Archive for the ‘zenpeak’ Category

4 Success Habits (Mr. Gray’s speech page 6 paraphrased)

Friday, December 11th, 2009

I read this 9 page speech by Mr. Gray as part of Bob Proctor’s bonus materials on a success website. I don’t think the speech is well-written but the truth about achieving success is painfully clear. I am paraphrasing a small part of it, and invite you to email me for the full text.  As an added piece of inspiration, Tony Robbins audio clip about Sylvester Stallone and the making of Rocky is at the bottom.

If you are on a job hunt, or growing a business, I believe Mr. Gray provides great advice…

Reminder to Self:

4 Success Habits – (paraphrased from pg. 6 of Mr. Gray’s speech)

persuading/calling/contacting/working

It’s easier to persuade someone to a particular course of action, than to find someone who already wants to do it. So if you lack contacts interested in what you do, then you have unconsciously formed the habit of limiting your contacts to people who already want what you offer. Contacting people who need what you offer, (regardless of their “wants”) is the path to success; and they may also be a source of referrals.

If you don’t call on people who are able to do what you want, but may be unwilling to listen, then you have unconsciously formed the habit of limiting yourself to calling on people who are willing to listen, but may be unable to do what you want. What’s the worst that can happen, and does that involve my pride and ego?

Successful people form the habit of calling on people determined to help them see why its in their best interest to take action. If you don’t do that when calling on people, then you have unconsciously formed the habit of calling on people when you are in a state of mind, willing to let them convince you of their reasons for not taking action.

Working habits according to Mr. Gray take care of themselves if the other 3 habits are looked after. I think they take work too as I can procrastinate with the best of them. Follow ups and persistence need work. I try and make a mental note of how you feel when you are working hard, and getting things done. I know I feel better.

Speaking of mental notes I find that making a mental note of how you feel the instant after hanging up from a telephone call is very helpful. People respond positively to talking with someone who knows their stuff and believes in what they do, even if they disagree or are not interested.

These are the success habits according to Mr. Gray, and they are driven by long term purpose in life.

To get Mr. Gray’s complete speech please email me. Click on the picture to hear Tony Robbins talk about Sylvester Stallone and Rocky.

Rocky with his dog

Rocky with his dog

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Lots of Career Paths in Mobile

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Is 2012 the end of the world or just the advent of total dominance of mobile devices in our daily activities?

The revolution is underway but I’m not sure it will fully hit in 2012, maybe a bit later, but for career opportunities, the timing is now!

There is a school of thinking that we tend to overestimate short-term impacts of change, meaning 1 year, and underestimate long-term impacts meaning 10 years plus. If this is the case, after 10 years of broadband mobile at mainstream consumer pricing… your life will change big time. The Internet took 10 years from the mid-90s to shakeout weak businesses and weak business models, as broadband internet access became affordable and deliverable. It takes time, and this is a complex landscape.

According to Silicon.com While until recently the mobile apps market had been dominated by the mobile operator, now there is greater competition between handset companies, operators and application developers who are all wrestling for control of the users’ mobile experience – and their cash. As a result, there’s now fierce competition for domination of the mobile apps space.

Revealed: The apps you’ll have on your phone in 2012texting_thumb

1. Money transfer
2. Location-based services
3. Mobile search
4. Mobile browsing
5. Mobile health monitoring
6. Mobile payment
7. Near field communication services
8. Mobile advertising
9. Mobile instant messaging
10. Mobile music

Of particular interest to me, is the convergence of location-based technologies and solutions with all delivery channels inc. mobile. I look forward to some innovative uses of interaction that enhances consumer experiences as we are driving or moving about. Also the issues of privacy and security will continue to challenge the raw potential of location-based mass customization in marketing, content delivery, commerce and communications.

Pour yourself a hot toddy and reflect on…. “What I Can Do For You!” in this new mobile-centric world. Could this be a career path for you?

