Dan Lok

How To Become A Billionaire by Dan Peña

August 24, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

How do you become a billionaire? My mentor, Dan Peña, known as The Trillion Dollar Man, tells us to stop blaming family, economics, and circumstances. If you want to become a billionaire, Dan Pena says it’s easier now than 50 years ago, but our snowflake generation must do the one thing that prevents success.

By snowflake, we’re not talking about the stuff that falls from the sky and melts in your hand in the winter. What we’re talking about is mental toughness. To give you some perspective, Dan Peña was the kid at school who got beat up… and who beat other people up. That molded him into the high achiever he is today… which the missing trait from most people.

Now, as a high performance coach who can take a mentee’s income from seven figures to eleven, he’ll cut straight to the point with brutal honesty about why you’re not successful, and he won’t hold back from calling you names. It’s how he shows tough love, believe it or not.

Dan once told fans at a show, “If I leave here with anybody liking me, I’ve failed.” He truly believes in helping people, and he’ll drag you across the finish line. He believes you have the potential to be a millionaire or a billionaire. But he won’t be your friend.

It was my deep respect for him when I was a young kid in my twenties that motivated me to seek him out as my mentor, to take my business to the next level. When you choose someone to be your mentor, you want someone much more successful than yourself.

He was high-performance, but he believes most people these days are not high-performance. It’s why they fall short of their own expectations, and why he overcame a violent and tough past to become a highly sought after mentor.

I’ve only had three mentors in my whole life, and he’s only the second, because I’m very selective about who I choose as mentors. However, asking him to become my mentor wasn’t easy.

Who Is Dan Peña?

Dan Pena wasn’t someone you could just call up, book an appointment, and pay to coach you about business. He was the recipient of many awards. The Теllу Аwаrdѕ, Јоhn Rеgаn Аwаrd, Маn оf thе Yеаr Аwаrd and Іnѕріrаtіоnаl Lеаdеrѕhір Аwаrd.

He has names like “The Trillion Dollar Man”. Many people wonder about his net worth.

What Is Dan Pena Worth?

It’s believed he’s worth a trillion because of his business ventures, position as CEO of various corporations, book sales, and the Quantum Leap Advantage coaching program that creates billions of dollars in revenue for his mentees. Many say his Trillion Dollar name is from the Trillion dollar value he gives to his mentees.

Learning from Dan Pena is not the usual experience where you go to training at a hotel or conference centre. He lives in, and teaches his mentees in a 15th century castle, called Guthrie Castle.

He was the founder and CEO of various companies including Great Western Resources Inc and Guthrie Group, named after the castle. Before that, he worked in real estate, and before that, he was in the military to reset the disastrous path he was on in his youth.

The Reason For Dan Pena’s High-Performance

He grew up with a father who set the bar low, and just wanted his son to stay alive. Dan exceeded those expectations, but in a different way. He threatened to kill a teacher and was expelled not just from the school, but from the entire school district.

Over the years, he was the one being beaten up and beating up others. He ended up in jail five times before he finally changed the direction of his life and served in the US Army before going to college.

When you compare these two phases of his life, you wouldn’t have expected a ex-jailbird to become a mentor of billionaires. His past shaped him as a person and hardened him to set a high bar for performance. And if you challenge him, expect an answer like a battle cry.

Dan Pena doesn’t know what fear is. The discipline he learned in the military, and his experience in real estate and business became the foundation for the Quantum Leap Advantage.

It’s a methodology to teach people to develop that level of toughness that creates massive profits. His mentees include Brian Rose of London Real and dating coach Jason Capital, who describe their QLA experience as “shock and awe” and “brutal”.

Dan Pena at a Quantum Leap Advantage Seminar.

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA)

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) is a system to increase wealth that is for everyone and also not for everyone. What does this mean, and what do you learn in the QLA exactly? It’s been called the “week long extravaganza” at Guthrie Castle, and people who have taken the seminar have grown from 7 to 11 figures in their business.

What Is The QLA?

The system is about geometrically growing your wealth, starting with no money. Dan Peña developed this proven formula that has 40 years of success. Since 1993, Dan has coached and mentored thousands and created multi-millionaires.

The QLA is not for everyone in the sense that not everyone can afford the price tag to learn from Dan Pena in person. But it’s also a system open to anyone who wants to learn – all the video presentations from the seminar are available free and online.

So what’s the catch? If you can watch episodes of the Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) seminars at Guthrie Castle and read information about the seminar on his website for free, why aren’t most of us billionaires already?

First, to be successful, you need to change your expectations, realign your goals and redefine your comfort zone. Not everyone likes to stare into the abyss and face their darkest fears about themselves. Not everyone wants to get uncomfortable and change old habits, even if those changes will raise them to a whole new income level.

Second, they need to empty their cup and commit to learning a new way of thinking. The QLA, the one you find on Dan’s website, showcases several audio and video presentations. The issues that Dan addresses in these seminars are the most critical issues in the business community.

Some of the topics covered in Dan’s QLA are the myths, lies and misinformation fed to us for years from success gurus; the importance of hanging out with like-minded people who are also high-performance; and how you can maintain a laser-beam like focus. He also talks about high self-esteem and its role in how much wealth you accumulate.

What Are The QLA Steps To Success?

To achieve success, there are seven steps to follow:

The QLA methodology (7 Steps to Super Success)

Creating your personal foundation for success
Clarify your vision – are you crystal clear?
Building the perception – perception is reality
Creating your dream team in business and life
Your quantum leap action plan
Pay yourself
Creating your exit strategy

Third, people who really do want to change their lives and reach a new income level, will. Dan’s business advice about how to dominate your industry, and create winning leverage and massive profits, show his mentees how to set up their business to achieve the results they need.

Dan Pena’s own story is proof that what he teaches can be achieved. He started the company Great Western Resources Inc with $820, a phone, and a leased fax machine in the spare bedroom of his home. In eight years, he turned it into a $450,000,000 empire ($1,000,000,000 in today’s dollars).

This level of success was why I wanted Dan Pena as my mentor, but he didn’t want me as his mentee. Not at first. I called his receptionist on a daily basis, not giving up, until she knew me by my voice… and until Dan finally agreed to meet with me.

Guthrie Castle

My QLA Experience At Guthrie Castle

It was 2003 when Dan Peña said “No” to mentoring me. But I was persistent, calling his office daily until he finally agreed to meet with me in L.A. and have breakfast there. That was the beginning of my transformation.

I wasn’t the TEDx speaker in the trademark red suit back then. At the time, I was a young kid with glasses, wearing an oversized, cheap suit. Dan met with me for two hours, asking me many questions as if I were the VIP because I was doing most of the talking. Then I gave him a gift that he has treasured for 15 years.

It was symbolic. The frog on a stone was a symbol from QLA training meaning that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. It’s an allusion to the fairytale, The Frog Prince, about a princess’s kiss transforming a frog into a prince. My life was transformed from my experience at Guthrie Castle.

The QLA Seminar At Guthrie Castle

Dan Pena’s QLA seminar was not like the motivational, business, or marketing seminars that I had attended in the past. None of those came close to my week-long “Castle Experience”. I called it the Quantum Leap in my personal and business life.

To start with, I felt very uncomfortable in that environment. At the time, I was still sharing a one-bedroom apartment with my mom in Canada. I could barely afford the price tag for the flight to the castle and the training. But I could see how the environment was crucial for the transformation to occur.

When you are at the castle, you are surrounded by wealth triggers. There were antiques. Crystal glasses. Large, beautifully furnished rooms. When you are surrounded by wealth, it triggers wealth. And that’s what made me uncomfortable.

I wasn’t used to living in such extravagance. But it was there that I learned many valuable lessons, including why some people who study the QLA don’t become billionaires. It depends on each person’s desire to achieve what they want.

I used to think I was working hard by putting in 10 to 14 hour days, but I realized after QLA that I wasn’t. After a seminar day that ended at around 6 or 7 pm, I found my mentor working in his office. He told me, kids these days aren’t high-performance. “Kids can’t even spell high performance.”

One of the reasons the “kids” in the current generation (at 71, Dan Pena is old enough to be a father or grandfather to most people), won’t become millionaires or billionaires is they aren’t raised the way they used to be.

Dan Pena shows me the frog I gave him as a gift during a Boss In The Bentley episode.

The Snowflake Generation

Dan Peña says that we have a snowflake generation, and he isn’t referring to how every snowflake is unique. It means the new generation melts under pressure.

They aren’t used to being held accountable. In fact, they now have “safe spaces” where they can go to chill out if they are feeling stressed. This high degree of protection won’t help them to become stronger when under stress.

Lacking High Performance

They don’t realize that the more you suffer, the more stress, and the more stress, the more success. Nothing great is ever achieved with little effort.

We have changed from Dan’s generation. For example, in a soccer game for kids today, there are no winners. It’s about participation in sports. But that’s not realistic. When you have a job at a car dealership or at a bank, you don’t get rewarded just for showing up.

The problem is, the parents of these kids weren’t conditioned for high-performance, and now we have a generation of people who are also not trained for high-performance. The exception would be kids of world class, gold medalist athletes, or children of parents from a military background.

A snowflake is a kid that melts under pressure, not because they lack education. They lack leadership. Dan Pena remembers being shut into a closet when he misbehaved, and he was left there until the school day was over. He doesn’t regret the experience. He says it made him tougher.

The Snowflake Test

If you’re wondering if you’re a snowflake, there is a snowflake test on Dan Pena’s website. The original snowflake test asks questions such as

Outside of standard benefits, what benefits should a company offer employees?
What should the national minimum wage be?
How often should employees get raises?
How do you feel about guns?
When was the last time you cried and why?
What are your feelings about safe spaces in challenging work environments?

Some of these questions are meant to make you uncomfortable. Dan Pena was never uncomfortable with making people uncomfortable. He once said, “If you like me at the end of this talk, then I did something wrong. Love is great, but I don’t need it. Respect will do.”

