Mike Pallin Blog

Two sentences

Triiibes asked me this morning, "If you had only two sentences to share your most valuable business advice, what would they be?"

Mine are both from Floyd (of course) and they are:

1. Hire people based on character first, and then ability.

2. You can't fine tune anything until it's first consistent.

Push - Pull

As we all work to get the economy going again, a few thoughts inspired by Floyd"s philosophy . . . "Trying to make someone love you only pushes them further away."

What does love have to do with the economy?

Love is the strongest emotion, and our economy seems to rise and fall on a tide of emotion. How we "feel" about things, consumer confidence for instance, affects everything from saving to spending to investing.

If it's true that emotions control our economy, it seems to me we still have a very immature economic system. Maybe the more we try to fix the economy, the further away we push a real recovery.

Maybe the way we fix the economy is to begin by fixing ourselves individually, and stop looking to Mom and Dad (the government) to solve all our problems for us and bail us out of this jam.

Floyd also says, "You can't control THE economy, but you can control YOUR economy." Our company and his program has been proving that over and over since 1979.

Trying harder isn't the answer. That only pushes the real solution further away. Just for today, I'm going to try "pulling" my own weight, and not worry about someone else coming to the rescue.

On the radio

The host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show I was listening to recently said he couldn't understand how so many banks have gotten into such deep trouble; that every time he hears an economist trying to explain what's happened to the economy, he gets more confused; and that he wanted "smart people" who were listening to send him an explanation he could understand. 

For some reason, I knew I had to speak up, not because I think I'm so smart, but only because I'm so opinionated. And I had this hunch that he would read my email.

Well, the host comes back from commercial break and says he's received over a hundred emails in just the last few minutes, but this one made the most sense to him, and "It's from Mike in Ann Arbor, where there are lots of smart people," and proceeded to read my email over the air to millions of people! Part of my fifteen minutes!

Here it is:

It's so simple it's ridiculous. Everyone got caught up in speculation, including those formerly conservative investment bankers. The solution is simple, too. We must return to an entrepreneurial economy, and regulate speculation (like commodities, hedge funds and indexing). Entrepreneurs create jobs. Speculators feed off an economy without contributing anything of value.

There you have it. A blog about an email being read on the radio and simulcast on web TV.

Who do you work for and with?

The biggest mistake new people make (new people in real estate, but you can also read that to mean new businesses) is thinking they have to work with everybody. Floyd teaches us to work with clients.

We work for and with clients who:

1. Buy in to our Core Values (Floyd's Philosophies)

2. See the value of outside training (our outside training) as a complement to their in-house training

3. Admit they have a significant number of underproducing salespeople who need to succeed (our niche)

4. Agree to follow the process (our process)

Translate those criteria into generic:

Buy in to your view of the world; acknowledge the value of your service or product; have a need you can fill; work with you your way. A recipe for success!

If you always and only work with clients who meet your criteria, it does three very important things for you:

1. You'll be happier because you're always working with people who both want and need what you have

2. It will simplify and focus your search for new clients

3. It dramatically increases the odds of doing repeat business