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Do’s and Don’ts for hiring from Fast Company

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Here are some Do’s and Don’ts for hiring from Fast Company that are good common sense for small to mid-size growth companies (the kinds of clients we have at zenPeak for the most part).

Of course, picking the right person who will be a peak performer in your company is still an art and a science. Our system includes assessments that use position benchmarks, and examine the EQ competency scores that will lead to peak performance… and… IT WORKS!

Fast Company's The Do's and Don'ts of Hiring

Fast Company's The Do's and Don'ts of Hiring

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Location Based Marketing – gonna be big big big (and that means jobs)

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Location Based Marketing is not flavor of the month technology. In fact it has been kicking around for years, and still there is a ways to go for the business side to solve the problems ranging from privacy to the profusion of platforms and devices.

Potential Gold Mine for Marketers

Potential Gold Mine for Marketers

The mainstream media inc. Business Week is all over it and you will be hearing more and more about companies making inroads getting traction and even making $.  Watch for companies that are not trying to “organize” the world but are leveraging existing content, user-generated content and offering light open-source solutions – ideal for rapid success.

I especially like this space having a strong interest in data-rich target marketing.

Skyhook Wireless

Skyhook Wireless

Check out skyhook wireless You can try out the location-based “loki” system right on their website.

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Dreier hung out on the clothesline for 20 years

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

In a weird case of both fraud and impersonation, Marc Dreier’s ponzi scheming ran into the suspicions of some Bay St. types in Toronto, who wisely alerted police. Today, his world of 121 foot yachts, a luxurious Manhattan lifestyle, and his 250 person law firm has reached its final collapse, as he was sent up for 20.

Lawyer Arrested

Dreier used investors’ money to subsidize the money-losing firm, to pay off some of the victims of the scam and to buy luxuries for himself, including a 121- foot yacht, vacation homes in the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island and a $39 million contemporary-art collection. The judge said he was surprised that Dreier’s letter showed an “understanding” of his crimes. Letters that victims wrote to the judge depicted Dreier as “arrogant, condescending and cruel” – Bloomberg

If he had taken the zeroriskHR profile, I wonder what his scores would have been on empathy towards others and adherence to rules.

We know that statistically, a good fit to a benchmark score, will contribute to peak performance.

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Growth Industry for the next 5 years… Search Engine Marketing

Friday, July 10th, 2009

If you are looking for a great career path this is one of the best!

Coming out of this economic collapse, many Internet business processes and business models for small and mid-size business will take shape and REPLACE past efforts – In other words, bye-bye printed Yellow Pages AND bye-bye online Yellow Page type portals.

Proximity marketing (geo-marketing, location-based marketing) is going to be big as new applications using GPS or cellular location technologies empower mobile devices and PCs. This means that an SME operator, even with just one location, can spend her money reaching, engaging and transacting with her target market, without buying a yellow pages ad.

search budgets

It’s basic stuff, and it will drive the need for more talented people who can create and execute Search Marketing campaigns.

If you are looking for a great career path this is one of the best!

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SES Toronto – Are Internet Marketing career opportunities bigger than ever?

Monday, June 1st, 2009

SES 2009 Toronto – Search Engine Strategies Conference arrives in town next week.

Thinking about a career in Internet Marketing? Your timing is good!

Wal-Mart beat K-Mart and Sears because they invested in data-rich marketing and merchandising technologies. Companies that think only 10% of marketing budgets should be online are in for a shock to their core! as they play catchup for years to come.

SEM is part of Internet Marketing; a growth industry that is about to explode. This all began with a handful of visionaries like Dr. Ralph Wilson back in the mid-1990s. It has taken 15 years, inc. a few business shakeouts, to bring us to a point of complete transformation.

