My 7 Business Lessons

7 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT BUSINESS FROM RON PILEGGI

I met Ron Pileggi in 1983 when he hired me as an ad sales rep for the Tri-City weekly paper in Eureka. He struck me as an entrepreneurial visionary with a plan and a mission to change the community in a positive way via business.  As owner and the founding architect of the Tri-City weekly newspaper, Ron modeled good business acumen. He showed me and each of us how to conduct business in a process that really valued people first. Here are the seven lessons he taught me and still teaches me today.

1. Rule number one– People come first. People, relationships, and friendships are everything in business and in life.  As the owner/operator of the Tri City, he modeled real care for employees, clients, vendors, people in his industry and beyond. Client relationships and personal care of others was at the forefront of everything Ron practiced in his business.
2. Rule number two –Client relationships are invaluable, as Ron demonstrated in his actions and policies. He said that good leadership is all about being a good servant. He taught that good service sets the stage for good customer loyalty and customer relations. If you serve your clients and take good care of them–they will take care of you as well. Customers vote in dollars and purchasing. People really do buy from people they know, like, and trust. One thing he told us is to go out and make friendships–then people will naturally buy from you.
3. Rule number three– Turn off the lights. He often told me if you want to be a manager you must act like a manager and be a great steward of your business. He challenged me to personally take good care of the resources entrusted to me. Things such as time, energy, and other resources were looked at in a new light. This taught me that I need to take ownership of all I do at work.
4. Rule number four—Speech is powerful. Ron often stated that the power of your words is everything. When words are spoken with clarity and sincerity, people are really affected by what we say. He stated this in the context of selling but also in real life. When we say what we mean, and mean what we say–we are often unstoppable in business and in life.  He taught me about the power of words and I’ve never forgotten this lesson.
5. Rule number five—Be involved in your community; participate readily and joyfully. Ron modeled good community involvement in CASA and in Rotary and more. He was always the guy to say “yes” to someone with a good cause. He may not have been involved directly, but he gave freely of his resources. His involvement with the community modeled what we all need to do—to be involved with causes that we resonate with and are most passionate about. Find your cause or your passion, and then plug in your gifts and experiences and resources. You will add to the greater good in your community and beyond.
6. Rule number six–Think creatively and out-of-the-box at all times. This means not only with business and selling, but also in the ways that help real live people. Be willing to bend or even break the rules as necessary and as it makes sense to benefit the greater good.  “Be entrepreneurial in your problem solving”, he would challenge. He taught how to think creatively with regard to business problem solving and helping customers meet their needs. He often showed us and told us that if we meet others’ needs, they will meet ours as well. If you help enough people get what they need, they will help you do the same.
7. Rule number seven–Be generous and celebrate people. His (in) famous Christmas parties displayed a great generosity and were always “over the top” in showing his appreciation for his staff. Ron would gladly put on the most extravagant party–even for an outgoing employee. He didn’t know selfishness. My father, Bob Hammond, called him “a prince of a man” in that he was always very generous with his employees, clients, and his community. We all were the better for that–so was he.

In summary, Ron was human. He had his moments like each of us. The one thing he did was to model a whole business person. He cared for others and was profitable at the same time. He found that balance between profitability and success and taking care of other’s needs; Ron was able to do both in splendid fashion.  He left an indelible mark and positive legacy on this community for over 30 years and still does to this day. It is a pleasure and a privilege to know a saint and a friend in the caliber of a Ron Pileggi.  If you ever have the opportunity to work for an owner-operator-entrepreneur of this magnitude, you will agree that it is an awesome and  once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and experience.  Thanks, Ronnie.