He is a firm believer in the saying, “What gets measured gets accomplished.” If we’re uncomfortable with change, if we melt under stress, we won’t be able to set goals and accomplish them.

Also, we must set our goals higher than our goals. If our goal is to become a millionaire, then we’ll never become millionaires. If our goal is to become billionaires, we will never become billionaires, and next, I’ll explain why.

Snowflakes melt under pressure.

Making Your First 100 Million

We only change for two reasons. Desperation or inspiration. If we want to be high performance, then we must have high self-esteem. High self-esteem will get you to your first million if your goal is to make 100 million. Self-esteem will get you to your first 100 million if your end goal is to make a billion.

Books On Entrepreneurship

Here’s why. Many people teach you how to become a successful entrepreneur. You’ll find books in bookstores about the mechanics of starting and selling a business. You’ll even find books about the drier aspects of a business, such as tax issues, business plans, and writing letters of intent. Good “how-to” information that’s also useful if you’re having trouble falling asleep.

Dan Peña wrote Your First 100 Million because he noticed when he was teaching the Quantum Leap Advantage seminars that key points were missing in most books that teach you how to grow your wealth.

Quantum Leap Advantage

None of these other books teach you how to prepare your mind for becoming super successful. They don’t teach you how to adjust your perspective “just slightly” to make the Quantum Leap to make millions of dollars over and over again.

If you want to make your first 100 million, you need to make some sacrifices. The price for super success means long hours, waking up early, not spending time with friends and family, missing their birthdays, and taking risks because you’re willing to aim for bigger goals.

A high performance person is prepared to deal with failure and the lessons that come with it. They can’t anticipate everything that will happen, and if they think they can, then they won’t be. The best plans don’t follow a script.

Dan Pena says that, “The truly successful high performer understands that the strategies and skills which he marshaled to generate the first Quantum Leap can be called upon to repeat that success over and over. That’s why he doesn’t hang onto this first venture like some sort of corporate teddy bear. He is secure enough in his abilities to build it up,then sell it off for a bundle. And start the process over again.”

Watch this video on making your first billion.

How To Make A Billion Dollars

What’s the difference between making a million dollars and making a billion dollars? When you’re thinking about becoming a millionaire, you’re focused on the dollar amount. You will never succeed beyond your highest expectations.

Parents want their kids to be better than them. If they are one level above poverty, that means their kids will be two levels above poverty. If they want their kids to be millionaires, then the kids must desire to become multi-millionaires. Dan says he now seen teenagers who have studied the QLA methodology who are now millionaires flying around in jet planes.

Becoming a millionaire is a high possibility, even for teens. But how do you become a billionaire? Statistics show that there are over 2000 billionaires in the world today, with self-made billionaires making up 67 percent of them. There are now more billionaires than at any time in history.

One billion dollars is a significant number. People have asked, if you have that much money, what can you buy for a billion dollars?

You can buy the L.A. Lakers or the Chicago Cubs if you like sports. Or, if you like cars, you can get a 1963 Ferrari GTO and still have a bit left over. And if you like to travel, you can buy the Solomon Islands, or a round trip to the moon.

I once asked my mentor why some people take QLA and see tremendous results and others don’t improve. I’ve seen this happen with my own mentees. Dan Peña says the answer is implementation. If you don’t implement what you learn, if you don’t take action, you won’t become a millionaire… or a billionaire.

So if you want to make a billion dollars, the main difference to go from millionaire to billionaire is to be passionate about what you do.

Dan Pena says, “Find something that you love. Find something that can change a billion lives… you make a billion lives better…and the odds have become geometrically better for you to become a billionaire.”

Final Thoughts on Dan Peña’s Advice On How To Become A Billionaire

Dan Pena is an accomplished high-performance business coach who has moved his mentees from 7 to 11 figures in their businesses. His tough upbringing and time in the U.S. Army gave him the discipline to reach billionaire status.

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) is a business system that he developed from his own business experience. Unlike other methodology, it also teaches you the mindset and focus you need for a high level of success.

The Snowflake Generation is the new generation of people who melt under pressure. They weren’t brought up with expectations of high performance and they can’t handle stress.

Making Your First 100 Million teaches you about the price for success and is based on the seminars from QLA.

How To Make A Billion Dollars is a question many ask themselves because it is easier now than 50 years ago to become a billionaire. The goal is achievable if you set your goal higher than your goal, and you are passionate about helping billions of people.

Photo credits: Photo / CC BY-SA 4.0

Jon Snow’s Top 9 Rules For Success And Leadership

August 20, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Photo credits: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com

Do you think you know more than Jon Snow? If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, I’m sure you remember one of the most quoted phrases from the show: “You know nothing, Jon Snow”. In actuality, Jon Snow knows a lot – especially when it comes to success and leadership. In fact, there are a plethora of valuable leadership lessons we can learn from Jon Snow.

Game of Thrones was – and still is – one of the most massively successful shows of all time, and Jon Snow’s character is one of the most revered characters on the show. But what exactly made Jon Snow such a beloved leader? This fictional character won our hearts because he lead with his heart, and demonstrated what a true and noble leader looks like.

Jon Snow showed us that leadership is earned. A great leader paints a picture of hope while also having a clear mission that he believes in. Snow also had the best intentions for the people, and he was not power-hungry. People naturally wanted to follow Jon Snow, and the fact that power was not his goal made him an even more attractive leader. He was different than all the other power-hungry Kings and Queens vying for the throne who did not have good intentions for the people. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato said, “Those who seek power are not worthy of that power.” Perhaps this is one of the philosophies behind why the people deemed Jon Snow worthy of ruling.

But what about you? Why do you respect Jon Snow’s leadership style? It’s natural for fans to use popular fictional characters as inspiration for real-life decisions. But what makes a fictional character from TV or movies become an icon or an inspiration? Is it that they are relatable, and they express the human struggles we all face? Because they are aspirational – that they have the life we want to have? Is it that they are inspirational – they demonstrate the qualities we wish to have? I think it’s a combination of all three, and Jon Snow’s character captured all of these qualities.

It’s popular belief that one of the most powerful and defining traits of Jon Snow was his astounding natural leadership abilities. Game of Thrones fans first meet the character as a teenager; Snow is an orphaned Bastard who was taken under the wing of a powerful family. He seemed to have very little power or status. He is sent to The Wall, a place for outcasts, misfits, and nobodies to serve, keeping watch for everyone else’s benefit. Over the seasons of the hit series, we watched Jon Snow evolve from a powerless outcast to a commanding leader.

Against all odds, he was able to gather people to support his cause, draw power away from more established leaders, and inspire people to follow him and risk their lives for him. Jon Snow was a leader for the right reasons. He lead with his heart and had a clear mission. His core values of loyalty, honesty, courage, compassion, resilience, forgiveness, humility, and patience combined to make him the type of leader that we can all aspire to be.

So what exactly are Jon Snow’s rules for success and leadership? I’m going to tell you about the 9 qualities that made Jon Snow a great leader, so that you can follow his example:

1. Lead With Your Heart and Do Not Judge

Where do you lead from – your head, or your heart? Perhaps you think of a leader as being a calculating mastermind, weighing every decision with a purely rational analysis. But you would be wrong. To lead with your full potential, you need to lead with your heart.

What does it mean to lead with your heart? It means that you are able to put aside some of your judgements and snap decisions, and to look at people with an open heart and a generous spirit. It means that you see the potential in people. This is what Jon Snow did: he didn’t judge his friends, comrades, or allies by their claims and resumes alone. He saw them not just for who they are, but also for who they could be.

It’s your job as a leader to believe in people and help them realize their potential. It’s your job to see beyond appearances, and see their promise. Click To Tweet

We can’t underestimate this ability: when you really believe in your team and show them you do, it will increase their belief in themselves. This in turn will cultivate the growth of their skills and increase their output. Being a stern leader or a disciplinarian alone won’t get you these results. You have to see the potential of each team member.

Lead With Your Heart - Infographic: pic.twitter.com/SYpaCTCHTI Click To Tweet

As a leader, it is your job to identify the seeds of success in those under you, and to help them cultivate their abilities and grow towards their maximum potential. There are team members who might be operating at a B level who you can bring up to an A level by motivating them, coaching them, training them, and believing in them.

Your belief in the abilities of those you are leading has a direct influence on their belief in themselves. And in order to operate at their full potential, they must believe in themselves. Click To Tweet

When you lead with your heart and believe in your employees, you will inspire them at an emotional level. This will increase team bonding, morale and loyalty. When they know you believe in them, they will be grateful and want to do their best work for you.

As their leader, your support, your positive feedback, and your belief in their abilities can change their self-concept and self-esteem. They will then produce results that match this higher self-concept. Open your heart and mind to what your team members might be capable of, and watch as they grow to impress and surprise not only you, but also themselves.

2. Your Title Doesn’t Make You a Leader

In Game of Thrones, the people believed in Jon Snow and followed him even though he didn’t have any sort of official title or claim to power. Jon Snow didn’t have a royal title or royal ties, but he was extremely passionate and sincere. He was driven by a mission, and people believed in his cause. A good leader like Jon Snow has a great mission that they believe in, and people who naturally want to follow them.

I believe that a great leader leads without a title. Having the title of “President” or “CEO” does not automatically make you a good leader, and you can actually be a great leader without any sort of official title.

If you do have a commanding title, don’t expect it to hold much weight. Sure, you might have an authoritative title, but if nobody follows you and nobody respects you, you aren’t a good leader. That’s why your title doesn’t really matter that much.

3. Accept That You Don’t Know Everything

In business, you can’t do it all yourself. You can’t know everything – that’s what your team is for. In order to grow and be successful, you need to hire talented people and delegate. As a leader, it’s crucial to be able to spot great talent, and empower those talented individuals on your team to make decisions, contribute solutions and execute the vision.

You don’t want to be the most knowledgeable or the most skilled person on your team.

