By Verne Harnish

“…keeping you great”

HEADLINES:

Hiring the Right #2 — “Jemma is a great barrier to protect the team from my overzealousness and enthusiasm,” notes Naomi Simson, founder and CEO of Sydney-based RedBalloon, on her #2. “She balances all my ‘brilliant’ ideas with a focus on making them process driven.” Take five minutes and read ((http://www.gazelles.com/new_articles/Hiring_the%20Right2.pdf)) how she and other CEOs found their right #2s, one of the most important hiring decisions an entrepreneur will ever make, in my latest “Growth Guy” syndicated column.

Hiring the Right #3, #4, etc. — Gazelles is hiring; we’re excited many of our clients are hiring; and it’s still a great time to acquire critical talent. But it’s no time for amateur hour when it comes to recruiting and interviewing. The ONLY selection and hiring technique found to give a 90% success rate is the Topgrading methology. The rest of the methods: testing, behavior-based interviewing, or “passing the breath test” have between a 30% and 60% success rate — too costly! Join us for the #1 selection process if you’re going to hire at least one person in 2010:

“19 Appointments with the Right People” — and this note from Mark Dover of Canadian-based warehouse supply firm Doverco “I wanted to share the success we have enjoyed as a result of the Webinar we participated in several months ago given by Chet Holmes (http://www.gazelles.com/ggs_chet.html). Following the model of his ‘Best Buyer’ program, we conceived of a program of 10 monthly letters directed at 165 ‘Best Buyer’ prospects. Each letter contained industry intelligence (teaching is the highest form of selling as related to us by our Gazelles coach Les Rubenovitch) and our related capabilities. And every other letter had a small, low cost, attention grabbing gift related to the theme of the missive. We are at letter #6 and have already been able to secure 19 appointments with the right people! We have reached our objective and we’re only 60% through the project. Thanks to Les, Chet and Gazelles for making us smarter. BTW, the (Dr. Robert) Cialdini Webinar (http://www.gazelles.com/ggs_cialdini.html) on ‘Influence’ was awesome.”

Keeping the Right People Smart — commit to 90 minutes of first class executive education each month using our monthly online seminars — LIVE or archived; alone or with your team (perfect for the monthly management meeting). Jeff Jarvis (http://www.gazelles.com/ggs_jeff.html), author of What Would Google Do? is our February 18 online seminar; and Chip Heath (http://www.gazelles.com/ggs_chip.html), author of Made to Stick and Switch is our March 25 online seminar. These are the #1 business thought leaders of our time that would cost you $25k plus in speaker fees and travel expenses — now delivered right to your desktop for a fraction of the cost.

Vision Board Update — the children loved the experience of putting vision boards together this past weekend and I especially enjoyed sitting with my 6 year old daughter who surprised me with her desire to be a high board diver, something my wife always wanted to do but had never shared with any of us. We used Google image and lots of magazines to find the appropriate images for the boards — and appreciated the guidance given by John Assaraf’s The Complete Vision Board Kit (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Vision-Board-Kit-Visualization/dp/1582701911/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263315748&sr=8-2)

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By Verne Harnish

“…keeping you great”

HEADLINES:

On-Demand Online Seminars Expiring — the last day to purchase/view David Allen’s (Getting Things Done) online seminar is this Friday, January 22; the last day for Dr. Robert Cialdini (Influence) is February 17.

Double Sales — My Hope For All Companies the Next Three Years — I shot this 60 second video for Mike Maddock’s Maddock Douglas website (he’s using education-based content to drive marketing) outlining the two key focuses for the next three years — Going Global; Getting Lean. Take a minute to watch, then take the challenge. The video link is in the right hand column of Maddock’s website (www.maddockdouglas.com)

Improving Sales Productivity 10-Fold — speaking of Lean, “imagine what would happen if you melded the precision and predictability of process engineering to the big black box we call sales?” exclaims Guy Parsons, Lean guru. That’s exactly what Australian, Justin Roff-Marsh, a leader in applying Process Engineering to Sales has accomplished. Hosted by Gazelles Lean, Parsons is moderating a complimentary 30 minute conference call with Roff-Marsh on February 4th, 2pm ET, as he discusses some of his breakthrough successes. There will be a 15 minute Q&A that follows. Roff-March has also written a couple white papers you can download and he’ll provide a one-page “action” sheet for those that participate. Register to receive the phone number and pass code (http://www.gazelles.com/justin_guy_concall_4feb10.html).

Radical Stuff in Sales — Roff-Marsh suggests salespeople earn salaries and give up control of their calendars. In return, they get executive assistants and they get relieved of the responsibility for all activities other than face-to-face, business-development meetings. Their clients typically have very small bus-dev teams (why it interested me) but those salespeople perform 20 true sales meetings a week — 10x the standard. “We typically work in engineer-to-order environments — technical sales, in other words,” explains Roff-Marsh with Ballistix (www.ballistix.com). Here’s a link to his Blog: (www.salesprocessengineering.net)

VC Chuckles — and this note from Ed Sullivan, CEO of Aria Systems (www.ariasystems.com), “My new VC, VenRock (Rockefeller founded) chuckled when I explained to them the Rockefeller habits (we’re implementing)! The habits certainly contributed to our success and helped us expand into CA and make managing a geographically diverse company easier.” Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), a key indicator of the health of a SaaS vendor, grew more than 300% in 2009. Here’s a link to more information (http://bit.ly/900DVs)

Australia National Growth Summit — Feb 17-18 in Sydney, the theme is “Going Global, Getting Lean.” Joining me on the stage is the famous German researcher Hermann Simon, author of my favorite business book of all time Hidden Champions; Guy Parsons, Lean guru that is showing mid-market firms how to double productivity, even on the service side of the business (including sales); and David Meerman Scott, the thought leader on Web2.0 implementation for business and author of World Wide Rave, will also beam in for the event. Hope to see all our Australian and New Zealand friends in Sydney for a fantastic two days (http://www.growthsummit.com.au/).