–Scott Hammond

10 Ways To Make Time For Your Children

1. Commit to a family mealtime each day.
2. Write your children’s activities into your schedule book – in ink!
3. Identify one thing on your weekly schedule you can do without and replace it with kid time.
4. Take one of your children along when you run errands.
5. Volunteer to participate in a regularly scheduled child activity, such as coaching a softball team or helping with a school activity.
6. Identify one children’s show on TV that you secretly like to watch and make a point of watching it with your child.
7. Develop an interest in a hobby you and your child can enjoy together.
8. If your work requires that you travel, take one of your children along with you when your business trip can be extended into a long weekend.
9. If your work schedule is flexible, start your work day earlier so you can get home earlier in the afternoon to be with your family.
10. Leave your work, cellular phones and pagers at home when you go on family vacations and outings.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Hey, gotta minute?

We all possess valuable resources, but none is trickier or more valuable than time. Managing your time is THE key skill set in managing your life. Show what you do with your time and you show what your value system is all about. When leveraging time you will utilize and expand on core strength. If you can manage your time well you can accomplish almost anything. Using time incrementally, methodically, and strategically will help you stay on track and achieve your life priorities.

Personal productivity is only as limited as your proper use of time. Wise use of time maximizes and leverages all resources and helps you achieve your goals, objectives, and priorities. Good time management allows you to plan ahead and to use your purpose and passion with laser focus—nothing becomes impossible. Your productivity, as you leverage your passion through good time management, increases exponentially resulting in compelling accomplishment.

“Plan your work, then work your plan” is a great axiom. The “work your plan” part has to do with time management. Planning is great, but is useless without execution. Time management is all about the execution of your plans, goals, passions, and objectives.

Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Do you value life? Then waste no time, for that is the stuff of which life is made.” The value of anything that you obtain or accomplish can be determined by how much of your time, or your life, that you spent to acquire it.

The amount of yourself that you use up in achieving the goals that are important to you is a critical factor to consider, even before you begin. Only by discovering your innate strengths and developing and exploiting them to their highest degree can you utilize yourself to get the greatest amount of satisfaction and enjoyment from everything you do.

Deciding what you want to do, what you can do well, and what can give you the highest rewards for your efforts is the starting point in getting the best out of yourself.

Show me how much you love your family by how much time you give them. Show me a dad who loves his family and I’ll show you a guy who plans and spends time with them.
Personal Time Management

The definition of Time management: is a set of skills, tools, and systems that work together to help you get more value out of your time and leverage it to accomplish what you want.

CAN YOU EVER GET IT “ALL” DONE? (http://www.times-standard.com/business/ci_16728000)

Do we ever truly get it all done?

To think that we could have it completely whipped is a fallacy and a dangerous life paradigm. Could you get at least some of it done? It is possible. Here are a few ways and strategies that can increase your productivity:

1. Schedule your time for work — be consistent. Don’t do personal things in your schedule to work. Make it to do list and prioritize your tasks. A list is often more effective for those of us need to consult a reference or see it in writing. When you’ve completed a task, cross off your list. You get a real sense of completion in satisfaction as you see your list getting shorter and shorter.

2. Do the most difficult, time-consuming, least favorite jobs first — do the first things first. Do the hardest task at hand when you have the most energy and motivation to tackle the project. If you tackle the toughest job first, the rest of your tasks will seem that much easier.

3. Do not allow yourself to get interrupted by other people’s emergencies or drama-be able to say “No.” Learn to have boundaries. Learn to say no and a polite but firm way. Be professional, kind and understanding, but also be ready to use the most famous boundary word of them all: No.

4. Organize your files-set up the system right from the beginning. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use a Day-Timer for scheduling. Have a 31-day and 12-month filing system. You can have technology, but don’t let technology have you. Do not reinvent the wheel. An ordered space will allow you to be less stressed.

5. Organize your workspace-the better organized and efficient your workspace, the more efficient you will be in time management. The time it takes you to search through out all your piles of paper or to remember where you put that file could be spent in working on new projects. Put the things you use most on your desktop and always put them back in the same place when you’re done. Keep a file organizer on your desk for current projects, so they are always at your finger tips. Have clearly delineated places for everything.

In conclusion, plan your work and work your plan. Translate intention into action daily by budgeting time for what is most important. Leverage your gifts ,skill-sets, and time and you will make the difference in your world.

