TipsForSuccess: September 2009

Succeed with Speed

Succeed with Speed

How long do you wait for a haircut? For a table at a restaurant? For your car to be repaired?

How long does it take before you get irritated?

On the other hand, how do you feel when you receive instant service?

"You need your car fixed? We can do it in five minutes."

"Hello, you're right on time! Dr. Smith will see you now."

"You need a new driver's license? Okay, stand here for your photo. Here's your license. Have a nice day."

One of the fastest ways to hurt your business is to make people wait. After five minutes they become uncomfortable. In ten minutes they are unhappy. In fifteen they are irritable. After twenty, they decide to leave.

There is no benefit in making people wait. They do not think, "Boy, these guys are really important, really busy, really in demand!" Instead, they think, "These idiots aren't very organized." "Maybe they don't think I'm very important."

"To prosper, service must be as close to instant as possible."

"Anything which stops or delays the flows of a business or delays or puts a customer or product on WAIT is an enemy of that business." -- L. Ron Hubbard

Businesses that provide fast service or fast products take over their industries. For example, McDonalds gives you hot food in one minute, Jiffy Lube changes your car oil in ten minutes and Lenscrafters makes your glasses in an hour. All three companies have made their owners and executives wealthy because they provide fast service.

The same principle works for you. Each time you make a customer wait, your boss wait or even a coworker wait, you are hurting your income.

For example, a lazy waiter makes a hungry customer wait for ten minutes before taking his order and gets a $1 tip. The same customer gives a $5 tip to a waitress who takes his order within thirty seconds. With 40 customers per day, the fast waitress earns $800 more in tips each week because she gives fast service. The restaurant also makes more money as customers use a table for 45 minutes instead of 60 minutes; more meals are sold.

If you own a small business, you can use this principle to beat the big boys. For example, you open a small print shop, but cannot get enough work to pay your bills. You advertise, "We will finish any print job in 24 hours." Within a week, you have ten new jobs. Even though you work 15 hours per day for a week, you steal a few of your competitors' big customers and make a small fortune.

As another example, your boss asks you and two of your co-workers to gather your production numbers for the past six months. You bring it to your boss in an hour. One of your co-workers brings his numbers at the end of the week. The other co-worker forgets all about it. If you are consistently fast, who will the boss want to give more responsibility and pay? Who might get laid off?

If you wish to succeed and prosper, you must be fast!

Action Plan #1

1. How do you make money? List every step of the process you use.

2. Look for every delay. Where do things slow down?

3. How can you speed up these points? How can you provide nearly-instant service or a nearly-instant product?

Action Plan #2

1. Who waits for you?

2. Of these people, who has influence over your success?

3. How can you break all speed records and give these people what they need instantly?

Write down your plans and act!

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

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Personal Glory is a Lousy Goal

Personal Glory Is a Lousy Goal

“Never need praise, approval or sympathy.” -- L. Ron Hubbard, from “The Code of Honor”

To succeed, you need to learn this important lesson. If you fail to learn this lesson, your success will always be limited. The lesson is this: seeking personal importance interferes with your success.

If your purpose is to be famous, admired or liked, your decisions will be wrong. People will not respect you. You lose money.

If admiration from others is a big source of your happiness, you become addicted to finding more and more admiration. You lose sight of goals that really matter in life.

Like any addiction, getting admiration fixes can dominate your life. For example, you buy a car or house to earn status. You marry the wrong person because you think the marriage makes you look good. You choose a career because it makes you popular, not because you love the work.

An Arabian proverb sums up fame in six words: “A dog barks; the caravan passes.” You might make lots of noise and get some attention, but life moves on. Why waste time and effort for a few dog barks?

It feels good to be admired. It feels satisfying to be liked. But to seek personal fame as a goal can ruin your career, your business, your family, your life.

10 Reasons Why Seeking Admiration Is a Bad Idea

1. You depend on others for your happiness or feeling of self-worth.

2. Because you need the credit for good ideas, you prevent implementation of anything if you did not think of it. For example, you might ignore a brilliant solution because the idea comes from your spouse or employee or coworker.

3. As a boss, you refuse to let anyone make decisions. You want everyone to wait for your blessing before they act. As a result, you get stressed to pieces while competent people feel insulted.

4. People learn they can control you by praising you or criticizing you.

5. You avoid important duties because they are unpopular. For example, a boss might not correct employees as it is unpopular. An employee might not demand payment from a customer as he doesn't want to be unpopular with that customer.

6. Without a regular dose of validation, you start to criticize yourself.

7. Working for admiration distracts you from working on more valuable, long-term objectives.

8. To make the herd like you, you follow the herd and never break into personal success beyond the herd's success.

9. Achieving personal glory does not mean you can now pay your bills.

10. No matter how successful you might be, if you do not get admiration, you feel like a failure.

Recommendations

* Make your decisions based on what is right for your goals, your family, your group.

* Choose goals that have nothing to do with personal glory or fame.

* Start to admire and appreciate yourself; avoid the need for admiration from others.

* Do what is right, not what you will be applauded for.

* Evaluate yourself by your own standards of what you should be, not what others want you to be.

As a result, your personal potential is unlimited!

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

Getting Organized

Getting Organized

As covered in two previous articles, to succeed you need to NAME and WANT whatever product or result you are after. The third component is GETTING ORGANIZED.

“The purpose of organization is TO MAKE PLANNING BECOME ACTUALITY.” -- L. Ron Hubbard

Well-organized operations make it simple for its employees to follow the set procedures. For example, McDonald's restaurants can train a high-school student to run the cash register, fill orders and provide good service with just a few days of training. Everyone in McDonald's does it the same efficient way, from Burbank to Boise to Berlin.

