Shameless Self Promotion

The School of Practical Business is a catalytic tool for free thinking Business People/Entrpreneurs. The school is my blog, column, rant, thoughts and ideas, expressions and opinions . As I have often said...I hope to stir up conversation at the water coolers.Even if said conversations are about what an idiot I am or what a stupid idea I have put forth. A pinprick, splinter in the finger...to promote discussions of ideas truly pertinent to today's entrepreneur. It is not a series of questions, the latest quiz, or the top ten anything ! I don't think most entrepreneurs or real successful business people care about or value "The latest theory or buzzword". I'm from the Abe Lincoln talk straight school of communication.

Now, if the School of Practical Business evokes from you, the reader, an opinion or idea...great ! However, do not send it to me. Keep it to yourself, tell a friend, or better yet, start your own damn blog. In the meantime, I prefer to not have my mailbox jammed with e-mails from you the reader. If, however, you wish to contact me about paying and utilizing my consulting services, then send, please do send an email at kiproth@yahoo.com. State in the subject line "Real person, not with story". I am expensive, exclusive and I carefully choose those I work with. So only contact me if you area real forward thinking entrpreneur who is serious about investing time and money into your enterprise. Otherwise, enjoy the blog, buy the book take the course, listen to the podcasts, read the newsletters(all coming soon) or just check into the blog to read what I have to say. I am not here to debate, confront, or argue. I'm just putting out what I know and as always looking for a few good men and women to work or connect with.

MR

IMB

I MEAN BUSINESS

CAN I GET A WITNESS ?

HELL YEAH !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox8w1LNYwi8

Brave Man

One of my personal role model is a man named Jay Chiat. He was the CEO of an advertising company called Chiat/Day and he passed away in 2002. His employees took out this ad in ad age magazine to eulogize him:

Jay

Jay Chiat was a hard guy to work for.And everybody wanted to. He could spot a false note at three hundred yards. And wouldn't let one get any closer. His unpredictability was so dependable you could set your watch by it.

His parodoxes were aligned in almost perfect symmetry. His sense of irony was exquisitely acute, and where he was likely to find it first was in himself. He once told the Wall Street Journal that memos were a corporate disease he was trying to eliminate, but Jay's own memos were gems that ought to have been bound and published.

If there was anyone who ever worked with Jay and wasn't changed by the experience, then that person wasted a first class education. Jay Chiat had a genius for inciting people to their absolute best without actually telling them thye had to. He inspired a self-imposed code that precluded your presenting him anything you knew could still be perfected.

He was brave, feisty, uncompromising. Sometimes maddening. But always true to what he saw as his highest duty: protecting great work. He was an inventor, an artist, a sociologist, an environmental engineer. He'd change everything just so people wouln't get bored.

Jay loved the new, the supremely current, the never before seen, the provocative, the seditious, the threat to the established order. Yet his esssential tenet was timeless, classic, pure, almost puritanical. An innocently old fashioned idea that good work is its own reward. The landscape of our particular business is prominent with people whose careers simply took a much more interesting path because they had (or made) the luck to work for Jay Chiat.

And every day they pay tribute to Jay just by getting up and doing a really good job.

That is what Chiat /Day always stood for. That is what he beleived in.

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Frank Gehry once was talking about his friend and client Jay Chiat..."Jay was a motherfucker to do business with" Frank the went on to compalin about how Jay had gone behind his back to mount a museum exhibition that in the eighties rescued Frank from obscurity. "He just has to save everybody" I was thinking "what a prick". His friend (Jay) was at the time recuperating from radiation treatment from Prostrate Cancer and he's bad mouthing him. But then I thought:

No, it's more than that, this is something they share- something more than being grumpy old men. They both talk like this--immoderately and precisely. If they think it, they say it. It is a rebel thing--quaint almost.

Jay was an edgy disruptive guy. A hipster. A troublemaker He watched things go by and then messed with them. Gehry called him "Mr Cool".

Coolness is the aesthic: A sort of modern classicism. Cool is the way to be indifferent to commerce and commercial at the same time.

Jay used to say that his real talent was for losing clients.

If you are comfortable with failing, if you court it even, if you aren't afraid of it, then possibly, you're not driven by it and you don't do unbecoming things to avoid it.

These excerpts come from an article written by Michael Wolff and he says at the end that the last image he has of talking to Jay was when Jay was in a hospital waiting room reviewing the x rays of the prostate cancer that eventually took his life.

He says "This image of Jay holding his x rays has stayed with me. It isn't a bad image--certainly not a powerless one. Rather I see Jay sitting there a certain amount of aloneness and Fuck-you-ness and even coolness. I thought, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.

This is how you do ...Jay was a very Brave Man !

Do the cover Tunes

My business. My way. I have some funky business practices and early on it bothered me. I spoke too much. I listened too little. I told too many personal stories; I used bad language, etc. I never really considered changing because I can’t really get away with it. I yam what I yam. I’d rather find clients who extract value on what I give them rather than what I look like or dress like or whether I say fuck a lot. I consider all my clients enlightened individual and we are lucky to have each other. So raise your pirate flag of your company and revel in your rock n’ roll rebellion but…

You better have done / do the cover tunes. When you’re in garage band, before you can play the weak – ass love song you wrote, you as a band better make sure you can play Layla. Doing the cover tunes gives you a foundation and maturity to then go off and be creative.

My company and my career have one valuable asset. Experience. I’ve seen and done it all. Two hundred plus individual and thirty-five corporate accounts… believe me I’ve done the cover tunes. The cover tunes in business are the basics. Take a particular aspect of business… the agreement. I once read that you only do work on a handshake. I personally don’t use contracts and I’ve never sued or have ever been sued. But I earned the right to do that because after closing X amount of deals, I’m a good judge of character. I’ve had good and bad experiences, with and without contracts. I’ve played the cover tunes.

