Stratospheric Success. To be continued....

Midnight in Dallas, TX.

Three months removed from my first HTG meeting. I'm scheduled to discuss the fourth law, and I'm fighting an internal battle. As you should know, I'm on a journey through The Go-Giver, and it's five laws.

On my flight, I scratched out what the next law means to me. This law is easiest to talk about and also the most emotional. I have been perfecting my message for two days and couldn't wait to get to the keyboard. Then I saw my group. The 11 other companies that (in the words of Arnie Bellini) I get naked in front of. We are all IT service providers. We share what works and what doesn't. Every topic is fair game. Our focus is business, but three months ago, we quickly became friends. Friends that I trust, and friendships that I can't believe are only three months old.

A heart filled thanks to Arlin Sorensen for his dedication and vision, and to my peers of HTG15.

Brian O'Shaughnessy
Member - HTG15

The Law of Influence - Getting back on track

Is there a law for procrastination? I left off with the second law more than a month ago (and my beloved Green Bay Packers were still playing football). But I'm back!

To bring you up to speed, I'm giving my best effort to apply The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success as described in The Go-Giver. Hopefully you have already read (and applied) the previous two posts. If not, STOP! Start from the beginning. See Stratospheric Success! Really? Stratospheric?

LAW THREE OF STRATOSPHERIC SUCCESS

The Law of Influence

Your influence is determined by

how abundantly you place

other people's interests first.

I really like this law. I like it because it isn't always easy for me to execute. In fact, it is very easy for me to break. I understand how important other people's interests are, but put them first? In front of my own interest? Shouldn't I be making decisions and choices that put my interests first? The Go-Giver describes how the concept of win-win is all wrong. It describes how win-win means keeping score (I'll only do this for you if you return the favor for me). It goes on to describe that the focus should be 100% about the other person's win. My win is helping them achieve their win; and once that is done, I have somebody who "knows me, likes me and trusts me."

The condition... The day this happened, I almost fell off of my chair. And like Joe, I didn't realize that I was executing the law until it was over.

Like every business, it is important to acquire new clients. About a month ago, we started to develop a series of post cards to be mailed to businesses in our local market. When we completed the first card, I emailed an "almost final" draft to my peer group (HTG15). I was looking for feedback. All feedback was positive and one person asked if it would be ok for them to copy the idea. My response was not only could they copy the idea, I will send over the source files so that it will be easy for them to modify. We had an short email correspondence, I gave him everything that he was looking for and promised to include him as we developed new cards. I thought that was the end of the story.

In that short email correspondence, I mentioned our plan was to purchase a list of about 3000 businesses to send the cards to. I explained how we worked with a company who purchases hundreds of thousands of business leads a week and we should be able to get the list inexpensively.

Less than an hour later there was a sample list in my inbox. Without me knowing it, he had access to exactly what I was about to purchase. And he gave it to me! The thought had never crossed my mind that he would return the favor. I was focused 100% on his interest, and was blown away by his generosity.

I mentioned earlier, that this law is easy to break. However, it should be just as easy to execute. As we charge forward, it is vital for us to make choices and decisions that put other people's interests first. And as I mentioned in my last post, when we truly care about our clients and friends, the money (and everything else) will take care of itself.

Coming soon (and I promise less than a month)... The fourth law!

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Brian O'Shaughnessy

President

ITConnexx, Inc.

Green Bay, WI

The Law of Compensation - We're going Stratospheric!

Compensation and Stratospheric in the same sentence? Is it possible that in a few paragraphs, I can make you rich? I hope I can!

We continue our journey through the "Five Laws of Stratospheric Success" as described in my favorite little red book, The Go-Giver. Hopefully you have already read about the first law (The Law of Value) in my previous posting. More importantly, hopefully you've already applied the first law! If not, STOP! Go back and read "Stratospheric Success! Really? Stratospheric?"

LAW TWO OF STRATOSPHERIC SUCCESS

The Law of Compensation

Your income is determined by

how many people you serve

and how well you serve them.

As I mentioned in my last weblog post, I'm not about to give a play-by-play of the book, but instead I will explain what I take away from it. There are three pieces to this law (income, how many and how well).

"How many" and "How well" are easy. The more people you serve and the better you serve them seems obvious to me. If you limit how well you serve, or you limit how many you serve, you can be successful. But you can only be compensated on that limited scale.

Income is the most interesting word to me. If the word "income" were not in this law, the law would be easier for me to grasp. Compensation doesn't have to be about money. I am compensated daily by the satisfactions of solving problems, working hard, helping a friend/colleague/client, getting a hug from one of my boys, etc. But none of these compensations have anything to do with income.

