthy goal that makes sense for you to embrace yourself: improve the human capacity and capability of the workforce. Have you noticed that you are expected to accomplish more with the same number of hours in a day? All in the name of improving productivity, workforce reduction to improve the bottom line, etc. And Albert Einstein reminded us that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same things and expect a different result. So you have little choice than to improve your work capacity and skills capability if you want to remain gainfully employed. And most of what you learn sitting in a class goes right into the ethers. Now what do you do?

Performance support systems are one way that training is moving “to the moment of need.” This means while you are sitting at your desk biting your nails over how to wrestle with a business issue, you can call up a magic Genie of sorts that guides you through solving the problem. These systems have been in use for a while to help users of new I.T. systems navigate their way and customer service reps access the correct help information to address customer issues. iCanPilot offers a unique approach to providing a team performance support system for critical marketing and strategy activities such as designing your value proposition or innovating your business model. These systems support you during the 95% of your work life – while you are doing your job. And isn’t that when you learn the most anyway, when you are DOING something new?

The authors of a book I highly recommend, Influencer, remind us that practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. If you want to improve your work capacity and skills capability, here are a few tips to consider in the pursuit of remaining gainfully employed:

1. Use your 5% training time to seek out best practices or effective examples of a subject you are committed to improve. The best examples have been researched and compared to ineffective examples so the few critical winning behavior traits are now transparent.
2. Compare your current behavior to the winning behavior and highlight changes you will make.
3. Take action. The book Influencer provides six strategies to make change inevitable by addressing the motivational and ability factors that help you or get in the way.

iCanPilot and other effective performance support systems already provide the best practice in a format that is ready for you to implement, so you can jump to step 3 once you have found the right program. You need to add the motivation, however, and the ability to execute. You will be an un-common practitioner to consciously leverage the 95% of time you are working to learn and develop your capabilities. This sounds like the type of employee any company would want to keep around.

iCanPilot’s mission is to help you Work Smarter.

Companies who embark on innovating their business model typically want to make more money – both top and bottom line. Your team can come up with a plethora of ideas to grow your revenue in a fun, one hour session. Start with a small team that knows your business well and ask them each to guess the answers to these five questions:

1. How big is the size of the market we are able to serve with our current solution (number of potential accounts)?
2. For this market, what percent of purchasers are aware we exist as a solution to their needs?
3. Of those purchasers who are aware of us, what percent actually consider buying from us?
4. Of those purchasers who consider us, what % of accounts do we win?
5. What is the typical revenue we earn each year from a single customer?

Once the team has offered their individual answers, drive to a consensus value that is fairly accurate. You can use the marketing tool at the link below to see an example and to capture your team’s responses and calculate revenue:

Revenue Calculation tool

After you click on the link, go to Menu, then the Resources tab, and download the Project Workbook.  Then you will have the worksheet tools as well as the facilitator to take your team through this exercise.  (This is a small part of the Reinvent Your Business Model software from iCanPilot.)

Your revenue equation is

Revenue = Market Size x %Awareness x %Consideration x %Win Rate x Average (median) Annual Order Size

If you usually fog over when you see a mathematical equation, no worries. You determined the numbers for each of the variables to the right of = in your team exercise above. If multiplying your responses comes up with a number that is wildly off from your actual revenue, then go find some better guessers J.

Now is where the fun begins. The key to your growth is in how you consider each of these variables.

Market Size: how satisfied are you with this number? If you think it should be bigger, can you change your solution to appeal to a broader market than you currently serve? Can you identify a new market that needs what you offer? If so, put together a plan for how you will reach and serve them.

Awareness Rate: if this number is below 50%, you have some marketing to do. What can you do to let more people in your current market know you exist as an option?

Consideration Rate: this is where brand building can really pay off. Of purchasers that know your business, how can you get more trusting you enough to consider doing business with you? Word of mouth from existing customers can help tremendously with awareness and consideration rate because of their built in endorsement.

Win Rate: who wins the competitive wrestling match most often? A won-lost debrief after each bid or proposal is a great way to identify ways to improve this. I recommend outsourcing or using a survey to get at real reasons for losing if possible. Your win rate is affected by the skills of your sales person, quality of your product, reputation of your service, flexibility to one up your competitors, to name a few. A tip for those smart enough to follow up on lost bids – I have had customers say they were so impressed with my follow up after losing that they put me back on their consideration list for next time, and I learned how I can do better, all at the same time.

Annual Order Size: how can you raise this number? Focus on more lucrative accounts? Drive faster repeat business?

If you have gotten into your brainstorming, you now have flipcharts full of ideas to consider. Pick the most promising and make it happen in 2011.

iCanPilot’s mission is to help you Work Smarter.

When you are deciding whether that new flat panel television you are eyeing up is worth the money, how do you decide? Well, it depends. (yeah for all of the engineers who have given me that answer to EVERY question I have asked over the years!).

Do you have a flat panel tv right now and are hoping for a better viewing angle or image quality?

Are you not that in to tv so still have your old black and white 13 inch picture tube that has worked just fine when you need it?

Are you thinking about putting a tv in a space that doesn’t have one now in your house?

When you have to decide the value of purchasing something, you compare the new choice to your best alternative.

This could be a competitive product: If you have a Vizio flat panel now, you may want to check out the Sony’s and see what you get for more money.

It could be a substitute equivalent: If you don’t watch much tv and are in the market for home entertainment, Sirius radio may catch your eye (or ear).

Or the comparative alternative could be nothing: You don’t have a similar product now and are evaluating whether you need one at all.

When your customers decide whether your product is worth buying, they may be comparing from one of these three different scenarios too. When your value proposition falls on deaf ears with customers, it could very well be that you are touting that you are superior to a competitive option that they don’t even consider.

As part of iCanPilot’s project software to help you design your value proposition, we help you think through what the Best Alternative or Substitute Equivalents may be. Start with what the top choices are for each of the three scenarios. Then make sure you understand, why did customers make the current choice they have? That is an eye opener and a great brainstorming and research activity for your team. If you would like to use our software to do this exercise with your team, we have even made a free web-streamed version for your use. You can request it here or sign in on our blog to get the web link and instructions for use.

Just like you compare whether you need something new to what you already have to do the job, so do your customers. Taking 15 minutes to determine how your customers decide if you are worth it can make a world of difference for your business success.

Every sustainable business has core competencies that make it superior to competitors for a given target market.  Do you know what yours are?  Are you adding to them so you remain superior?  Trying to adopt your competitor’s core competencies is a recipe for bankruptcy.  As Einstein suggests, find your own genius to exploit if you want to be successful.

iCanPilot worked with expert Kay Plantes to create Reinvent Your Business Model software based on her work transforming clients’ businesses over the last 20 years.  You can access an exercise from the software that helps you identify and assess your core competencies.  Watch the video for more background.

Brainwriting_Sheets.pdf

iCanPilot_Core_Competencies.xls

The most significant responsibility of business leaders is to manage your core competencies.  Managing the current operations pays the bills and keeps the lights on.  Managing your core competencies keeps you in business.