The 80/20 Rule and how to leverage your time and energy

The 80/20 Rule and how to leverage your time and energy

TIME MANAGEMENT MADE EASY–THE 80/20 RULE

Time management—

We all possess valuable resources, but none is trickier or more valuable than time.  Managing your time is THE key skill set in managing your life.  Show me what you do with your time and I’ll show you what your value system is all about. When leveraging time you will utilize and expand on your core strength.  If you can manage your time well you can accomplish almost anything.  Using time incrementally, methodically, and strategically will help you stay on track and achieve your life priorities.

Personal productivity is only as limited as your proper use of time.  Wise use of time maximizes and leverages all resources and helps you achieve your goals, objectives, and priorities.  Good time management allows you to plan ahead and to use your purpose and passion with laser focus—nothing becomes impossible.  Your productivity, as you leverage your passion through good time management, increases exponentially resulting in compelling accomplishment.

“Plan your work, then work your plan” is a great axiom.  The “work your plan” part has to do with time management.  Planning is great, but is useless without execution.  Time management is all about the execution of your plans, goals, passions, and objectives.

The 80-20 rule is evidence of this…. The Peitro Principle states this: You accomplish about 80% of your results from 20% of your work. 20% of any group or team usually contributes to 80% of the work; this 80/20 notion is a fixed law in business, church, family or any part of life.

The 80/20 principle as applied to your workday is to find your personal “prime time” then leverage that time in the most productive way possible.  96 minutes is 20% of an 8 hour day. To schedule around your 20% “prime time”, where you are most productive and efficient. This is the key to leveraging time, productivity, and accomplishment. For most people their prime time is in the morning.  This is the time to get all of your core work accomplished.  This key time is to be secured and set aside as the valuable commodity it truly is. Prime work time should be scheduled on a daily basis and should have compelling content at its core. Planning, goal setting, reviewing, communicating, executing initiatives, key meetings, key document creation, and much more are all the key elements of utilizing your prime time window.

In our daily Prime time we should focus on activities that—

1. Contribute to our customer,  family, stakeholders success and satisfaction
2. Booster personal productivity and performance
3. Support your family or organization’s strategic vision and goals

Time management tips—

1. Know and use your calendar or Daytimer
2. Prioritize demands on your time
3. Keep your priority list in front of you
4. Keep checking your progress with time management.
5. Stockpile work or questions, and to schedule says its time work on them.  Only work on things in your scheduled to do so.
6. Seek support when you need it— delegate
7. Develop techniques that help you when in a unique situation
8. Pick a morning or an evening to work when no one is around and get organized.  Order creates less stress and helps focus
9. Spend a few minutes at the end of the day putting everything in its home base and getting ready for the next day.  Remember… trash it, act on it, refer it, or file it away.

10.  Keep yourself motivated.

The idea here is to have a balanced life. This begins with healthy relationships and healthy personal spirit.  Living your life in balance and alignment starts with living your priorities.  The peace and congruity that results is compelling.  A life lived well by living your priorities and being able to have fun energizes you and gives a deep sense of satisfaction.

You know you’re on the right track when—

1. Your customers, boss, family and peers praise your accomplishments.
2. You meet your sales, personal, or family goals and have a positive performance
3. You are often considered for additional responsibility and special projects.
4. You feel good about your work and family and are energized by them.

The Covey idea of sharpening your saw and resting so you can work more efficiently is the key.  A life lived in balance with family, work, community, friendships, and personal fulfillment is truly a productive life.

It all starts at time management, personal discipline, and self-control.  Just do it.

Time management is—

The definition of Time management is a set of skills, tools, and systems that work together to help you get more value out of your time and leverage it to accomplish what you want.

SCOTT HAMMOND .

THE 10 RULES OF HIGHLY UNSUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

You asked for the list of how to fail from the book “How To Become a Total
Failure: The Ten Rules of Highly Unsuccessful People,” by Bill Guillory and
Phil Davis, 2008.