What you want is for different people on your team to possess different skill sets so that your team’s combined knowledge becomes a force to be reckoned with. Click To Tweet

A great leader finds team members who know what they don’t know, and they’ll fill knowledge gaps this way. You don’t have to be an expert at everything – that’s why you hire experts in various fields.

Jon Snow didn’t really “know nothing”. He knew a lot, but he was also humble enough to accept that he didn’t know everything. He was aware of what he didn’t know and who he needed to consult with or delegate to.

A humble leader like Jon Snow will accept that they don’t know everything, and also accept that they will make mistakes. Jon Snow made lots of mistakes, but he learned from his failures, and he grew from those mistakes.

As a leader, accepting that you don’t know everything aligns with an understanding that different people on your team might have different perspectives on how to solve a problem. Someone on your team might have a completely different perspective than you on an issue, but your job is to keep an open mind that they might be right, and you might be wrong.

When Jon Snow says, “We look up at the same stars and see such different things” he demonstrates his deep understanding of how different people have different perspectives.

4. Don’t Be a Lone Wolf: Form Strategic Alliances

Instead of being a lone wolf, form intelligent alliances and unite your allies towards a common goal.

One of the rules of success and leadership is that you not only have to accept that you don’t know everything, you also have to accept that you can’t do everything. Click To Tweet

That’s right: you simply can’t do everything by yourself. Great leaders collaborate with others and share knowledge, resources and strategies because great leaders understand that two heads are better than one, three heads are better than two, and so on and so forth. As Jon Snow would say, “I need you with me if we’re going to beat them.”

A lone wolf can still be successful, but a lone wolf will have a much more challenging journey towards success. For example, a lone wolf often focuses too much on their competition. They’re too narrow-minded. The lone wolf often thinks about how to beat competitors, instead of thinking about collaborating with their competitors.

If all you focus on is how to beat the competition, you won’t be a good leader.

Instead of thinking about how to crush your competitors, think about how you can benefit from working with them. Click To Tweet

You could cross-promote, share customer bases, share resources, and create strategic alliances.

5. Lead With Integrity: Have Strong Ethics and Morals

Jon Snow is a leader who has a strong moral compass, plenty of empathy and good sense of ethics. One of Jon Snow’s famous quotes is, “When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything.” I love this quote because I think staying true to your word is incredibly important in business and in leadership.

I believe that integrity is very simple: You do what you say you’re going to do. You follow through. If for some reason you can’t do what you said you were going to do, at least have the decency to communicate this from an honest and moral position.

If you lead with integrity and keep your promises, you’ll protect the reputation of your business. Click To Tweet

People often make false promises in the business world to get ahead. When you do that, your customers and team members lose faith and lose morale. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t promise more than you can deliver. It’s better to underpromise and over-deliver.

6. Lead By Example

A successful leader knows they cannot just talk the talk – they have to walk the walk. If you have a clear mission and clear core values for your brand, you must demonstrate those core values at all times. Lead by example by living and breathing those core values.

Jon snow put himself out there, fought for what be believed in, walked the walk, and showed those that followed him that he was willing to fight for his mission because he truly believed in it. He also showed his followers that he was willing to make great sacrifices for his mission, which is why his people in turn sacrificed as well.

When you’re a leader, you can show courage by stepping out of your office, getting out from behind your desk, and leading by example. You can’t always sit at your desk and delegate. Sometimes you have to get up from your desk and show them how it’s done.

7. Be Driven By Your Mission, Not By Your Ego

A great leader is mission-driven, not ego-driven. That’s why having a mission statement is so important. Having a clear mission gives your people something to get behind. Your mission statement is how you communicate to your team – and to the world – what your company is about. Your mission isn’t about making money, it’s about making a difference.

Businesses will stay small if the business owner thinks too small, and is only driven by their own ego or only driven by money. Ego-driven leaders won’t be successful in motivating anyone, and they won’t attract top-tier talent either.

People want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and be driven by an inspiring mission or purpose. Click To Tweet

Do you think you are going to attract the right people with the right intentions if you have no mission to attract them with, other than making money or gaining power?

Remember that Jon Snow never wanted power for the sake of power, which made him a better leader because he’s not ego-driven or power hungry – he just wanted to lead for his cause.

8. Know What Battles Aren’t Worth Fighting

Perhaps you remember when Jon Snow said to Ygritte, “Six times you’ve invaded, and six times you’ve failed. The seventh will be the same.” Snow then says, “You don’t have the discipline. You don’t have the training. Your army is no army. You don’t know how to fight together.”

What is the lesson here? It’s good to believe in your vision, but it’s also good to know when your strategy isn’t working. This way, you can either decide that it’s a battle not worth fighting, or you can decide to change your strategy and change your approach. You have to be flexible enough to pivot and come up with a new approach, or decide not to fight a battle you know you’ll lose.

Successful leaders pick their battles and know which battles aren’t worth fighting. They also know when to let go of a strategy that won’t get them there.

Keep your goal – your mission – as your North Star, but be willing to give up on fighting certain battles that aren’t worthwhile. Imagine you are in a ship heading towards your North Star. What currents and storms do you really need to fight to get there? Can you recognize when it is wiser to avoid the storm, change course and find another route that will get you to your destination? Can you recognize when it’s best to abandon a sinking ship?

9. Fearlessly Make Tough Decisions

As a leader your team counts on you to make tough decisions during tough times. These decisions aren’t always going to be pleasant or easy to make. Something like the decision to end a partnership or letting go of an employee won’t be easy, but if it’s what’s best for the business, perhaps it must be done.

A great leader must get comfortable being uncomfortable. If you want to be liked by everyone and you don’t want to rock the boat, you won’t be a good leader.

In Game of Thrones, Jon Snow stands by his decisions, even when his advisors are against his decision. His character says things like, “It is my decision, and my decision is final!” A famous quote from Jon Snow about making tough decisions is, “Sometimes there is no happy choice, only one less grievous than the others.”

If you want to make the best decisions for your company, know that it might not always be the popular decision. Your leadership skills really get tested when it’s time to make an unpopular decision or cause disruption, because it’s not easy to do.

Not everyone has it in them to make these uncomfortable decisions, and that’s why not everyone has it in them to be a leader.

Summary

Jon Snow was a natural leader because people naturally wanted to follow him. But why? We know that he was an attractive leader because he believed in his mission and was not seeking power. He was authentic and genuine, not power-hungry or ego-driven.

Jon Snow lead with his heart and had a clear mission that reflected his good intentions. His core values of loyalty, honesty, courage, compassion, resilience, forgiveness, humility, and patience combined to make him the type of leader that we can all aspire to be. Below are 9 lessons of leadership and success that we can learn from Jon Snow:

Lead With Your Heart and Do Not Judge
Your Title Does Not Make You a Leader
Accept That You Don’t Know Everything
Form Strategic Alliances – Don’t Be a Lone Wolf
Lead With Integrity: Have Strong Morals and Ethics
Lead By Example
Be Mission-Driven, Not Ego-Driven
Know When a Battle is Not Worth Fighting
Make Tough Decisions

More Rules For Success:

Bruce Lee | Elon Musk | Tony Stark | Jack Ma

TED Talks For Entrepreneurs: 10 Tips On How To Deliver Your Dream Speech

August 3, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

I’ve had the privilege of giving not one, but two TED talks. One is called The Invisible Force, a talk about self image. The other is The Real Difference Between Success and Failure, a motivational speech I gave at SFU, a prestigious local university.

If you’ve been nominated to speak at a TED talks event, what do you do to prepare for it, from working on your speech to the final moments before getting onstage? How do you deliver a rousing speech that moves thousands of people if your greatest nightmare is public speaking? What if you want to rise to the level of confidence and leadership of CEOs, presidents, entrepreneurs, and valedictorians when you speak… but you become tongue-tied when you’re asked a question?

It can happen to anyone. Losing your voice when you wanted to propose. Or breaking out in a sweat when you were presenting an idea at work. Fear of public speaking can become an inconvenient wall that gets thrown in your way.

Approximately 25 percent of people say they experience glossophobia – fear of public speaking – at some point in their lives. But consider the impact this fear can have on a person’s lifetime success with these statistics:

10% impairment on college graduation
10% impairment on wages
15% impairment on promotion to management

That means if your income is $50,000 a year, for example, then an inability to present your ideas at work or communicate clearly in general would reduce your income to $45,000. That’s a difference of $5000. Over a lifetime of shyness, those losses will add up, especially if you’re looking for a promotion.

If overcoming fears of public speaking can significantly change our level of achievement in life, what can we do to start building our confidence?

Most people aren’t born with the ability to deliver polished speeches and presentations. Instead, they make a conscious effort to improve their public speaking skills. A popular method is by joining Toastmasters.

How Toastmasters Improves Public Speaking And Leadership

Joining Toastmasters was a pivotal point in my professional career. I’ve come a long way from hiding in the school bathroom to where I am now. Back then, I couldn’t have taught an all day training in a room packed with a thousand people. I couldn’t have done a TED Talks either.

Back then, my high school teacher gave me an ultimatum: do a speech in front of the class for an assignment, or fail English. I was so overcome by fear, I ran and hid in the bathroom. It was a terrible time in my youth, when I didn’t have friends and I was struggling to speak in English, my second language.

Stronger Public Speaking Skills

I survived that high school speech, and I was introduced to Toastmasters. Their mission is to teach people to become confident communicators. Famous people who have taken their careers to a whole new level and joined Toastmasters include author Napoleon Hill, actor Leonard Nimoy, international consultant Anita Perez Ferguson, athlete Steve Fraser, and astronaut James Lovell.

Toastmasters has locations around the world. At these meetings, you learn how to give different types of speeches, from informative to persuasive, and you learn public speaking tips. For the ultra ambitious, you can compete in local, regional, and worldwide speech competitions.

