How to Deal with Increasing Competition – The Tiberias Success Formula: How to Supercharge Your Business and Yourself

By Boaz Rauchwerger

Attitude

When someone asks, “How’s business?” how do you answer?

In my experience, most CEOs tend to respond to this question in a negative fashion. The economy’s hurting right now. Customers aren’t placing orders. The cost of raw materials has skyrocketed. Our competition keeps undercutting price. Even when things are going well, there’s a tendency to accentuate the negative, as in, “Not bad, but it could be better.”

These responses may reflect how you feel at the moment. And they may contain some truth in them. But they do not get people thinking positively about your business.

As CEO, one of your most important jobs involves creating a positive image for your company. And that starts with your attitude toward the business and the world in general. So the next time someone asks, “How’s business?” try the following one-word response: unbelievable! Nothing else; just “unbelievable!” If the person asks, “Is business really that good?” don’t explain or qualify your answer. Simply reply, “All I can say is it’s unbelievable!”

Why “unbelievable?” Because words and attitude have profound power to shape reality. If you want people to think well of your business, you have to think and act that way. “Unbelievable” puts a smile on people’s faces. It gets their attention. And most important, it gets them thinking positively about your business.

To some, “unbelievable” may not feel like the truth, particularly if the business isn’t doing well. However, “unbelievable” doesn’t involve a lie because it covers both ends of the spectrum. You haven’t said whether the business is doing unbelievably well or poorly. Either way, when you say “unbelievable!” with enthusiasm and a big smile, people will always give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the positive.

If you’re going through tough times, fake it ‘til you make it. Act as if everything is looking up. After all, if your business does crash and burn, you might as well go down with enthusiasm and gusto.

Several millennia ago, the Chinese master Confucius said, “Take heed of the tongue because words are previews of things to come.” More recently, in his wonderful book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill stated that “whatever the mind can see and believe, it can achieve, whether good or bad.”

In business — as in most of life — attitude is everything. So the next time someone asks you, “How’s business?” give them a big smile and say, “Unbelieveable!”

Connecting with People

The most successful business leaders excel at building strong relationships.

Whether in a business or social setting, the following questions will enable you to connect with anyone in a matter of minutes. Before asking these questions, say, “I’m just curious….” and then start with (in order):

1. Where are you from originally?
2. Have you lived here all your life? Or (depending on the answer to #1), what brought you here?
3. Do you have a family?
4. What do you do?
5. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

You will be amazed at how these questions get people to open up and talk about themselves. In particular, question #5 literally stops people in their tracks and gets them to stay in the moment with you. Why? Because it connects with them at a very deep and personal level. Plus, it may have been years since anyone asked them that question and really listened to the answer.

Asking questions that are easy to answer allows the other person to relax and feel comfortable with you. So don’t approach this as an interview or interrogation. This is nothing more than friendly conversation with another human being.

To connect with your employees, become a doctor of human relations. Get a three-ring notebook and use these questions to create a one-page chart for every employee. Take notes about their personal information and what’s important to them. Then use the information to connect with them and make them feel important.

Make appointments with your employees to get to know them better. For example, “Mary, I need to apologize. You’ve worked here for six or seven years and I’ve never taken the time to get to know you as a person. Do you have time for us to talk over coffee?” When she agrees and you sit down together, ease into the process. “Mary, I’m just curious…where are you from?”

The feedback from Vistage members who try this is amazing! Not only do they feel better about getting to know their people, but some employees actually break down in tears because the process makes them feel so special. A few members said that it actually prevented long-term employees from leaving the company. When you take a genuine interest in people, you make them feel important. And given a choice, people will always choose a work environment where they are made to feel important.

This process can work with your salespeople as well. Have them use the five questions to get to know your clients at a deeper level. Ask your salespeople not how many widgets your clients are going to buy but what they are like as people. Where did they come from? What did they want to be when they grew up? When you make clients feel important, they will want to do business with you.

The Power of Why

To accomplish meaningful goals in business and in life, the why has to be bigger than the how.

What do I mean by that? Simply that human beings will take on enormous challenges when they know an appropriate reward awaits them. Make the reward (the why) big enough and your people will accomplish amazing things.

