(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)
Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:
- My Biz Quote of the week:
“Life is free research…but only if you’re paying attention. Are you really paying attention to your customers, your team, your competitors, your market and your suppliers?”
…Donald Cooper.
- Quick Biz Tip:
How do you see your job?
As a leader or manager, how you see your job matters. Is your job to come up with all the good ideas…or to mentor and encourage your Team to come up with great ideas and then empower and help them to implement those ideas?
- Fun Fact: Mongolian Warlord Genghis Khan (13th Century) is believed to have fathered between 1,000 and 3,000 children. About 16 million people globally carry his DNA today.
- How much Life Insurance do you need? Manulife Financial Corp, founded in 1887 and now Canada’s largest Insurance company, has just sold a US$300 million Life Insurance Policy to a billionaire in Singapore. This is a new world record.
- When you gotta go, you gotta go…but not on the roadside. Urinating along the roadside is illegal in Canada and in all 50 US States and can carry a fine of $50 to $500.
- AI Update:
Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, says that AI is now writing “much of the code” at his company. Amodei has also predicted that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years.
Who is the ‘go-to’ AI expert or team in your business?
Now, to this week’s important topic:
Be intentional…never attend a Business Conference or Trade Show without a Plan and a List
I’ve spoken at 1,000s of Management Conferences and Industry Trade Shows over the past 30 years. What I’ve noticed is that most folks attend these events, at considerable expense, but without a specific Plan for, or List of, what they want or need to accomplish. They mostly just wander around in the faint hope that something important and useful will accidently leap out and stick to them.
So, here’s my suggestion. Be much more intentional. Never attend a Trade Show or Business Conference without a Plan and a List. A few weeks before the event, sit down and make a List of 4 or 5 things that you need to do better in your business.
Then, phone the folks organizing the event, or check with a few sharp industry suppliers, and ask them who might be attending the event, who doesn’t compete directly with you, and who has absolutely ‘nailed’ one of the specific areas of management, technology, customer value, creating extraordinary experiences, merchandising, marketing, social media, staffing, inventory control, margin improvement, succession & exit, etc with which you need help.
Next, phone or email those folks, introduce yourself and tell them that you’ve been informed by person X that they’ve done amazing things in the area of XXXX. Ask them if you could meet them at the event, buy them a beer, lunch or a milk shake and have just 15 minutes of their time to ask a few specific questions about how they went about getting so good at XXXX.
Show up with 3 or 4 specific questions and be respectful of their time. Often folks will give you much more time and insight than you asked for because they’re kind, passionate and flattered by your interest and respect.
Finally, send a follow-up ‘thank you’ and offer to be helpful to them when the opportunity comes up.
If it’s a Trade Show that you’ll be attending, what do you need to focus on that will give you a product or service competitive advantage? What are the latest trends? What product groups do you need to know more about? What industry service providers could give you a competitive, efficiency or profitability advantage?
These few steps, diligently executed, will dramatically change the value that you take home from any Management Conference or Trade Show. Be intentional and do your homework!
That’s it for this week…
Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!
Donald Cooper
Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability. He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.