Imagine reaching that level of competence, when you can give a speech in front of thousands, while the clock is ticking, and judges are taking notes. How would that affect your confidence level if you can remain calm under stress?

Stronger Leadership Skills

The confidence you learn as a presenter transfers to your assertiveness as a leader. Toastmasters teaches public speaking and leadership together because your ability to excel at one is strongly connected to your ability for the other.

According to research, “what you say to an audience isn’t nearly as important as how you say it. Studies suggest that effective presentations are 38% your voice, 55% non-verbal communication, and only 7% your content.” Click To Tweet

Your body language (non-verbal communication) and the tone of your voice have more impact on your listeners than your actual words. Just think about the self assurance and coolheadedness that strong leaders possess. When they speak, people listen, because their posture conveys that authority. They can clearly get their point across to their audience and they can articulate their goals.

Even if you aren’t interested in leadership, strong speaking skills are handy if you want to be an entrepreneur or freelancer. You can communicate to your customers or clients why they should do business with you.

Speaking like a leader has other advantages:

You don’t shy away or “pull back” when you’re making a point about a difficult topic. You don’t say, “This is kind of a tough situation.” The CEO doesn’t “kind of” think they should fire lazy workers. And you don’t “sort of” want an employer to pay you more. State exactly what you want.

You’re always aware of your voice and speech. Some people have a habit of “uptalk” – speaking with a rising vocal inflection at the end of sentences so it sounds like you are always asking questions. The overall impression is you sound unsure of yourself if you use uptalk on a regular basis.

You use the word “but” very carefully because you want to be positive. When a leader says, “Thanks for the feedback, but I think…”, it sounds like the leader doesn’t appreciate the feedback and thinks their opinion is more important. Compare that with “I’ve considered your feedback and still believe in my decision.” The “and” suggests equal weight to both the other person’s feedback and their own feedback.

This level of awareness of your choice of words takes time, especially if you get nervous when speaking in front of others. The only way to really perfect your speaking skills is to practice giving more speeches, even if you feel you’re getting better at doing them.

Dale Carnegie once said,“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” Click To Tweet

10 Tips On How To Deliver Your Dream Speech

“People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

Speech making is a skill you develop, just like exercising regularly to become more fit. Whether you’re pretty confident about your presentation abilities or you’re working at reducing the fear, these 10 tips are the ingredients for a killer presentation.

Tip 1: Outline

A speech must have structure. What is the key theme or idea for your speech? What are the main ideas? You have the first 30 seconds to grab the attention of your audience and keep it. And this is after you’ve passed the first hurdle: people form a first impression about you within 15 seconds.

To capture their attention, decide on a clear goal for your presentation. For example, you’re speaking about growing sales teams for small businesses. One recommendation is to “Start by nailing down your objective. If it’s getting the audience to hire you as a sales consultant, build your speaking topic around five things preventing small sales organizations from scaling.”

Tip 2: Practice Public Speaking

If you feel nervous about presenting in front of people, preparing and practicing will help with your anxiety. Review your notes and learn your points by heart so you won’t have to read. During your speech, maintaining eye contact is important for building a connection.

Practice your speech in front of a small but critical crowd. If they are your friends, ask them for honest feedback, even if it’s harsh. Better to know early on and not when you’re speaking to hundreds of people.

Another option is to videotape yourself speaking. If you think you sound strange, it’s normal. Everyone sounds different than they expected.

To add an extra level of difficulty, practice with distractions. Turn on the TV. Cook a meal. Run on the treadmill. If you can rehearse your speech smoothly despite these distractions, you know your speech well.

Tip 3: Tell a story

Each presentation tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Stories connect with your audience, stir up emotions, and provide a personal touch.

Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

You can start your presentation with a thought-provoking statistic, quotation, or anecdote and end your presentation with a summary and a memorable statement. Another option is to share one surprising, random fact that no one knows.

Tip 4: Keep it simple

Keep your message simple and digestible. People generally only remember 3 main ideas about any presentation after they’ve seen it.

To increase how much your audience will remember, use facts and figures during your speech. But present those numbers in a way that’s engaging and compelling. If you present them well, audience retention increases by 20 percent.

Also, give value to your audience with fresh new insights and strategies. Teach them or inspire them, but don’t come across like your main goal is to pitch them your product or service.

Renowned speaker Simon Sinek commented, “We are highly social animals. Even at a distance onstage, we can tell if you’re a giver or a taker, and people are more likely to trust a giver — a speaker that gives them value, that teaches them something new, that inspires them — than a taker.”

Tip 5: Audience

Learn as much as you can about your audience before the date of your presentation. What you know about them will help you decide on your choice of words and how you motivate them.

If possible, meet with audience members before your speech. Later, you will have some friendly faces to focus on if you’re nervous. As an added bonus, you will be able to share anecdotes that are more relevant to your audience because you took the time to know them more personally.

Some of the questions you want to answer about your audience are:

How many people will be in the audience?
Who is speaking before/after me and on which topics?
Is there a theme for the event?
What level will the audience be in terms of knowledge/experience?
What do you think they’d want to hear about?

If your speech isn’t about a topic that will interest your listeners, then you are wasting their time and yours.

Tip 6: Body language

Non-verbal communication is stronger than verbal, so if you look nervous, that message will be louder and stronger than anything you say. No matter how nervous you feel, project confidence and own the room during your time on stage.

Rob Gilbert advises, take control of your situation. “It’s alright to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.” Click To Tweet

Tip 7: Visuals

Visuals like photos, diagrams, and videos enhance your presentation and bring your key points to life. If possible, put fewer words on the screen and memorize the ideas so you’re doing the majority of the explaining.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association recommends formatting your slides in this way:

Use keywords instead of sentences or paragraphs
Bullet your body copy, using punctuation sparingly
Never use more than eight words per line or eight lines per slide

When optimizing your font for your audience, keep these numbers in mind:

Make your font size double the average age of your audience
Use font between 60 and 80 points for your presentations

When working with technology, you should also create contingency plans. What if your slides fail? What if your projector fails? Have a backup plan so your presentation will flow smoothly even without the visuals.

Tip 8: Personality

Monotony kills speeches. Develop an onstage personality, especially if you don’t have much vocal variety when you normally speak. The second your audience becomes bored, the mobile phones come out to entertain your listeners.

Do something that will make you memorable. Tell a joke if you are good at this and you have a good read on the audience. Otherwise, worst case scenario, your joke could bomb or offend.

Becoming memorable can be as simple as a small detail. I have my trademark red suit.

If your personality shines through and your audience sees you as a real person, you will have an easier time gaining their trust.

Tip 9: Timing and Ending The Presentation

They say, “tell us what you’re going to tell us, tell us, and then tell us what you told us.” Repeat your main message throughout your speech, and especially at the end.

Slow down your speech to emphasize main points. One effective technique is to pause. A TED Talks recommendation is to adjust your pause length. “Pause for two or three seconds and audiences assume you’ve lost your place; five seconds, they think the pause is intentional; after 10 seconds even the people texting can’t help looking up.”

Finally, your audience and the next presenter will love you if you finish on time or early. So when you practice your speech, time it so you end one minute before your allotted time. For example, finish in 5 minutes if you have 6 minutes to speak.

Tip 10: Feedback

Always watch your audience during your presentation. How are they reacting to what you say? Are they excited? Should you move on from a making a point if they’re bored? Adjust your presentation to keep them interested.

If they have a question, answer it. Their questions show they are engaged. As a presenter, you may feel nervous about giving the audience such control. What if they ask something you can’t answer?

However, the other way to look at it is this: your audience wants to know more because you’ve said something that resonates with them. More importantly, interaction with the audience is the mark of an experienced speaker. So if they ask a question, stop and answer it.

Advanced level speakers like the ones who speak at TED are brilliant storytellers who can capture the audience’s attention and maintain it until the end.

How You Can Learn Public Speaking From The Talented Speakers At TED Talks

If Toastmasters is where you train to become a great speaker and leader, TED Talks is where you share your message when you’ve become a confident and talented speaker, ready for the world stage.

It’s a global community where people speak on topics from science to business to global issues… in more than 100 languages. Collectively, TED Talks speakers have won every major prize awarded for excellence, including the Nobel, Pritzker, Fields, Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony and MacArthur “genius” grant.

To speak at TEDx, you can nominate yourself or nominate someone else. TED also seeks out emerging artists, scientists and thinkers, and introduces them to the TED community before they hit the mainstream.

Talks are about 18 minutes long and have even featured speakers under the age of 20. Topics from young speakers and talks from the top 10 most watched discuss themes like community, solutions to problems, motivation, and new perspectives. For example:

“How I harnessed the wind” – William Kamkwamba at the age of 22 shared his story about how he saved his home at the age of 14 by building a windmill

“Yup, I built a nuclear fusion reactor” – Taylor Wilson at the age of 17 gave a talk about a solution to our future energy needs

“How great leaders inspire action” – Simon Sinek gave a presentation about inspirational leadership

“Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model” – Cameron Russell presented a speech about the genetic lottery

How To Prepare To Speak At TED Talks

Time goes by so fast when you’re onstage, connecting with the audience. But before you get there, you need to do a lot of preparation. You need to commit your speech to muscle memory. Here are some points to follow for your TED talks:

Set aside 1 hour of preparation for 1 minute onstage. I set aside 100 hours to prepare a 20 minute speech. (TED speeches are 18 minutes long)
Your preparation time includes script writing, PowerPoint slides, and speech rehearsal.
Write the script, get feedback, and revise again and again.
Remember your mission and why you’re giving this speech. For me it was impacting a million people. Always check back at each revision and ask yourself if your speech is fulfilling your mission.
The day of your speech, do an activity that will get you into the right mindset. I listen to my Attitude of Gratitude audio.
Visualize where you will be giving your speech. Depending on how big the room is, I try my best to mentally touch each chair as if I’m connecting with each person who will be in the audience.
Do a power move before going on stage. The power move will elevate your energy. For example, I might be at a 3 or 4 energy level, then I do my power move, and BOOM, I’m at a 10 before I go on stage.

