With Memorial Day behind us, we are all preparing our summer reading list. I was looking for a good business book to read (on a break from John Grisham and James Patterson) and asked a few fellow hospitality industry entrepreneurs what they are reading right now. I am sharing the top six with you:

1. “The Magic of Thinking Big” – David Schwartz:This book gives you useful methods, not empty promises. Dr. Schwartz presents a carefully designed program for getting the most out of your job, your marriage and family life, and your community. He proves that you don’t need to be an intellectual or have innate talent to attain great success and satisfaction, but you do need to learn and understand the habit of thinking and behaving in ways that will get you there.

2. “Steve Jobs” – Walter Isaacson:Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years–as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues–Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and the intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

3. “Get Clients Now!”- C.J. Hayden:This book empowers readers with its 28-day plan for energizing their marketing efforts and dramatically increasing their client base. With over 100 tactics, tools, and foolproof recipes customizable for any professional service business, this new edition is powered up with road-tested strategies for relationship-based marketing in the Internet age, plus proven techniques for overcoming the fear, resistance, and procrastination that block effective action.

4. “Book Yourself Solid”- Michael Port:A complete instructional guide for starting and growing a successful service business. It gives you simple, yet effective techniques for creating relentless demand and endless leads. It includes more than 200 proven marketing strategies for attracting new clients, earning more referrals, and building profitable, long-lasting professional relationships.

5. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”- Stephen R. Covey:The title speaks for itself. The author presents a holistic, integrated and principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems.

6. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” – Robert T. Kiyosaki:The #1 personal finance book of all time. The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.

What are you going to read this month to help you grow professionally?

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The hospitality industry is a 24/7 business that forces us to remain focused in order to be productive. We experience an overload of activity and ‘noise’ that keeps us busy…but it can be overwhelming and even prevent us from keeping on course toward achieving our priorities. We often get burned out which drains our energy and blocks our creativity.

As for me, I am returning from a much needed week off which I was able to enjoy with my family. Prior to leaving, I took the advice of my business coach, Angie Segal with Action Coach. She shared the following message with me:

The cavemen spent their days hunting, gathering, napping and being chased by tigers. That worked for them because there was balance to their days, which gave them enough energy to outrun the tiger, most of the time. In modern society, we are spending far too much time running from the tigers and it is depleting our energy! We weren’t made to spend the majority of our time with our adrenaline pumping.

Want to increase your productivity, creativity and energy? Why don’t you try unplugging for a day, a weekend, or a vacation?

How do you unplug so you can recharge?

First, turn off the cell phone and PDA. Leave a message that says you will be unavailable and you will find that most people will leave a message and wait for your return.

Next, don’t be tempted by that laptop or computer either. Your email can wait.  Leave an out of office reply. Yes, you will have tons of email when you get back, but you might be surprised how much of that can be deleted if you only deal with messages that require an action or reply.

Now, get rid of the remote control and the newspaper delivery. Trust me; there is nothing in the news that can’t wait a few days for you to know. If a truly catastrophic event happened, you would find out about it. Someone would tell you.
Finally, take off your watch, unplug the clocks and sit back and enjoy.

What will you do with all this time? Spend it with friends and family you care about. Read a book or magazine. Lie in the sun. Play with your kids.  Take a nap. It doesn’t really matter, it’s just about recharging.

When you get back to work, you will be amazed how rejuvenated, focused and productive you will be with new ideas flowing into your now recharged brain. Whether you are going away on a vacation or just using these techniques for a short getaway, I hope you unplug to recharge so you are ready to make 2013 a breakthrough year!

If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in “Holiday Networking for Hospitality Industry Professionals”.

Don’t forget to download the free ebook “Take Charge of Your Hospitality Career and YOUR Income” by signing up on this page.

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I enjoy going to social events to meet new people and learn their life stories. I am not talking about what they do for a living…but where they grew up, how they got to where they are today and what are their interests and passions.

As children, we enjoyed reading and telling stories as a valuable part of our education and development. Just because we are adults and now spend the majority of our time in the professional world, it should not mean that our passion for stories should end. If we could enjoy stories as children, why not enjoy and use them in our professional lives?

Those that use the ‘storytelling’ skill in their professional lives tend to achieve more success than those who do not. Let’s follow their lead and use the storytelling skill to connect with more people and build our professional network. The key points you want to address in your professional life story are:

• your early years and how that impacted you
• your experience and what you learned along the way
• why you are doing what you do
• what makes you different than others that offer your product or service

It is time for us to go back to those days when we enjoyed reading and telling stories. In addition, it is time for us to put the storytelling skill to work in our professional lives. What is your success story?

If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in “Holiday Networking for Hospitality Industry Professionals”.

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First Thing Every Morning by Lewis Timberlake
If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400 – with no balance carried from day to day forcing you to spend it – what would you do? Well, you do have such a bank… time.

Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules off as “lost” whatever you have failed to use toward good purposes. It carries over no balances and allows no overdrafts. You can’t hoard it, save it, store it, loan it or invest it. You can only use it – time.

This is an excellent message as we kick off the new year… and for each and every day. Use the time we are given each day wisely so that you can reach your goals. Below are a few ideas on what you can do to get your year off to a great start.