Topgrading Your Daugther — and this note from Bob Hubbard, Hubbard Family Swim School (www.hubbardswim.com). “After I attended a Topgrading event in Denver a few years ago, I actually came home and Topgraded my existing management team, including my daughter. It is one of the best management things I ever did. I learned a lot about our people. Yes, even about my daughter, who had a four year career as a college soccer coach in between working with us. I found out about talents that a number of our staff had that I would never have suspected. It has enabled us to bring people into new roles and responsibilities that matched some of their hidden talents and avocations. It also helped explain why some of them struggled in areas in which we thought they would have excelled. It was a little weird talking with people who had worked for us for five or six years about their first job, etc. Once we got into a rhythm it was great.”

Geoff Smart’s Topgrading Online Seminar — this Thursday, January 21, 2010, noon — 1:30pm ET (http://www.gazelles.com/ggs_geoff.html)

EDUCATION:

Growth Summit

National Growth Summit ’10
17 & 18 February 2010, Sydney
Fortune Sales and Marketing Summit
April 20 – 22, 2010, Las Vegas, NV
The Making of Asian Giants
April 27 – 29, 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Fortune Growth Summit
Oct 19 – 21, 2010, Orlando, FL

Growth Series Webcasts

PEOPLE — Geoff Smart – 21 Jan ’10
STRATEGY — Jeff Jarvis – 18 Feb ’10
EXECUTION — Chip Heath – 25 Mar ’10

Growth Workshops – Four Decisions: SuperGreen Execution

Spring 2010

Jan 21 – Richmond
Jan 26 – Ft. Lauderdale
Mar 2 – Atlanta
May 25 – Houston
Sep 23 – New York City
Oct 7 – Portland

Summits & Conferences

Great Game of Business with Jack Stack

Gazelles DVD/Online Learning Products — Gazelles.tv

PEOPLE
Whats the Secret to Providing World Class Customer Experience
Topgrading

STRATEGY
High Stakes Negotiations
The Art of Advantage

EXECUTION
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
Execute Without Drama

Did you miss previous insights? – read here (http://verneharnish.typepad.com/growthguy/archives.html)

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Click on this link to review the BHAG for Red Balloon in Australia – provides an example of BHAG measurement.

http://www.gazellestv.com/player.cfm?fid=45

Its also a great story of leadership in the non profit word.

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Seven Investors To Avoid
Martin Zwilling, 12.08.09, 5:04 PM ET

In a tough economy, all capital is created equal, right?

Wrong. Even in a credit-starved environment like this one, the source of your money matters. A lot.

When it comes to courting angel investors–well-heeled individuals looking to put some of their stash in promising young companies that could yield juicy returns–entrepreneurs should take great care. Some angels can be a mild nuisance, others downright conniving and unscrupulous.

Here are seven types of fallen angels to avoid.

Suit Slingers. These nettlesome types look for any excuse to take you to court. Rather than try to help your company grow, instead they try to make money through intimidation, threats and lawsuits. They know you don’t the resources to fight them and most likely will cave to their demands.

In Depth: Nine Money-Raising Mistakes

Top Tips: Six Ways to Raise Cash–Now

Smart Guys. Successful business people who become angels often have a prodigious sense of superiority. They tend to be overbearing, negative people hypercritical of every decision you make. Their money may spend, but don’t let them intimidate you into bad decisions.

Control Freaks. This kind of angel starts out looking like your new best friend. Don’t be fooled. As soon as you hit a pothole, he’ll trigger a “gotcha” clause in your agreement that gives him more ownership and operational control of your company. Only your Board can save you here.

Hand Holders. The tutorial investor is not after control, but he wants to guide you on every niggling issue. What feels like benevolent mentoring before he writes the check becomes a painful nuisance soon after. Unless you have an overabundance of time and patience, keep your distance.

Has-Beens. These angels take to wing with every perturbation in the economy. Typical profile: former high-fliers with a liquidity problem. They are still at the country club every day, but now are running up a tab. They will meet with you, ask a thousand questions, but never get around to closing a deal.

Numb Skulls. Wealth is not synonymous with business savvy. You can spot a dumb angel by listening to the questions they ask. The more superficial the questions, the less value (and more potential harm) they will bring to your organization. (That goes for financial journalists too.) One caveat: Numb-skull angels may have important and much smarter friends, so don’t disregard them entirely.

Brokers In Drag. Deal brokers posing as angels (they may be lawyers or accountants by trade) have little intent to invest in your company. Their goal: to get you to pay them to introduce you to actual investors. Brokers may be worth their fees, but don’t mistake them for angels.

General rule of thumb for avoiding fallen angels: Eschew investments from private individuals and focus on credible, professional angel-investing organizations. Even then, do your own due diligence: Ask what other companies they’ve invested in and talk to the chief executives of those outfits to get their feedback. Finally, make sure your lawyer–not the investor–writes the initial investment document or term sheet. This should be a standard document and not negotiated on a one-on-one basis. Beware requests for last-minute clauses that could come back to haunt you.

Yes, money’s tight. But choosing the wrong angel could put you on the flight path to perdition.

Martin Zwilling is the founder and chief executive officer of Startup Professionals, a company that provides products and services to start-up founders and small business owners. Check out his daily blog at http://blog.startupprofessionals.com or contact him directly at marty@startupprofessionals.com.

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In this episode, Professor George Kohlrieser talks about: What great leaders do best. Play to win.

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In “Excelling in the New Millennium: Personal Development”, Jim Rohn shares his experience with personal development revealing valuable essentials to becoming wealthy in mind and body.

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