Watch this video that takes you behind the scenes of a TEDx speaker.

Author and reporter David Epstein said that speaking at TED Talks “forced me to be really sharp with my transitions, and to pick examples that I could explain really succinctly, even if they were not the simplest ideas in the world. With that amount of time, you know you can only make so many points, so you’re forced to make them count.”

Summary

Public speaking is a valuable skill that helps with career and school advancement. Many people are afraid of giving speeches or talking in public, and that fear can hold them back in their professional and personal life.

To improve your presentation skills, practice consistently. Use strategies such as storytelling and visuals to keep your audience interested in what you have to say. Learn as much as you can about your audience before your presentation, and get feedback from them during your presentation to make your speech more engaging.

Joining an organization like Toastmasters can help to improve your speaking skills. If you want to learn from some of the best presenters, watch TED Talks for examples of some of the best storytelling.

“Speech is power. Speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Click To Tweet

How To Influence People

To influence an audience to support your idea, purchase your product/service, or fund your business, you need to master your leadership skills, vocal tonality, and ability to read people.
In this 4-day training, you will learn how to leverage the power of the 4 GEM personality theory to influence others and get more of what you want. Click here to learn more.

How Disney Movies Are Driving Sales And Breaking World Records Using Nostalgia Marketing

August 1, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Is there any feeling more heart-warming than that of settling down to watch one of your favourite Disney movies from childhood? There are two things that might feel even better: Watching a clever and entertaining remake of your favorite childhood classic, and making billions of dollars.

Disney is doing it right, having made over $2 billion off remakes in the first seven months of 2019 alone, with the three live-action remakes of Disney classics released this year. Dumbo grossed over $350 million since its March 2019 release.

May’s remake of Aladdin has grossed over $1 billion, and even features A-list actor Will Smith as the genie. Most recently, July’s The Lion King (a remake of the 1994 classic film) has already grossed a whopping $1 billion in less than 3 weeks.

Did you know that Disney actually broke a world record this year, with their colossal box office sales? Before we get to that, Let’s talk in general terms for a minute.

In general, very few films will ever earn $1 billion at the box office, and yet Disney has already done it four times in 2019 alone. That’s right: The Lion King is Disney’s fourth billion-dollar film this year.

Other Disney films that have grossed $1 billion at the box office this year include Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Disney’s live action remake of Aladdin.

The impressive sales from Disney movie remakes this year is not a fluke. Disney has been thriving on this business strategy of nostalgia marketing for several years now. 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, 2016’s The Jungle Book and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast each earned over $1 billion.

Remember what I said earlier, about how rare it is for any movie to cross that $1 billion mark? It really makes you wonder what Disney’s secret formula is.

In less than a decade, Disney has amassed more than $7 billion in revenue from its remakes of classic Disney movies. Click To Tweet

If you include Disney’s other productions, such as their film adaptations of childhood comics, then Disney has actually amassed over $7 billion at the box office this year alone. It isn’t just the box office where Disney scores, though.

Revenue also streams in from cross-promotion with other brands and through related Disney products such as toys, food, and clothing with trademarked images of popular Disney characters.

Selling a Feeling

Let me ask you something: What do you think the secret to Disney’s success is? You probably already know that successful marketing involves selling a feeling. Lately, it seems like selling the feeling of nostalgia is the path to success. This is what’s known as nostalgia marketing, and believe me, it works.

So, what do products that evoke emotion and nostalgia (such as a remake of a beloved childhood classic) actually accomplish?

These products produce gratifying emotional experiences that drive customer loyalty, positive perceptions of the brand, and lots of purchases.

Nostalgia marketing appeals to our wish to return to an easier, simpler time with less responsibilities and more acceptance. Disney has been capitalizing on this emotional desire by bringing audiences films that connect us to our past while providing a modern spin for novelty and entertainment value.

With Disney looking ahead to a full slate of remakes in the near future, let’s explore why nostalgia marketing is so lucrative, and how this strategy could be used in other industries, by other companies:

Disney: King of the Box Office

The sheer genius of Disney’s marketing strategy is proven in its record-breaking box office sales. The Lion King, released July 19th of this year, was the highest domestic opening for a Disney remake so far, beating out Disney’s past mega-successes like Beauty and the Beast.

Disney didn’t just beat itself – The Lion King was in fact the biggest July film opening of all time. It is no surprise that Disney plans to continue with this strategy of nostalgia marketing.

Remakes in the works include: a sequel to Maleficent coming out later this year, a reboot of Mulan, and then there’s Cruella which is based on the Disney classic 101 Dalmatians set for next year. Remakes of Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, and others are also in progress.

Image Sources: Stumbli.com and Disney.es

Disney is using a brilliant combination of nostalgic stories, celebrity actors and voice actors, and multi-level marketing to soar to the top of the box office.

The strategy of reviving classics works by creating an ongoing relationship of customer loyalty through nostalgia is working.

Audiences want to share these classic and re-made films with others, and re-live these cherished stories and characters through the modern remakes as well as through products and experiences like Disneyland.

Movie remakes pull at the heartstrings of many.

For example, there are Gen X parents who grew up watching the classic versions of these films. Parents will want to bring their children to see the remake, to enjoy a shared experience and show their children the stories they loved as a child.

Millennials, on the other hand, still remember the childhood classics fondly, and they get to re-live it when Disney releases a remake, which is exciting for them.

Some millennials not only watched the original version of the films over and over again as children, but even dressed up as their favorite Disney characters for Halloween, whether they dressed up as Aladdin or Princess Jasmine from Aladdin or Belle from Beauty and the Beast. It doesn’t get much more nostalgic than that.

For younger viewers, these remakes could be their first exposure to the brand and story, and the nostalgic aspect may be lost on them, but they can still be aware of the hype of memory and sentimentality from those who do remember the originals.

In this way, remakes can appeal to multiple generations and be a shared collective experience within families and society.

The key to Disney’s use of nostalgia marketing is that they are doing more than simply repackaging the original movie.

They are creating a modern and engaging new experience with the incredible digital animation technology available today.

And because a little Beyonce makes everything better, Disney’s use of high-profile celebrity actors and voice actors is adding to the hype and excitement.

Sean Bailey, co-President of Disney, told Vulture magazine in 2017 “Maybe if there’s a way to reconnect with that affinity for what those characters mean to people in a way that gets the best talent and uses the best technology, that could become something really exciting. It feels very Disney, playing to the competitive advantages of this label.”

There is no doubt that Disney’s approach is working: the 11 remakes that they have made since 2010 have grossed over 7 billion dollars.

Who Loves Remakes, and Does Anyone Hate Them?

We can imagine that Disney is more than pleased with their profits, but how is the public responding to this slate of remakes? The answer is mixed, because where there is love and excitement, there are always haters as well. Given the box office successes, it is obvious that huge numbers of the population are eager to fork over their hard-earned dollars to see these new reboots.

The movie industry isn’t what it used to be, with the increasing cost of movie tickets and the competition from Netflix and other streaming services, but people seem to be keen on seeing Disney movie remakes in theatres.

Clearly the ticket sales speak to a great deal of public enthusiasm, but why? For many, there is a thrill in getting to see an updated version of a classic, re-imagined with celebrities they know and love as well as eye-popping 3D animation.

So, what are the haters saying?

We can’t acknowledge the enthusiasm without acknowledging the hate, since every brand will have its haters. In Disney’s case, some people are more skeptical about the trend of remakes, seeing it as a cynical ploy by Disney to make easy money by rehashing tested and true stories rather than taking the risk of coming up with new content.

One fan writes about The Lion King remake, “the rhythms of African drums were drowned out by the sound of Disney cashing checks” and later said they were left feeling used for their fandom.

Much of the fan backlash centers around this sense that Disney is being “lazy” and that remakes are just a cash grab. Some disappointed fans on Reddit have complained, ”the lack of new, original ideas is frightening”.

Others have defended Disney, or at least pointed out that the trend of remakes in not surprising, as ”Disney has always been about adapting, not making original content.

This is just them doing what they always have done.” Another Reddit user points out how many classic Disney films like Alice in Wonderland were not original to begin with, and were adaptations of old legends and folktales.

In other words: modernizing, repurposing and enhancing old stories is nothing new for Disney, and it’s indisputable that this strategy works.

Many of Disney’s ‘haters’ still did fork over their money to see the remake simply out of curiosity – and therefore added to Disney’s profits. Go figure.

Image Sources: HellHorror.com and iMDB.com

The Role of Emotion in Your Purchasing Decisions

Let’s talk about emotion, and the role it plays in your decision to actually make a purchase. When you make a decision to buy a product, or to buy a ticket to see a film in theatres, what do you think influences your decision-making process?

Many of us see ourselves as being rational actors, making our choices from a thoughtful, calculated place. It may come as some surprise then, that according to a recent study by neuroscientist Antonion Damasio, approximately 85 percent of our decisions are driven by emotion.

If you were to look back at the purchasing decisions you made this week, in hindsight you might realize the emotional forces that were unconsciously at work. You might even recognize exactly which emotions were at play when you were making certain purchases.

If 85 percent of our decisions are driven by emotion, then it makes perfect sense why Disney’s strategy of nostalgia marketing works. Click To Tweet

This statistic from Damasio shows us something very important: In order for marketing to be persuasive, it will require an emotional trigger.

In light of this, successful marketers in any business must know how to tap into the emotional states of their target customers, because pressing a prospect’s emotional buttons could result in a sale.

For a customer to be willing to purchase a product, spend a higher price on a different product, or purchase it repeatedly and become a loyal customer, it is essential to build an emotional connection to the product or brand.

According to a 2016 study from Ju, I., Kim, J., Chang, M. J., & Bluck, S. entitled Nostalgic marketing, perceived self-continuity, and consumer decisions, experiential marketing uses atmosphere and associated emotions to sell a product, rather than just relying on the material or quantifiable properties of the product itself.