1. Establish Your Annual Goal
   It is not an easy task to put together a written plan for the year… but it is essential. If we do not have a plan, then we are planning to fail. As Zig Zaglar famously said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”
2. Break Your Goal up into an Action Steps
   It is important to break your goal into quarterly objectives. Spell out what activities you need to focus on daily, weekly and monthly to achieve your desired result.
3. Listen to (and follow) your best advice
   In my daily coaching with my team, over 30 entrepreneurs, and through the articles I write, I need to be honest with myself. Do I always practice what I preach? I need to put the advice I give into action. Are you listening to (and following) the excellent advice that you are giving?
4. Create a short list of big things you will accomplish this year and publicly commit to doing one thing
   Keep things very simple. I believe that a short list wins (you can always add more). Personally I am working to be more ‘green’ and ‘paper-free’ in 2013. I have moved to using my iPad more effectively and reducing my dependency on paper. What one thing are you going to announce publicly?
5. Reach out to 5 potential new customers from your list of contacts
   Go through all of your contacts (those that have done business with you and those who have not). Ask them how things are going with their current provider. You may uncover an opportunity and the timing may be right to give you a try.
6. Call Your Customers
   Call all of your current customers and thank them for doing business with you. Do not ask them for anything… just say thanks. You will be amazed at some of the reactions that you get.
7. Dedicate time to research your top competitor
   Take some time as we begin the new year to research what your top competitor is doing. Do an honest assessment, what are they doing better than you? What can you learn from them? What are you doing better?

Finally, I am sharing a tool I use on a daily basis to keep me on track – Focus For Today. We know it is impossible to get everything done in a day… so let’s focus and get the important ones done!

Focus for Today

Priority (must do first): ____________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________________________

Tips:

• Make Certain that these activities tie into the overall goals you need to achieve.
• Block time on your calendar to complete these tasks.
• Reward yourself for completing these tasks.

Let’s use every one of our 86,400 seconds we are given each day productively and start 2013 strong!

If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in “Holiday Networking for Hospitality Industry Professionals”.

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“Networking is simply the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships. It works best, however, when emphasizing the ‘give’ part.”      - Bob Burg, Author and Speaker

We are in full holiday season and hospitality industry party mode – hard to believe that 2012 is coming to a close. Since networking is critical for all of us, I am sharing some tips from my Business Coach, Angie Segal with ActionCOACH (www.actioncoach.com/angiesegal ).

The Holiday season is here and it is a great time to build your business.  Opportunities for forging relationships and making new connections abound.

 Here are 7 tips for holiday networking:
1. Accept all invitations – invited to an event or party where you don’t know anyone?  What a great opportunity to meet new people.

2. Seek out events to attend – there are lots of parties, events and galas starting in early November and continuing into January.  Look for them.

3. Have a goal for quality connections – how many good connections are you hoping to make at each event?  Don’t just greet and move on, spend a few minutes talking with the people you want to know better.

4. Have a system for follow up – you need to follow up with everyone you want to know better.  How do you plan to do this?

5. Have a good time – fun is important and it shows in your attitude.

6. Embrace abundance and serendipity – know that there is plenty of business for everyone and that your good deeds will come back to you in some way.

7. Don’t eat or drink too much – but I am guessing you already knew that one!

Have a great Holiday season and I hope that everyone takes the time to reflect on the goodness of the previous year and the potential of the upcoming year.

These are some great tips that will help make the next few weeks not only fun…but productive. Happy Networking!

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Email, texting, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, MySpace, Tumblr, blogs and virtual meetings- how did we ever conduct business before these tools were invented? All of these can be effective for communications, but are they effective in building and maintaining professional relationships? Are they effective in helping us improve our results?

As business continues to improve, and we put the challenging economic time behind us, it is important for us to improve interactions with our customers, potential customers and partners. Let’s use this time to get back out in front of our current customers and thank them for their loyalty during the great recession. Let’s reach out to our industry partners and show our gratitude for sticking with us. It is also time to venture out and meet with potential new customers to share how our product or service can bring value to their organization. The best way to ensure that we get our fair share of the improving business climate is still driven by relationships and personal interaction.

If you are like me, you receive between 75 and 200 emails each day; receive approximately 10 phone calls and only a few pieces of mail (some days I get one thing addressed to me by name). Since it is so few, I tend to look at every piece of mail that I receive. If our competitors are going to rely on email, texting and the latest social media tools why not mix in some of the old techniques and set ourselves apart from our competition? We have a huge opportunity to reach out with handwritten notes, personal phone calls and in person meetings. I believe we can combine the new technology available today with our best practices of yesterday. My suggestion is to establish a game plan for the next quarter with specific goals for:

• Handwritten notes- # of handwritten notes you will send each week
• Phone conversations- # of calls you will make each week
• Face to Face discussions- # of conversations you will have each week

“Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face.  You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.” Ross Perot

When you combine the ‘old fashion’ way of doing business with these new technologies, the sky is the limit for us to improve our communications and our professional relationships…which will improve our results in 2012!

Do you agree?

If you enjoyed this article, you may also be interested in “Holiday Networking for Hospitality Industry Professionals”.

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