Here you go.  I added one at the end so you get eleven.

1.      Resist learning anything new.
2.      Don’t share what you know with others.
3.      Be a jerk.  Knowledge is power.  Don’t give away your power.
4.      Always look out for number one.
5.      It’s all about the money.
6.      Promise things you have no intention of doing.
7.      It’s always someone else’s fault.
8.      Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
9.      Do the least that’s necessary for success.
10.     The customer is someone you must tolerate.
11.     Spend time on things that don’t matter much.

3 Top Mistakes Dads Make

1. Not Having Family as #1 Priority….Not having and keeping family relationships at the top of life’s priorities.  Identifying and making your wife and children the focus of your life and existence.

2. No Time Management/Execution….Not really living and investing your resources(time, money,focus,gifts, and life units) in family life/relationships.  Allowing the urgent to dominate the truly necessary.

3. No Accountability/Responsibility….Answering to no one at any time.  Not having someone who will hold you accountable and ask the hard questions about living your said family/fathering priorities.

Sales Dad….Introduction

Everyone said, “You need to write a book”.

The thought that “the book just wrote itself” is a lot of malarkey.

I’m finding there’s a whole lot of prep time, content development, procrastination, and research that goes into writing a book.

I know I have never procrastinated more in my life…

I think the best thing I can do is just to go ahead and get started.

What I found in developing the material for this book is that my life as a father and an advertising salesman truly intersect.

All the teaching I’ve had on marketing, leadership, mediation, goal development, and more, will have an impact on my parenting.

That is to say that you could replace the words “parenting” or “effective fathering” over much of what we do in sales and management training and it would work in terms of them being being parallel worlds.

The tools are all the same: effective communication, relationship building, compelling goal-setting and attainment, compassionate leadership, time management, organization, and effective execution.

Business, selling, and management truly do parallel effective parenting.

The measurements and outcomes are different but the tools are very similar:

An effective leader, whether at home or work, truly does leave a legacy and a heritage.

This leader creates a positive culture which permeates that home, business, or venue.

It’s doing this with intentionality, and knowing what you want going in, that makes the difference between being a lousy leader or parent, versus an effective one.

We have a long way to go, and it’s my hope that this book will give you the tools to move the needle, to make the change, and to make a difference in your world, whether at home or at work.

At the end of the day it’s up to you as to what you’ll take action on.

My father used to say”It takes money to buy whiskey…”

I never knew what that meant until a few years ago. It has to do with being a person of action who takes the initiative and is willing to  pay the price for what he really wants.

My hope is that you will be that person who perseveres, who is courageous, and who won’t stop until the dream is fulfilled.

Here’s to the dream of leaving a positive legacy…

Scott Hammond

McKinleyville California

Easter Sunday

March 23, 2008

The 7 C’s of Control

The 7 C’s of control is for control freaks in that they are areas we can actually control.

So if you have a problem with control, focus on the 7 as they will make good therapy for your controlling tendencies…

1. Clock control …get up earlier by going to bed earlier.  Manage your time, not the other way around.
2. Concept control… have quality thoughts that engender imagination, creativity, positivity.  Commit to having a quality thought life.
3. Content control… seek out the best mentors, role models, reading material, and mind and spirit building media. As Zig says” garbage in, garbage out.”
4. Communication control… work on listening effectively, controlling your speech, and using your words with great care.
5. Commitment control… right down and live your priorities and goals daily. Time management plus intention and focused activity will mean certain accomplishment, fulfillment, and satisfaction.
6. Cause control… simply living, and working on our goals objectives, strategies, and principles daily.
7. Concern control… we choose, what concerns us the most.  We set our priorities and deem what is most important to us. The key is then to manage our resources and lives around those priorities.

Hey control freaks!… why not focus your control in areas where you truly have it?we try so hard to control the things and people we possess no control over.  I believe, as we model, a life of quality, truth, and real love we will exert their correct type of “control” which can really change the world.