I think (actually hope) that this law validates something that I have said hundreds of times over the past 10 years. If I/we deep down care about every individual client and their business (truly care - not just going through the motions), and we take personally their concern/problem/business, the money will take care of itself. I have tried to live this way from the first day that I went into business.

The Condition... Remember "the condition" from the last post? Laws are great, but if we don't practice them, then we are not allowed back to learn the next law. And as I mentioned, they are easy to execute. Here's my example of what I have done recently to reach out and try to serve. I'm not sure that I hit a home run with this one, but I'm learning too.

As I was reading The Go-Giver, I had many thoughts of the group of people who I influence (and who influence me) on a daily basis - specifically the team that makes up ITConnexx. The day after I finished this little red book of genius, I ran out and bought 10 copies. I shared a copy with every person in our company. I don't expect that handing out 10 copies of a book will fill my bank account. What I hope is that we build a company of Go-Givers. I hope that every day, every person lives the Go-Giver lifestyle. I hope that every day, every person is personally compensated in the same ways that I am. And I hope that as we live this way, the money will take care of itself.

I'm sure that in a few paragraphs, I did nothing for your personal bank account. But I hope that in at least one way, I could help make you rich.

Still to come... Three more laws!!!

Brian O'Shaughnessy

President/Go-Giver

ITConnexx, Inc.

Green Bay, WI

Stratospheric Success! Really? Stratospheric?

I have a new group of friends. We call ourselves HTG15. I don't think we are a gang, but I've been working hard on a new handshake.

HTG15 is a peer group. We are a group of 12 owners of IT service companies. We meet once a quarter to share everything about our individual company to the rest of the group. For each other, we are a virtual board of directors and support group. Our first meeting was in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and in January we meet in Dallas.

I could write 20 pages about the group, the experience and how it has already changed my life. But that's not today's topic! Today's topic is about Stratospheric Success!

When the group left Council Bluffs, IA we all left with a small red book. The book is The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. The little red book spills a secret. The secret of how to obtain "Stratospheric Success!" The little red book is fantastic, takes about three hours to read, and completely changed how I interact with people all day long. You read me right STRATOSPHERIC SUCCESS!

Now I'm not about to give you a play-by-play on the book. Go get it and read it. In fact, the first person to send me an email will get my copy.

The secret is simple. Give. Give. Give. Give unconditionally and with no expectation of reward. There are five rules (and coincidentally, five nice blog topics).

LAW ONE OF STRATOSPHERIC SUCCESS

The Law of Value

Your true worth is determined by

how much more you give in value

than you take in payment.

This one is easy! Give more in value than you take in payment. If you receive nothing in payment and give any value, you are giving more. We can all do this all day long. Hold a door, pick up a piece of garbage from the sidewalk, give a real smile and say good morning to a stranger in line when you wait for a cup of coffee. Give a genuine "thank you." Doing any of these things give value to the recipient, and you take no payment. Give more to your employer than you take in a salary. When you are hired to perform a task, or complete a job, exceed the expectation of the client (and exceed by far). It really is easy to live this way.

As you read The Go-Giver you will learn that there is "a condition" required to learn the secret and the five rules. The condition is doing. If you don't execute the rule on the day that you learn it.... you are not invited back for the next rule. Execution isn't as hard as it sounds.

I'm reluctant to do this, because a true Go-Giver doesn't give for notoriety, but I want to share how I execute the laws. My hope is to show how easy it is and give you ideas to do the same.

The day after I read my little red book, i was cold called by a sales person. This sales person (James Wing, Enterprise Account Representative, Xandros, Inc. - I wont post his email address without permission, but if you want it, email me) had sent me an unsolicited email message a couple of days prior that I scanned and ignored. James was trying to sell me a Linux-based equivalent of Microsoft Exchange that I could resell as a service. Unfortunately, my Linux skills have all but evaporated and this was not a product for us. For the last ten years, I have made a habit (and some times a sport) of being mean to sales people.

But now! I'm a Go-Giver!

Instead of blasting James and asking that he never call me again. I made him a promise. I promised him that I would print out his email message and put that piece of paper on my desk, and that I would shuffle that paper around for a month. And every time I picked up that piece of paper, I would try to come up with a prospect or lead for him. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with one (yet). But I'm sure that I've put more effort into helping James in the last month than any other person he called that day (or maybe this month).