While emotional in general is the primary driver in purchasing decisions, one emotion in particular has come to attention as a marketing powerhouse: nostalgia.

Nostalgia: A Powerful Emotional Driver in Today’s Marketplace

Have you ever noticed that some of your favourite songs – the ones that evoke the most emotion when you hear them – happen to be the songs you loved in your teens or early 20s, rather than your latest modern favorites? Despite having perhaps discovered “better” music since adolescence, for some of us nothing beats how we feel when we hear a classic hit from the ’90s.

This emotional response makes sense, based on the research into nostalgia from Psychologist Petr Janata, who in an interview with Slate, stated that our musical preferences are “consolidated into the especially emotional memories from our formative years.”

Our favourites and tastes are formed as a teenager and young adult, so products that harken back to that time of life are most likely to create a positive emotional state and draw us towards the brand.

For millennials who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s, any product or entertainment that reminds them of that era will evoke nostalgia and positive feelings.

This explains why Disney films like The Lion King, Aladdin, and The Jungle Book (all of which were originally released in the mid-1990s) will appeal to millenials and younger Gen-Xers as remakes today.

If you remember watching these Disney classics as a child, then even just seeing the trailer of the remake might bring you back to a Friday night when your parents let you eat pizza in your pajamas and watch The Lion King with your friends. This is how nostalgia marketing works.

Nostalgia marketing aims to remind you of your youth, a simpler time, and it stirs up the longing for the feelings you associate with that time: Safety, belonging, connection, hope and joy.

Is it any wonder why these nostalgic Disney films and products are so enticing?

You might still be wondering exactly how nostalgia works so effectively as a marketing strategy. An increasing amount of research has been done on this exact question.

Nostalgic products bring up a sense of what Hartmann and Brunk’s research from 2019 Nostalgia marketing and (re-)enchantment refer to as “a sense of enchantment” meaning exciting, magical feelings that can be irresistible to consumers.

Feelings of nostalgia arise from sounds, smells, sights, and tastes associated with past times.

Nostalgic marketing directs people to products that can transport them back in time. It’s this alluring sense of being sent back to an easier time or returning home that holds such power.

Part of the power of nostalgia is that it contributes to our sense of personal continuity, a positive feeling that our self-identity is still connected to our past. When we see a film or buy a product that reminds us of our childhood, we feel this positive continuation of a sense of self and identity.

The 2016 study from Ju, I., Kim, J., Chang, M. J., & Bluck, S. entitled Nostalgic marketing, perceived self-continuity, and consumer decisions showed that advertisements appealing to a nostalgic past “led to more favorable ratings of brand attitude and greater intent to purchase the product” – results which were seen regardless of the type of product.

Have you ever wondered why seeing or buying something that evokes nostalgia makes you feel better, or why you feel warm and fuzzy inside?

When feeling lonely and disconnected, nostalgia-inducing products and experiences can counteract feelings of loneliness and disconnection, by linking us to a time and experience that we know is enjoyed by others and was also enjoyed… Click To Tweet

A retro product or a remake of a childhood classic film can give us a hit of this sense of belonging, peace, and joy.

According to nostalgia expert Dr. Wijnand van Tilburg, nostalgia marketing works for “people who lack in the moment a sense of belonging, or feel a bit meaningless.”

Nostalgia marketing may be especially effective for millenials, many of whom are feeling disconnected, anxious, and long for a sense of comfort and belonging.

Products that link us to our positive memories inspire stronger emotions, which as we’ve learned drive our buying decisions.

We often look back on the past more positively, and those childhood memories can distract us from real-life stressors by bringing about a sense of comfort, peace and security when we are anxious or uncertain about the future, as well as an escape from feeling lost or stressed in the present.

Benoit Wiesser, the Chief Strategy Officer for Ogilvy, was quoted in the Business Times explaining that nostalgia works by “tapping into a tension that people feel, and giving them a slice of the past to soothe them.”

Not Just Disney: The Wave of Nostalgia and Retro Trends in Today’s Entertainment World

How do we explain the ongoing success of Friends or that it’s still one of the most popular shows streamed on Netflix even amongst its modern-day competitors? Or, how about the level of interest in TV shows like Stranger Things set in the ’80s and ’90s? Throwback entertainment that is nostalgic for Millenials and Gen X-ers is everywhere we look.

Disney is not the only company capitalizing on the power of positive past memories or nostalgic associations.

Many other film remakes have been wildly profitable lately, including Blade Runner and Jurassic Park, not to mention the ultra-successful empire of comic book film adaptations and reboots such as Spiderman and Batman. Of the top ten grossing films in 2016, eight of them were reboots or connected to a pre-existing franchise.

Other reboots of TV shows such as 90210 and Twin Peaks have been very successful as well.

Beyond the screen, nostalgia also works powerfully in music. Bands such as Backstreet Boys and The Smashing Pumpkins have had majorly successful reunion tours that sell out and excite fans who grew up listening to their music.

What Other Industries Capitalize On Nostalgia Marketing, Besides Entertainment?

Entertainment isn’t the only industry where a throwback goes a long way. Pepsi and Coca-Cola have experimented with re-creating their old designs and bottles, and these brands have certainly found that it pays to throw it back to old school designs.

Ask yourself this: When you suddenly saw the vintage-looking glass bottles of Coca-Cola in stores, did that evoke a sense of nostalgia or a desire to buy coke?

Pokemon Go capitalized on the nostalgia of Millennials who grew up playing Pokemon. Nintendo has relaunched and sold out a reboot of its 1980s classic console. Whatever industry you’re in, nostalgia marketing could probably work for you, too.

Schiemer and Carlson’s 2017 research in Nostalgia, irony and collectivity in late-modern culture: The ritual watching of The Disney Christmas Show in Scandinavia found that there has also been a resurgence in retro culture, with renewed interest in products like vinyl records, polaroid cameras, and the cars and fashion of bygone eras.

For Boomers and Gen X-ers these retro products could be personal nostalgia, as they have individual memories associated with them. For Millenials, the interest may stem from what is called historical nostalgia: a curiosity about an era they weren’t a part of, or a longing to be transported back to a different time.

It could also be a form of nostalgia that is more playful or ironic, where we find humour in the objects and fashions of the past. (Schiermer & Carlsen, 2017.)

How Can Your Business Take Advantage of the Power of Nostalgia?

Now that you know how nostalgia marketing works and how well it is working for Disney, the next question is: how can the rest of us capitalize on this phenomenon?

The lesson of Disney and some of the fan backlash demonstrates the importance of being genuine in your approach, or risk the perception of using nostalgia as a cash grab or out of creative laziness.

If you are attempting to drive sales using nostalgia, you should be careful with the tone you strike in using it. If it is overdone, then audiences and consumers will see through it and be turned off.

The key to using nostalgia is taking what is beloved from the past and subtly finding a way to harness those positive memories, while providing a product or experience that is still inventive and rewarding. Click To Tweet

Success comes not just from invoking any material or object from the past. It is essential to understand your demographic – what were they watching, playing with, listening to, and wearing in their formative years when preferences were developed?

There are no doubt many more products from the past few decades that are untapped nostalgic potential for creative marketers.

Savvy marketers will know how to use the ThrowBack Thursday and FlashBack Friday (#TBT and #FBF) hashtags on social media to promote their retro or nostalgic products, and tap into online trends.

Designs, logos, and slogans from the past can be used to stir up the ‘good old days’ memories of consumers. In general, brand logos with a retro design could generate positive emotions on their own, without even seeing what the product is yet.

Summary

Disney broke a world record in box office sales this year, and it’s largely to do with its nostalgia marketing strategy, involving the remakes of classic Disney movies.

The decision to buy something is largely driven by emotion, and nostalgia is an example of a positive emotion that influences purchasing decisions.

It’s really simple, isn’t it? We want to buy what we think will make us comfortable and happy.

Brands that can draw us in with nostalgia result in us connecting their products with our past memories and our more positive sense of self.

Brands like Disney that have mastered the strategy of nostalgia marketing are reaping the rewards in sales and brand loyalty.

Often when we think of business, we think of brand new ideas. The research into and demonstrated the success of nostalgia marketing shows us that with some creativity and strategy, past sentiments can be great for business.

How To Deal With Angry Customers With These Simple Tips

June 28, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

If you’ve never been an angry customer, then the person next to you has. That means one out of two people – 56 percent – has gotten angry about a product or service… and if your business is the one they’re upset about, you could lose much more than a customer.

As a business owner, the big question on your mind is probably, “What makes a customer angry, and how can I deal with them to fix the problem?” You can have policies and procedures for handling angry customers, but that’s just a temporary fix. You want more than that.

It’s like trapping a hungry lion in a cage and throwing meat at it every time it roars. No. What I’m going to show you winds back the clock… before the customer walks into your store, or before you get on the phone with them. We’re going back to when your lion was a purring cub. Let’s prevent the problem before it begins.

First, we’ll take a deep dive into your customer’s mind to get a better understanding of how they think, what they want, and what they desire. Now is that a little bit intrusive? Maybe. But when you offer the service they are looking for, they will thank you for it.

The Psychology Of An Angry Customer

What Makes People Say, GRRRR!

Let’s start with the surprising facts about anger and what it means for your as a business owner with an angry customer on the phone or in your store.

First, anger is not destructive. It’s actually healthy. Researchers now say it helps optimism, brainstorming, and problem solving. It’s the opposite of fear and anxiety. What does that mean? It means anger stops us from running from our fear, and gets the other person to do what we want.

Psychologists now believe anger is rewarding. You might be thinking, that doesn’t make sense!

But researchers found “levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop, suggesting that anger helps people calm down and get ready to address a problem—not run from it.”

What does that mean for you as a business owner? Bear with me while we take a detour into some science. In plain English, new research is saying that anger triggers the part of the brain that’s associated with positive, pleasurable behaviors.