As CEO, you set the rewards for your people but you also set them for yourself. Since running a business involves such an arduous and demanding task, you might as well choose something that really excites you. To identify a truly exciting reward, make it tangible. Whenever possible, touch it, feel it, taste it or smell it. For example, if you want a new Ferrari, don’t just read the brochure, go to the dealership and take one for a test drive. Sit in it and grip the steering wheel. Smell the new leather and caress the upholstery. Pick the color and model you want and take a picture of yourself behind the wheel. Put the picture where you can see it every day. Make a copy the size of a business card, laminate it, and carry it with you at all times.

Set very clear, concrete goals for yourself and your people. Make the reward exciting and carry a picture of it with you at all times. Don’t worry about how you will accomplish the goal because when the why is big enough, the how doesn’t matter. During challenging moments, pull out the picture of your why to keep you focused and on track.

When employees want something but don’t seem motivated, help them identify an exciting why – not something you want or think you want for them, but something they truly want. Then ask, “What can I do to help you achieve your why?” If you help enough people get what they want, you will get everything you want.

Tiberias Success Formula

Now we come to my success formula, which is named after the city of Tiberias in Israel, which takes its name from the Roman emperor, Tiberius. These six steps take about eight minutes a day, and will dramatically change your life.

1. Affirmations. Did you know that you’re already an expert in affirmations? After all, an affirmation is nothing more than a statement to yourself about how you view the world. And every day you continually barrage your mind with statements about how the world is or should be. In many ways, success in life comes down to whether you choose to give yourself positive or negative affirmations. The subconscious mind listens to all your self-talk. The problem is that it can’t tell the difference between the real and the imaginary. So you have to be very careful to give yourself only positive affirmations. Remember that what the mind can see, hear and believe, it can create. This holds true for the positive as well as the negative.

   There are two basic types of positive affirmations. The first has to do with personal development, the second with achieving a time-sensitive goal. In each case, success depends on affirming your desired outcome as if it has already been accomplished. In other words, state what you want to be as if it is already a reality.

   For example, suppose you want to connect with people in a better way. Examples of positive affirmations might sound like:

   • I am a human relations expert
   • I am genuinely interested in other people
   • I am a very effective listener
   • I take time each day to make people feel important

   These kinds of powerful affirmations will turn you into a more effective leader and cause people to want to cooperate with you.

   A goal-oriented affirmation has four elements: a date, a goal, a reward and an emotion. Most people include the first three but neglect the fourth. For an affirmation to have power, it must be exciting. It must connect with something you want at a very deep level.

   When setting goals with your employees, don’t set your sights too high. Make sure they believe in the goal and the possibility of achieving it. One approach is to set a minimum threshold for the goal and then add the words “at least.”

   For example, assume you want to increase sales 15 percent this quarter but your sales manager doesn’t think it can happen. Ask him, “What percentage increase do you think we can achieve without fail?” If he responds with 10 percent, that becomes your minimum goal. Then add the words “at least.” Your affirmation then becomes, “This quarter, we increase sales by at least 10 percent.”

2. 31-day charge. What’s the first thing you do in the morning? Grab a cup of coffee and read the paper? Turn on CNN and watch the talking heads? If you’re striving to develop a positive attitude, that’s the mental equivalent of diving headfirst into a pool of sludge. The vast majority of news, whether print or telecast, is overwhelmingly negative. Why wake up with a clean, fresh mind and then start polluting it with negative mental garbage?

   To improve your attitude, stop delivery of the morning paper and turn off CNN. Instead, get a positive motivational audiotape and listen to it as you go through your morning routine. Not once, but every day, because repetition is the mother of skill. Listen to the same tape over and over until the thoughts become a part of you. Try this for a month and see if you don’t notice a change in your attitude and your relationships with people at work!

   By the way, I am not recommending that you ignore world or local events. However, you can’t do anything about those events first thing in the morning, so why not delay learning about them until later in the day? You’ll get a lot more out of listening to a good motivational tape. And if something really big happens in the world, people at the office will let you know. Otherwise, the news can wait. Your mental attitude is far more important.

3. Readings. Want to hear a shocking fact? The average American reads a grand total of two nonfiction books in their entire adult lifetime. It’s no wonder we have hardening of the attitudes! If you’re only going to read two non-fiction books, I suggest: Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

   Why these two books?

   Because no matter what you do or what kind of company you run, you are first and foremost in the people business. Think and Grow Rich is all about developing a positive attitude (remember — attitude is everything!). How to Win Friends and Influence People emphasizes the importance of common courtesies. It teaches how to put yourself in another person’s shoes, think from their perspective and be an active listener. When you do these things, you can’t help but make others feel important. When you make people feel important, they will go to the ends of the earth for you.