Just today, somebody asked me if I knew of anybody that was looking to hire somebody with his skills. His resume is now a stack of three pages on my desk, to be shuffled around for a month.

Just today, the president of a website development company called. One of their best programmers received an opportunity that he couldn't refuse and is advancing his career. The phone call asked if I knew of a programmer that knew PHP and Access/SQL database programming. Unfortunately I don't (if you do, let me know and I'll pass on the word), but there is a full sheet of paper with a typed note that I'll shuffle around my desk for a month to keep me thinking for them.

I'm no genius, and I'm not wonderful. In none of these cases, could I solve the problem, but I am doing everything I can to not blow them off. I'm doing everything I can to provide more value than I take in payment.

I promised HTG15 that I'd have this posting done before Thanksgiving. I also promised that I'd write another entry about the Second Rule of Stratospheric Success before the weekend was over. So come back soon.

Brian O'Shaughnessy

President/Go-Giver

ITConnexx, Inc.

Green Bay, WI

Stop paying me to fix those problems!

I've made a deal with myself that there are a few topics that I won't discuss on the ol' blog... Specifically politics, the local WLUK dispute with Time Warner, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Green Bay Packers. I made this promise because they are topics that I am passionate about, they get me worked up and I'm likely to say something stupid and will definitely offend some of my loyal readers*

That being said... This topic tends to get my hands waiving and my voice a bit raised...
You need help to improve, maintain and protect your business computer network. Somebody has this role. Maybe it's an internal staff member (hopefully one that is qualified and experienced in IT). Maybe you outsource (my favorite of course). You get the picture, somebody wears this hat. We all can agree so far, right?

For this discussion, we will focus on the business that chooses to outsource it's IT support and technology needs. There are two models for outsourcing this responsibility.

1. You have a problem/question/upgrade/crash/outage/etc. At the point of said problem, you weigh the impact on your business/staff productivity against the cost of getting it fixed. Then you flip through the Rolodex, call the trusted IT support company, they schedule the work, resolve the problem and send a big fat invoice!

2. You have a relationship with an IT support company that provides (get ready, industry buzz word coming) managed services. We call it "Computing as Promised." Here's how it works..... You pay a monthly fee, we are your IT Department. It is no different than if we had an office in your building. We proactively improve, maintain and protect your technology. By proactively monitoring, installing patches and cleaning up, the problems are limited. When a problem does occur, you don't have to decide if the problem is worth paying for to fix. Because it is already paid for!!

Remember, we all agreed that somebody is in charge of maintaining your technology (and there is an expense to doing so). When you pay us for work done on a time & material basis, we make money when you have a problem. When you partner with us to manage your technology, we only make money if you don't have problems. Doesn't that sound better for everyone?

Coming next... Membership has it's privileges.

Brian O'Shaughnessy
President
ITConnexx, Inc.

*See footnote regarding "faithful readers" in blog from September 20.

ITConnexx featured in Green Bay news story

In a recent story about how local business is preparing to "weather an economic storm", ITConnexx CEO Kevin Scholz described how our business will be impacted.

I know... they called him Ken.

I know... they said that the two, six year old companies that we merged together three years ago, just opened last week.

I know... they called our business technology consulting company an "Internet support business."

I guess we need to do a better job of describing ourselves. Of course, you can find those details at our website (www.itconnexx.com)

We appreciate the opportunity and exposure, and look forward to the next time we can share our opinion with the local media (and next time, I'll be in front of the camera).

Enough of the anticipation... Click here to watch Kevin (or Ken). Click here to read the story.

Brian O'Shaughnessy
President
ITConnexx, Inc.

Use email for best service

Just a simple reminder...

When looking for service and/or support, please use email. An email message sent to support@itconnexx.com will automatically create a service ticket, email you a confirmation and get your issue into our queue.

Here are a few benefits of using email for requesting service:
1. The description of the problem is in your own words.
2. We have staff dedicated to watching the service queue and properly assigning service tickets to engineers. This gives you a faster resolution.
3. Although I hope it rarely happens, post-it notes from phone calls can cause a delay in service until the note taker gets a break to manually create a service ticket.
4. The automated email response you receive has a link that allows you to check the status of your request (along with our notes).
5. The summary of the service ticket matches the subject of your email. This makes it easy to reconcile the service performed when you receive the invoice.

Don't get me wrong... I love to talk to you, and I really love when you call to tell me how happy you are. But for the fastest service, use email (support@itconnexx.com)

Go Brewers!

Brian O'Shaughnessy
President
ITConnexx, Inc.