The Benefit of Anger

Researchers found “Brain imaging and electrical studies of the brain consistently show that the left frontal lobe is crucial to establishing approach behaviors that push us to pursue desired goals and rewards in rational, logical, systematic, and ordered ways, and that activation of the right frontal cortex is tied to the more negative, withdrawal motivational system, marked by inhibition, timidity, and avoidance of punishment and threat.

“Brain scans show that anger significantly activates the left anterior cortex, associated with positive approach behaviors.”

So, “If the angry person is successful, it not only produces benefits (“I win!”), but also pleasure—enough to reinforce deploying anger this way repeatedly.” They’re feeling up for the challenge and they don’t want anyone to put them down or make them feel bad when they’re in this “angry” state.

Now, their feeling of “I win!” happiness isn’t your feeling of happiness. You have a customer who is asking for a refund/ deciding not to buy from you/ threatening to go to your competitor.

Let’s hit the PAUSE button on your angry customer for a moment. You understand what gives them the courage to be angry. Next, let’s look at what you can do to resolve the situation, and what you can say to win them over before the situation escalates.

One strategy is to understand the type of customer you are dealing with.

Affluent, Difficult, Price based, and Sophisticated Customers

4 Types Of Customers And How To Handle Them

Imagine this scenario. A customer comes into your store, raging about how terrible your service is, and how the discount you gave wasn’t as low as the price your competitor offers. Then they say the dreaded words. I want a refund.

Could you have prevented this moment from happening? You could.

Let’s go back to the day you opened up your store and announced to the world that you’re ready for your first customer. What type of ideal customer would you like to attract?

There are four types of customers that you could attract to your business.

Priced based customers

This type of customer is attracted to deals and discounts. They love to chase a good bargain. If you tell them to buy now, and they’ll get three bonuses for an added value of $300, they’ll buy even if they don’t need to because they get $300 in bonuses.

Now, if you started your relationship with this customer by saying you can give them the discount they want, you’ll get a price-based customer.

You’ve said the word that attracts them like honey. They’ll become an angry customer if the discount they got wasn’t low enough or if they feel they didn’t get a great bargain.

Starting your relationship with your customer by showing them the value you provide and not giving them a discount can prevent this situation.

Difficult customers

Difficult customers enjoy giving you a hard time no matter what you do. They love to pick a fight with you. They will be the angry customer that won’t be satisfied with your product or service no matter how perfect it is. Avoid doing business with this type of customer.

Sophisticated customers

When a sophisticated customer walks into your store, they’ve already decided what they want to buy. They’ve done their research on your company and your product or service by searching the internet and talking to people they know.

If you try to push features and benefits on them, or use aggressive sales tactics, they’ll get upset and refuse to buy. Don’t be pushy. Answer any questions they may have and tell them about flaws they should know about, such as your product will not work with certain software.

Affluent customers

For these customers, money is no object. They buy for emotional reasons, such as how the product makes them feel. If a $300 umbrella makes them happy, they will buy it. They want the best, and they want what’s convenient. Hermes is all about creating an emotional shopping experience for the affluent.

Convenience is important to them, so inconvenience is what will upset or anger these types of buyers. Don’t sell them by asking them to wait while you find the best deals or ask them to fight rush hour traffic to do a clothes fitting. Time is valuable to them.

Avoid these situations by pre-selecting items for the customer before they arrive at the store, or better yet, select what the customer prefers and deliver it to their residence to save them time.

Those are some tips on how to deal with the four types of customers. Understanding what attracts them to buy can prevent some ugly situations.

Here’s a summary of some telltale signs that you could have a future customer or client that will bring you trouble. Avoid these situations and you’ll reduce your chances of facing an angry customer.

Warning Signs of a Customer or Client From Hell

No respect for your time. They are unreasonably late for meetings, or give you only 5 minutes of their time for an important meeting. They call you when they want to and expect an answer right away.
Lack of respect for your expertise. They are always checking up on your work or they are control freaks telling you how to do your job. They are always disappointed when you send your work to them and they want you to change things because they are never satisfied. But they can never give you constructive feedback.
Don’t want to sign a contract or nitpick every line in the contract. They spend a lot of time focusing on what’s not important and they just want to fight and argue with you all the time.
Desire cheapest provider of services. Before talking about what you do, they are already asking for a discount or a deal. As a client, they want extra work without extra compensation. If you don’t give a discount, they threaten to walk away.
Unrealistic expectations about deadlines and want things to be done in a rush. Something that takes months for a result they want done in one month. That sets you up for failure.

Watch this video about clients from hell.

Now remember the customer’s anger that you put on PAUSE? Anger is what allows a customer to challenge you to get their needs answered. You might have prevented that angry moment by identifying the type of customer they are and understanding their needs. You might have avoided working with a customer from hell.

But despite your best efforts to find ideal customers, you still find yourself dealing with an angry customer and no time machine could have prevented this moment. What do you do?

Dealing With Customer Anger

In a perfect world, all interactions with customers would be flawless but that’s not always possible. Hundreds of things could go wrong on any given day. Your website could go down unexpectedly and customers cannot finish an online payment.

Your customer could be having a problem with your product. It’s not working the way they thought it should, or they are not getting the results they want.

Maybe the customer complained to support but the response time is longer than they expected or they have preconceived expectations about the level of support they expect.

Their anger may have nothing to do with you… they’re having personal or professional problems, such as a divorce or job loss and an issue with your product used up the last of their remaining patience.

What’s important to remember is that most customers – around 75 percent – just want an apology – but most fail to get one. Companies fear lawsuits if their customer service admits liability. For example, if a customer service agent says, “We meant to fix that” if there was a safety issue.

Making a customer angry can be very costly when you look at these customer service statistics.

Consumers tell twice as many people about poor experiences than positive ones. (White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time. (Lee Resources)
A typical business hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers, with 96% not voicing out their complaints, and 91% never coming back. (“Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner)

Source

What To Say To An Angry Customer

“Hi Scott, this is Steve,” said the voice from the other end of the phone.

“Steve Jobs?” asked the customer.

“Yeah,” Jobs said. “I just wanted to apologize for your incredibly long wait. It’s really nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things.”

Not every unhappy customer will get a call from the CEO of a company. But there are strategies you can use to calm the anger of a customer who is calling customer service.

Be a good listener. Avoid saying “I understand.” You may think it makes you sound empathetic but it will frustrate them. Listen when they explain the problem and take notes during the phone call.

If you repeat back what they say in their own words, they will feel like you’ve heard them because you’re speaking in their language. Check that you understand what is going on. Don’t promise a solution, but listen and ask questions about what they need.

Customer: “I’m frustrated because we have a limited budget and you’re unwilling to offer us a discount.”

Customer Success Manager: “So, what I’m hearing is that our pricing is a barrier for your business. Your budget is tight, and I’m not offering a discount that meets your needs. Is that correct?”

Ask Questions

Ask open ended questions. Open ended questions give you more information than closed questions. Closed questions ask for yes/no answers. For example, “Have you called customer service about this before?” is a close ended question.

Customer service: “How can I help you feel comfortable enough to move forward?”

Get as much information as possible. Don’t assume what the customer should already know, such as reading a policy. Ask the customer to tell you about what happened in their own words and don’t interrupt them when they speak. If they say something important, take notes so you don’t forget when it’s your chance to speak again.

Customer service: “Can you give me a brief summary of the issue you’re having?”

Take ownership of the situation and explain what you will do to resolve the customer’s issue.

Customer service: “I’ll send those notes in a follow-up email along with my contact information. Let me know if I missed anything, and please don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any other issues.”

Another option is to give the customer some choices and ask which one they prefer.

Customer service: “I have a few ways we can make this better for you. Let’s go through some options together, and you can tell me what you think.”

Set the Tone

Remember. You set the tone for the interaction, so no matter how angry the customer becomes, don’t take the situation personally. The closers on my sales team are taught to stay unattached to the sales call because the prospect or customer is the one with the problem and it’s our goal to solve their problem as best we can.

Maybe the customer is having a bad day and they become angry. My closers stay calm and in control and will call out the prospect on their attitude. Depending on the rapport they have with the prospect, and the personality of the prospect, they may even ask, “Are you always this rude?”

The expected answer is “No.” We hope that our prospect is normally a calm and peaceful person and they were just having an explosive moment. If the prospect is a Difficult Customer looking for a verbal battle, we don’t want to do business with them anyway.

But if they say, “No, I’m not usually this angry, but…” Ask questions, and find out what’s really going on. Did you hit a sensitive spot when you were asking questions to get to the bottom of what was making them angry?

When you have an angry customer, stay calm and in control. Ask questions to get information and find out what’s really going on. If they are angry, look for the real cause. Maybe they are upset that the product is not working. But the real reason they are angry is they’ve bought a product like this before, and it didn’t work either.

When you find the source of the problem, suggest a solution and follow up with the customer.

Summary

An angry customer can damage your business. People will avoid businesses with negative reviews, and customers with a negative experience aren’t likely to return.

Understanding the type of customer you want to attract for your business is one way to avoid angry customers. For example, don’t offer discounts if you want to work with clients that pay premium prices. Look for warning signs that a customer will be a difficult customer.

The way you deal with an angry customer will affect the outcome. Listen to what your customer says is the problem and ask open-ended questions. Watch the tone you use and offer a solution and follow up with the solution.

Want to get your hands on a closing script that will get you more sales and close more deals? Find out why old sales techniques aren’t working and new techniques that are giving businesses the competitive advantage.

How To Hire High-Performing Millennials

June 20, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

You may be looking for the best strategy to hire millennials for your business because you want the newest and brightest talent on your team. You want to hire high-performing millennials. But how can successful entrepreneurs save time and money during the hiring process to ensure you hire the right people? And after you hire them, how can you ensure that they will stay with your company?