Social and economic changes usually take at least 10 -15 years, and are often under-estimated in depth of their impact because the growth and retrenchments are only easily recognizable looking back in hindsight, with a “time lapse” perspective. And the future?…

A top “peak performer” career path for the future is VP of Internet Marketing, with the future responsibility of managing 90% of a company’s marketing dollars AND… demand for senior-level marketers will continue to be high. A broad expertise in Internet Marketing web, social networks, and mobile is rare!

If you have been paying attention to the terrible condition of newspapers in North America, you have to ask yourself is this just the economy? and when business picks up, the advertisers and subscribers will return?, or is it a major transformation?

We are inside the transformation, so its hard to see it. Today’s generation has always been plugged in and online. It is no longer cute or charming to be a luddite and announce you don’t use a computer or a mobile device. You will just get shrugs and blank stares.

Digital, interactive, on-demand, high-definition, data-rich media is where its at. Newspapers and newsmagazines are in decline, with just a few destined to survive in some fashion. They are slow, labor-intensive, high-wage, energy gobbling, analog industries with an insatiable desire to cut trees and burn fossil fuels, just to drop printed pages on your doorstep. Much of the information they deliver is stale (sports scores, stock listings) and their strategic knowledge of their readers (preferences and behaviours) is almost nil or dependent on surveys, and is rarely granular, actionable business intelligence.

From an advertiser’s point of view, the content isn’t really important but rather the ROI of Marketing. Can Internet Marketing deliver ROI? Yes, and Search Engine Marketing is a key component.

So now we come full circle back to the prospects for a career in Internet Marketing. Yes, your career prospects and your timing are both excellent!

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Earn Customer Trust with Employees who can be Trusted!

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

There are a number of steps a company can take to build a trust relationship with customers.

According to Deborah Nixon of Trust Learning Solutions. In the Financial Post article of May 26 2009, she lists a few;

  1. survey customers
  2. survey employees
  3. examine strategies and programs against survey results
  4. align communications with trust messaging
  5. recheck changes made in 6 months

According to Nixon, “Employees who doubt the integrity or ability of their organization to cope with challenges will deliver poor customer service”

I don’t fully agree with this statement, although there are certainly lots of problems resulting from companies operating low trust corporate working environments.

A worker may hate their job and their boss and think the company is slimy, but may still do their work. EQ assessments, and over 40 years of studies, show that an individual’s empathy and organizational loyalty, and other emotional intelligence internal and external competencies, will impact the degree to which they follow the rules and do their job, regardless of the level of trust around them.

Testing is a critical component in a high-trust organization that wants to be trusted. Companies must invest real resources to take this path. In addition to Nixon’s excellent advice about surveys etc.,  companies need to recruit and retain people who have been assessed, and will likely be suited to their roles. This is the way to peak performance in an organization.

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Peak Performers will love the new Scotiabank Executive Compensation scheme!

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Peak Performers will love the new Scotiabank Executive Compensation scheme!

According to the Financial Post of May 20 2009, under the new compensation plan, investment bankers at ScotiaCapital will win in the long run if all stakeholders, including the bank and its shareholders, also win in the long run.

The Financial Post outlines the details, and asserts that there may be a rush for the exits if other Bay St. firm don’t head down the same path as ScotiaCapital.

While the world’s big financial institutions cope with stress tests (the Federal Reserve Stress Test guide is here) zenPeak has another thought…

Why not test staff for how they respond to stress with a comprehensive Emotional Intelligence profile from zenPeak?

It’s a proven methodology to discover the EQ and get some awareness on how someone will perform in their job. Take a look at the core competencies that bring peak performance on Bay St.!

salespersoncompetencies1

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Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives – I LOVE THIS SHOW on The Food Network!

Thursday, May 14th, 2009
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

This is a great show about fun food. If you are a wine-sniffer or crazy for white tablecloths and over the top service, don’t tune in. The food showcased is often created by amazing chefs, without pretense but with tons of innovative talent.

This recipe for Mona Lisa pizza looked amazing – I’m gonna try it.

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