Successful individuals are also well organized. They get the most possible productivity with the least amount of time and effort. Their work space is orderly and clean. Their possessions are kept in good working order and easy to locate. They are punctual, dependable and efficient.

Organized people stay on top of the routine actions necessary to successful living. Their cars run well, their desks are clean and their closets are orderly. They set goals, work out doable plans and figure out their priorities. Because they are organized and ready to produce, they get more things done than people who are disorganized.

You, too, must be organized to achieve your dreams.

Six Key Ingredients

L. Ron Hubbard lists six essential parts of good organizing.
Observation
Planning
Communicating
Supervision
Production
Users

1. Observation: Before you start, look around. See what needs to be done. Envision a well-organized life or operation.

When organizing your business, your job, your employees or your home, look at the current scene. Do not assume anything. Listen to no one. Observe for yourself so you can more accurately do the rest of the steps.

2. Planning: List all the steps you will need to take to reach the final result. Break big projects down into small tasks. Make sure each task is doable and not based on fantasy.

3. Communicating: Talk to those who will be involved in your plan. Ensure they will help you, work with you or do the work.

4. Supervision: Everyone is a supervisor, even if just a supervisor for themselves. Someone has to put things into motion. If no one supervises the activity, it dies from lack of attention.

5. Production: Until this point, it's been all thinking and talking. Now you take action. Because you have properly organized the activity, you get more done in less time. Your planning steps will pay off.

You can throw yourself and others into the task. Focus on accomplishment. Do whatever you need to do to make the plan an actuality.

6. Users: Make sure whoever receives your product or service is satisfied. If they get what they need or want, you are successful.

For example, a new software program that is incredibly powerful, is only successful if anyone can use it. If it's too complicated, it will not lead you to your dreams until you take it one extra mile to the user.

As an employee, your user may be your boss, your customers or your coworkers. Do they love your product or service? Does it exceed their expectations? If so, you have organized your ultimate success.

Summary

NAME your product. Get very specific about what you need to produce or accomplish.

WANT your product. Raise your desire and passion to the highest levels possible.

ORGANIZE yourself and the activity. Use the six ingredients to quickly and efficiently reach your goals.

With all three factors in place, you perform better, accomplish more and make your dreams into reality.

You win!

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

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Do You Worry About Money?

Do You Worry About Money?

Which of these approaches do you use to solve money problems?

1. Worry
2. Hope
3. Cheat or steal
4. Wait for someone to give you money
5. Whine and complain
6. Hope even more

Of course, none of these solutions help you get more money.

What is your only solution?

“I answer money problems with lots of money, not with worry or sadness or impractical hope.” -- L. Ron Hubbard

No other solution is as reliable.

Six Examples

1. You are trying to sleep, but you can't stop worrying about your money problems.

So you get out of bed and write a plan on how to make more money. You spend three hours figuring out exactly what you must do, step by step. You even work out several deadlines. You are confident your plan will work and can't wait to start on it in the morning. You jump back into bed and fall asleep.

2. You play the lottery every day and hope you will win. It's your only plan for getting rich. You decide to take more action.

You search the Internet for “How to Win the Lottery” and find dozens of opinions. You suddenly realize the lottery is for fools.

Your mind suddenly feels clearer. You decide to determine your own future. You believe the best way to increase your income is to make yourself into a more valuable worker. You use your lottery ticket money to pay for management classes.

3. You really like helping the elderly and work as an assistant manager job in a rest home. A friend takes you to lunch to tell you about his idea. “With your connections, we can get these people to pay $500 for fake funeral insurance. They'll never know it's a con because they'll be dead!”

You want more money, but believe you have the ability to earn money, not steal it. You say, “Not for me. I don't want anything to do with it. Don't ask me again.”

You then think of a plan to help the residents with their finances so no one can steal from them. The idea grows to include financial management for these people's taxes, investments and insurance. You and your boss form a partnership with you in charge of the program.

4. Your paycheck does not cover your bills. You have been waiting for your boss to give you a raise for months. But business is slow and he says he can't afford your raise.

You decide to not wait for your boss and you start a home business designing interactive websites that solve business problems. You study and work six hours per day and most of your weekends. You earn a reputation as a brilliant web programmer. Your home-business income exceeds your paycheck and you quit your job.

5. You hope you will strike it rich. You believe you just need to chant it to yourself enough and it will become true. Every hour, you close your eyes and tell yourself, “I will become rich. I will become rich. I will become rich.” You even sleep while listening to a recording of yourself saying, “I will become rich. I will become rich. I will become rich.”

Yet despite your strong thoughts, you realize you are becoming poorer. You decide to take action.

You examine every way you have earned money in the past: washing cars, delivering furniture, organizing garages, restoring antique cars. You select the method you used to earn the most money which is restoring antique cars. You get to work.

6. For the past few weeks, you've been calling your friends and saying, “I work so hard, but make so little.” “I just can't find the right job.” “No one appreciates me. Life is so unfair!”

It gets harder and harder to find anyone who will listen to you. You wonder, “Maybe they don't like to hear me whine?”

You decide to knock off the self-pity, sadness and complaining. “That's it! I will not be a victim. I will never whine again!”

You ask successful people how they make money and learn they are now generous with their time. You realize you can do many of the same things that work for them. You get productive.

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

Succeed with Speed

Personal Glory is a Lousy Goal

Getting Organized

Do You Worry About Money?

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