A Note From The President

Avil Beckford, President

I have often read, and have been told that writing a book gives you credibility as a consultant. I wanted to find out, so I asked a few people who I know have written books. I asked, how has writing a book helped your business?

Andrea Nierenberg, "The Queen of Networking" and the author of Nonstop Networking: How to Improve Your Life, Luck and Career, and Million Dollar Networking, responded "It is very easy, my books have simply been the best calling cards I could ever ask for, I give away a 'book a day' and it has tripled my business."

Heather Resnick, author of Women Reworked responded, "Writing a book is my business! Generally speaking though, writing a book makes you an "Authority" in the eyes of the public. It opens doors for speaking engagements and people are genuinely impressed that you have actually written a book, knowing the amount of research/time involved. Books are regarded with esteem!"

According to Gail Blanke, "First, Between Trapezes (as with Wildest Dreams and Taking Control of Your Life) provided a marketing platform for my business. Books describe your point of view and what makes you unique and provide the media with much needed angles and content for their particular communications vehicles. Second, potential clients and customers can access you through your writing and are motivated to buy whatever product or service you're selling. Finally, it's close to impossible to make money (other than recovering your costs) from a book. That's not the reason to write them. In addition to the exposure they provide, disciplining yourself and refining your message are invaluable. You learn a lot about yourself from writing a book. And that can be priceless."

Chris Widener author of Four Seasons, The Angel Within, and co-author of Twelve Pillars of Success, had this to say, "It has been the best promotional tool, business card, advertising I could do!"

Book Review

Review of The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle: A Guide to Personal Success by Jim Rohn

I consider Jim Rohn to be one of my teachers and I often read the books that he writes or recommends. Despite this, I do not agree with all his philosophies, but this book contains some unique ways of looking at life and it's an easy read. The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle is about how to live a more successful, fulfilling and happier life. So, What are the five major pieces of the puzzle?

• Philosophy - what we know
• Attitude - what we feel
• Activity - what we do
• Results - what we achieve
• Lifestyle - how we choose to live and design our lives

According to the author, our personal philosophy establishes our attitude, which determines the quantity and quality of our activity, which produces a final and proportionate result, which provides the lifestyle that we live. Rohn suggests that to become successful, we have to practice a few simple disciplines every day.

To look more closely at personal philosophy, "A major factor in determining how our lives turn out is the way we choose to think. Everything that goes on inside the human mind in the form of thoughts, ideas and information forms our personal philosophy." The beliefs that form our personal philosophy also determine our value system. We are encouraged to learn from other people's experience with success and failure, surround ourselves with positive influence, become good listeners and observers, read all the books and keep a journal. For example, to become a good observer and excel, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is going on in my industry?
• What challenges are currently facing our community?
• What are the new breakthroughs, the new opportunities, the new tools and techniques that have recently come to light?
• What are the new personalities that are influencing the world and local opinions?

Rohn explains that all the books that we will ever need to make us as rich, as healthy, as sophisticated and so on, have already been written. He further adds, "The habit of reading is a major stepping stone in the development of a sound philosophical foundation."

It's also very important for us to study our results so that we can make adjustments along the way. "If we are not satisfied with what we have achieved at this point in our lives, then now is the time to fix the future… If we are not making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time, then something is clearly wrong with either our objectives or the execution of our plans… Ten years from now we will all be somewhere, the question is where? Now is the time to fix the next ten years."

Five Great Ideas

1. To have more, we must first become more
2. In the end, our lives will be judged not by the things that we began, but by the things that our effort and resolve brought to a successful conclusion
3. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event - it is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated everyday
4. For things to change, we must change
5. The only thing that is necessary for triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. It is our lack of intense, disciplined activity that has allowed evil to flourish and good men to flounder

I recommend The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle. It's very easy to read and has information that causes you to pause and reflect.

April's Book List

The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle: A Guide to Personal Success, Jim Rohn

Survey Results

Happiness And Success

Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., of the University of California, Laura King, Ph.D., of University of Missouri, Columbia and Ed Diener, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The Gallup Organization examined 225 studies involving three different types of evidence - cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs - to determine how happiness and positive affect are related to culturally-valued success. This is what they found:

• Happy individuals are more likely than their less happy peers to have fulfilling marriages and relationships, high incomes, superior work performance, community involvement, robust health and even a long life
• Intelligence, family, expertise and physical fitness, can also play a role in people's successes
• All three types of studies suggests that happiness does lead to behaviors that often produce further success in work, relationships and health, and these successes result in part from a person's positive affect
• Happy people are capable of experiencing sadness and negative emotions in response to negative events, which is a healthy and appropriate response
• Happy people are more likely to achieve favorable life circumstances
  

Source:

http://www.apa.org/releases/success1205.html http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/bul1316803.pdf

How Did They Do That?

Shari Fryer, Shari Fryer & Associates

http://www.fryerassociates.com/

Challenge: Convincing a client (large, global training organization) to try e-Marketing initiatives to generate leads. The client was skeptical given that they provide business-to-business services and didn't feel that e-Marketing was "personal" enough to stimulate interest from new contacts. The organization had been struggling with extending their reach beyond their existing customer base.

Solution: I convinced the client to try this new marketing approach because:

• It WOULD generate leads
• It WOULD extend their reach beyond their existing database
• They could use the content for multiple purposes, not just a one off activity
• E-Marketing was a tactic that reinforced how they wanted to position themselves (i.e. as an organization at the cutting edge of technology and it's application for learning)
• It was extremely cost effective and a good return on investment
  

Lessons Learned

1. Engaging the sales people is essential in a campaign like this one. They need to be regularly briefed on the initiative and the supporting outreach activities so they are supportive and enthusiastic about the initiative.
2. Training is also important to ensure that everyone is well-prepared in advance of the leads being generated and know what to do as soon as inquiries are received.
   

What Can Ambeck Do For You:

Ambeck Enterprise provides diverse business research and analysis services to senior executives, through the relevant distillation of diverse facts and data.

How Effective Is Your Training?
A municipality hired Ambeck Enterprise to evaluate the effectiveness of its human rights training. Based on the results of the evaluation, the municipality was able to make changes to the training.

Formula For Success

Shari Fryer, Shari Fryer & Associates

If you love what you do, the rest falls into place. Work harder than most but make sure you find time for fun to energize your creative and professional pursuits.

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