Understanding What Millennials Want

You could start with understanding what high-performing millennials want in an ideal career. They are different from the previous generation because they are looking for work-life balance, flexible work schedules, mentorship, and the option to work from home occasionally.

Now, to attract young talent, you could go to extremes like General Electric did. The company moved its long-time headquarters to a major city because urban millennials only prefer to live in big cities.

But in most cases, you don’t have to do something as drastic to ensure that you hire the best performers. What you can do is set up your company to offer what they are looking for, such as work schedule flexibility and business mentorship.

Mentorship is important because many don’t have much work experience. Millennials, born between 1980 to 2000, have on average only a few years of career-related experience. However, they are very technologically savvy. They grew up with social networking and typically have about 200 Facebook friends, send an average of 50 texts a day, and have posted selfies on social media sites.

People tend to believe that this generation isn’t loyal to their employer and they change jobs quickly. But in my organization, I have hired a lot of young people because I need to keep up with trends, and I have found that my team members are extremely loyal.

They are also high-performers. The reason I’ve been able to hire loyal, high performers for my organization is because of my hiring process.

How To Build A Strong Team

When it comes to hiring, nothing is more important than your team. The best team wins in business. It’s not the techniques, the technology or even your product because those things you can manufacture.

Business is about people. I’ve seen leaders with great talents but they have a weak team. I would take an average idea and a great team any day of the week verses a great idea and an average team.

An average team could not execute the idea the way that we want to but a great team can take an average idea and make it work. A great team will tweak ideas, improve, upgrade, or change direction as needed to make things happen.

In my lifetime, I’ve made some very good hiring decisions and a few really bad ones. That’s how I learn to pick the best people for my team. I’ve also come to believe that there are only three types of employees: the grunt, the mercenary, and the patriot.

When you understand these three types, you can streamline your hiring process to find the employee types you don’t want, and attract the types you do want in your company. Part of this process includes asking the right questions to assess their work ethic and personality type.

Watch this video about the three types of employees.

The Grunt

The first type of employee is the grunt. You can rely on them to show up and get work done. To find out if your potential employee is a grunt, don’t ask them the typical interview questions, like their background and strengths.

What you want to ask is, “Are there any questions you have for me?” when you’re interviewing them. And they will tell you, “Well, how do you calculate overtime? How many vacations do I get? Or exactly how many hours do I have to work?”

That’s a grunt. They just want a nine to five job and to do the minimum not to get fired and go through the day to day motions. They just do what they do to pay the bills and make a living. They’re very focused on how much time they have to work, if it’s full-time or part-time. If they’re asking you questions about work hours, you have a grunt.

Depending on your type of business, you may want to hire a grunt to get the work done. For example, you need someone to do some work that is fairly routine and repetitive.

You don’t want to have too many grunts in your company. If there are too many of them in your company, your business is not going to grow because you have a team of people doing the minimum.

The Mercenary

The second type employee you will get is what I call a mercenary. A mercenary works for money.

At the end of the interview, they will ask you a lot of money questions. They want to know about salary, bonuses, and other compensation. It’s all about money for them. That kind of person usually works in sales positions.

With a mercenary, if there are better opportunities where they can make more money, they will jump ship very quickly. Because they work for money, they have no loyalty whatsoever.

There’s a time and place for mercenaries. They’re hunters. They are ideal if you want to sell a lot of product at your store. You probably don’t want a mercenary in customer support. You probably don’t want a mercenary managing your finances.

The Patriot

The third type of employee is what I call a patriot, the one you want in your company. You want mostly patriots in your company because they want to make good money but that’s not what drives them.

A patriot is driven by a mission, a purpose, and being part of something bigger than themselves. During the interview process, they will bring you ideas.

They will say things like, “I have studied your company’s culture. I think I could bring value to what you do.”

From the beginning, they are already thinking about improvements, but not from the perspective that your company is doing something wrong. They want to contribute and they’re driven by growth.

Patriots are the type you want to hire. Those you cannot hire enough of because when you have a group of patriots, your company you will have a culture that is growth oriented, because those people always want to make things better.

Chances are, patriots work well with other people because they know they cannot do it by themselves. They need to work with other people to in order to make this vision a reality. They are not nickel and dimeing you.

They’re not thinking about what happens if they have to work more than five minutes of over time. They’re not watching the clock, seeing that it’s 4:50 so they’re ready to go home in ten minutes.

Patriots just want to do something epic with great people. When you have a group of patriots, you will have a much stronger organization.

I have many patriots in my organization and because of their growth mindset and passion for what they do, my company is able to move at a fast pace and pivot quickly. If you want to build a fast paced business, one way is to hire millennials who are patriots.

Hire high-performing millennials who are patriots.

Hiring High-Performing Millennials Who Are Patriots

Millennials want work-life balance. They want to be part of a mission that is greater than themselves, so they aren’t as concerned with money. Many would rather make $40,000 doing something they love than $100,000 doing something they hate. In fact, a majority think that the performance of a business should be measured by more than its financial success.

More and more millennials are becoming entrepreneurs to supplement their income or make a positive difference in the world. In 2011, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, millennials launched just under 160,000 startups a month, and 29 percent of these businesses were started by people 29 to 34 years old.

Now if you’re an entrepreneur or business owner and you want to build a strong team, you should hire high-performing millennials who are patriots. I have several millennials on my team and they have important roles as leaders and directors. I have empowered them to run entire departments on my team.

You might be wondering why I would hire young kids and give them important responsibilities instead of hiring someone with ten years of experience. The secret is to hire based on attitude and then train for skills. Skills are something that can be learned. A hard working attitude, desire for learning and self improvement, and passion for success cannot be taught.

So hire based on attitude and then train for skills.

Benefits To The Company

Millennials want to be part of a mission that benefits more than themselves. They also want to be mentored. On my team, I provide my hires with mentorship, but I also expect them to invest in their own training.

A patriot will always invest in their own growth and they will always contribute their knowledge to the team so the team also grows. My team members pay the airfare, hotel, and costs to attend training in other cities. When they invest in themselves, they will pay more attention to what they are learning. And when I see the results of their training, I will reward them.

The high-performing millennials on my team work long hours but they don’t watch the clock. Their work tasks are based on what they are passionate about doing, such as digital marketing, copywriting, or video production. It’s easy to lose track of time when your career is like a hobby.

They work remotely and they set their own hours, but they also support each other. I have created a team culture in which my team is responsible for their work tasks and will accomplish what needs to be done without direct supervision. This can only be achieved when the company CEO or business owner sets a clear vision and clear team culture.

There are over 80 million millennials, and the way they want to work is changing how employers hire. If you want to build a successful team, then hire patriots.

Final Thoughts On How Successful Entrepreneurs Hire High-Performing Millennials

If you want to build a successful team and hire millennials who are patriots, share with them your mission and give them the chance to contribute. Allow work-life balance by having an organization where employees set their own hours and have the opportunity to work from home.

If you do this, you will hire a lot of patriots. From time to time, some tasks should be left for grunts. For certain tasks, like a sales position, mercenaries will be fine. But if you want someone who will help you achieve your company’s mission and will be a high performer, hire a patriot.

How could a patriot move your business forward? Comment below.

Dan Lok

Who Is Dan Peña?

What Is Dan Pena Worth?

The Reason For Dan Pena’s High-Performance

The Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA)

What Is The QLA?

What Are The QLA Steps To Success?

My QLA Experience At Guthrie Castle

The QLA Seminar At Guthrie Castle

The Snowflake Generation

Lacking High Performance

The Snowflake Test

Making Your First 100 Million

Books On Entrepreneurship

Quantum Leap Advantage

How To Make A Billion Dollars

Final Thoughts on Dan Peña’s Advice On How To Become A Billionaire

1. Lead With Your Heart and Do Not Judge

2. Your Title Doesn’t Make You a Leader

3. Accept That You Don’t Know Everything

4. Don’t Be a Lone Wolf: Form Strategic Alliances

5. Lead With Integrity: Have Strong Ethics and Morals

6. Lead By Example

7. Be Driven By Your Mission, Not By Your Ego

8. Know What Battles Aren’t Worth Fighting

9. Fearlessly Make Tough Decisions

Summary

More Rules For Success:

How Toastmasters Improves Public Speaking And Leadership

Stronger Public Speaking Skills

Stronger Leadership Skills

10 Tips On How To Deliver Your Dream Speech

Tip 1: Outline

Tip 2: Practice Public Speaking

Tip 3: Tell a story

Tip 4: Keep it simple

Tip 5: Audience

Tip 6: Body language

Tip 7: Visuals

Tip 8: Personality

Tip 9: Timing and Ending The Presentation

Tip 10: Feedback

How You Can Learn Public Speaking From The Talented Speakers At TED Talks

How To Prepare To Speak At TED Talks

Summary

How To Influence People

Selling a Feeling

Disney: King of the Box Office

Who Loves Remakes, and Does Anyone Hate Them?

The Role of Emotion in Your Purchasing Decisions

Nostalgia: A Powerful Emotional Driver in Today’s Marketplace

Not Just Disney: The Wave of Nostalgia and Retro Trends in Today’s Entertainment World

What Other Industries Capitalize On Nostalgia Marketing, Besides Entertainment?

How Can Your Business Take Advantage of the Power of Nostalgia?

Summary

The Psychology Of An Angry Customer

What Makes People Say, GRRRR!

The Benefit of Anger

4 Types Of Customers And How To Handle Them

Priced based customers

Difficult customers

Sophisticated customers

Affluent customers

Warning Signs of a Customer or Client From Hell

Dealing With Customer Anger

What To Say To An Angry Customer

Ask Questions

Set the Tone

Summary

Understanding What Millennials Want

How To Build A Strong Team

The Grunt

The Mercenary

The Patriot

Hiring High-Performing Millennials Who Are Patriots

Benefits To The Company

Final Thoughts On How Successful Entrepreneurs Hire High-Performing Millennials

SUGGESTED ARTICLES:

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.