   Keep these books close at hand, at home and at the office. Read them over and over (at least one page a day from each book) until the lessons become your thoughts. Don’t listen to them on audiotape because you won’t get the same learning effect (audiotapes involve somebody else talking to you; books involve you talking to you). Reading from these two masterpieces each day will make a profound difference in your life.

4. Exercise. Far too many executives fail to exercise on a regular basis. When they do try to set up an exercise program, they usually bite off more than they can chew. As a result, they try it for a little while, get frustrated and then give up. To successfully integrate exercise into your life, set moderate, reasonable goals and break your exercise regimen into smaller, more manageable pieces.

   For example, start by exercising twice a week for 15 minutes (walking is a great starter exercise) and gradually increasing the duration. After two weeks, increase to 18 minutes. A few weeks later, bump it up to 20 minutes. Take it slow and easy and you will eventually get to the point where you exercise several times a week for 30 to 45 minutes. More important, you will find yourself enjoying it.

5. Fortune Fund. Almost every company has one or two people who continually ask for raises, regardless of whether or not they deserve them. The problem has nothing to do with how much they earn. Rather, they live from paycheck to paycheck because they program themselves to be poor. The next time this employee comes to you, respond by saying, “We’re not in a position to give you a raise, but I learned some valuable things about money management the other day. If you like, I’ll share them with you.”

   To go from a mindset of poverty to prosperity, the first step is to change your relationship with money. Start by carrying a hundred dollar bill in your wallet at all times. Why? Because every time you look in your wallet, you will feel prosperous. In addition, leave several twenty dollar bills around the house because whatever you focus on, expands.

   I also recommend creating a “fortune fund” and putting at least a dollar a day into it. Each week, put the money in a savings account, even if it’s only a few dollars. The amount isn’t nearly as important as the process because saving money on a regular basis changes your attitude toward money. Most people focus on poverty and lack of money. Maintaining a fortune fund will help you focus on prosperity.

6. Action. For things to change, you have to change first. Every day, take some kind of action on your most important goal, keeping in mind the why in your most important reward.

Five Ways to Take your Company/Life to the Next Level (and Have more Fun)

We all want more success and happiness in life. Here’s how to go about getting it.

1. Unbelievable! When people ask, “How’s business?” respond with enthusiasm. If times are tough, fake it ‘til you make it. Remember that attitude is everything. By saying “unbelievable!” you purposefully choose a positive attitude.

2. Every day I play like a champion. Make a number of signs (black lettering on yellow background) bearing this caption and post them all over your company. In particular, hang one just above your office door and let your people see you touch it every time you go in and out.

   When you reach up and touch the sign, your mind automatically thinks of the words “every day,” and “I play.” Life is like a game, and you can either play it poorly or well. Champions always play with great attitude and extra effort. Isn’t that how you want your people to play?

   By the way, a sign bearing this caption sits above the doorway in the Notre Dame football locker room. Each day, the players touch it before they run out on to the field. Notre Dame has won more national championships in football than any other college or university. A coincidence? I think not!

3. Use the five questions. Develop a genuine interest in others. Get to know your employees on a personal basis. Make people feel important and they will accomplish more than you thought possible.

4. Give everyone in your company a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Don’t insist that people read it. In fact, don’t even ask them to. Simply put it on their desks and say, “There’s no need to read this book. Please just keep it here on your desk.”

   Instead, subtly sell the book. Prominently display it on your desk. When someone comes into your office, let them see you reading it. Glance up and say, “Hold on a second, Jim. I’ll be right with you.” Will people read the book? Of course they will! And your company will be much better for it.

5. Change the way you conduct meetings. The purpose of most meetings is to resolve issues. Yet, most issues have negative overtones. When you start and end meetings with issues, you start and end on a negative tone. My recommendation? Begin and end your meetings in a positive, upbeat fashion.

   Start by having every person relate one positive thing that has happened since the last meeting. If someone says, “I don’t know,” respond with,” That’s okay. If you did know, what would it be?” Another line to get people talking is, “It’s okay that you don’t know. Just guess.” Close by having everyone identify one positive aspect about the meeting. Don’t accept vague generalities. Insist on specifics, such as, “I liked Judy’s input on the XYZ project.”

   People find what they look for, and the average person tends to look for the bad and disregard the good. To get more out of your people, help them look for the good.