Same thing holds true for your corporate kit, brochure, and resume. No one gets hired based on these things. “Gee Bob, what a cool folder with information about this guy’s company, we have to hire him.” It doesn’t work that way, but when it comes to corporate kits, brochure, web site, bio, resume, business card… you better dam well have one! Do the cover tunes in order to rebel.

Never ignore red flags

I like to refer to this as business tip #1. If it looks like a Bad deal, and sounds like a bad deal, it’s a bad deal. Entrepreneurs need to develop a fine tuned sense of people. You have to be able to sum someone up. You have to be able to seek out and find people of character to work with. Quickly correct miscommunication when they occur. Trust your gut! Trust your gut! Trust your gut and hold to your terms. Anytime I’ve altered my terms (the way I do business), I’ve gotten screwed. Some red flags are blindly

Obvious. Create a rhythm in which you enroll someone to hire you, do the actual job and complete the relationship. Don’t deviate. In other words: I run my business my way. I sell the perfect product/service at the perfect price. This is how we begin our relationship (negotiate and close the deal), this is the way I do the job, this is what it looks like at the end of the relationship (we’re both happy). If you are being asked to or find yourself doing anything different, and especially if it’s not to your choosing; then you will probably end up in a bad work situation. So, choose your clients wisely, make sure they are in sync with how you like to work and then you’re free to do what you do and do it well for the client so that he shakes your hand at the end and says,” Thanks”. That’s why looking for, or at least paying attention to red flags (things that don’t sound, smell or feel right) will save you heartache. Finally, I’m not suggesting you be paranoid and create evidence against a potential client, but in your discussions, just keep in mind that if it looks like a duck, and quacks, then it’s probably a duck.

Again, and as always I encourage you to come back to this blog, Contact me at kiproth@yahoo.com if you are interested in working with me, leave comments ( givers gain) and tell your friends and loved ones. Building a community of like minded people is like eating an elephant…

The Customer is not always right

The customer is always right…….Says who? Sometimes they are wrong and in fact you are probably being paid to let them know they are wrong. If they were always right, they would not need you. If you are in personal service business and you tread lightly and not speak the truth…then all you are is yes man. Do you really think that is what is best for a client? I should say not. I do not think the customer is paying you to kiss there ass. I may be wrong…but ever hear the expression: “It is better to be loud and wrong, than quiet and right”?

I am fortunate in that I get to choose whom I want to work with and I choose carefully. I have two secrets of success that I’d like to share: 1- Return 3x the value of what you are paid and 2- guarantee your work.

If I take a client on and I deliver three times the value of what I am paid and I guarantee my work, you better believe that I am very clear that before getting into bed with this person, job or project that is something I want to do. The project /job has to be, for me, as well as the client, fun and adventurous.

Dan Pink in his book The Free Agent Nation, talks about the “My Size Fits Me” School of Business. I work when I want, with whom I want, on the project I want, for the money I want. I look for clients and projects that are going to challenge and inspire me to do better and better work. I do not take on a job because I know I can easily get it done. I play a bigger game. Customer care is giving the client more than they paid, more than they expect.

Customer Service is not just about making him or her right. You have to listen carefully and collaborate but don’t acquiesce because he or she is the customer. This hold true especially if your opinion is different from theirs. A truly enlightened client will always appreciate candor. Each client or project that you get involved with is going to require your absolute best. If you are a Rock Star in business then you also put your ass on the line. If you are not nervous before going on stage, you might want to check the humility meter. Confidence is good but hard work and humility is better. Just please do not confuse giving your client your best, at the expense of “looking good”. Give and do your best but do not be a people pleaser or a brownoser or yes man. It serves no one.

Again I thank you to all those who have read my material. I again urge you to tell a friend, come back again and again, contact me at kiproth@yahoo.com and make no distinction between work and play.

Business is Personal….Make it So

MR

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The Death of the Midle Class

Welcome back to The School of Practical Business. Today our discourse is taking little turn from the normal syllabus to discuss a topic which is extremely important to the landscape we are involved in. The great gap between the have’s and have not’s. There is no more middle class or maybe the first time in history, our children are not guaranteed a better future than the previous generation. Now here is the startling fact that no one wants to admit. I will share it with you, for again, I get paid to tell the truth. Not only is the middle class dead…but it is our fault! Not the government, not outsourcing jobs, not our failing educational system… But us. Most of us think this is a dress rehearsal and are more interested in diversions…like self help programs and silly reality television, etc.

You think there is a recession? I say nonsense. I live in Los Angeles, and I see all these new Bentleys and I ask myself “Who is buying these six figure cars? An important rule of thumb for any businessman is “The deal drives the day’. Do not kid yourself, every minute, of everyday…someone is closing business, getting a deal, getting paid, buying a Bentley, etc.

Why is it foreigners come to our country, work there asses off and thrive? Yet, we Americans cannot? Here is so much available to the forward thinking entrepreneur to embrace. New Green enterprise, Cottage Industries that you can tailor to one or more of your interest, new Branding and Content outlets., etc.

Let’s look at some;

1- Green Enterprises; Why can’t we start a new industrial revolution by creating green businesses. I urge you to check out companies like HP Lovecraft Biodiesel and wind power startups, etc. See who is going to monopolize the future of these green industries and join the fray.

2- Cottage industries; This is a great way to build a mini-empire. Find or create a niche and own it! Think about mergering two of your interest. Here in Los Angeles there is a man who has a company or store rather called Choke. He Repairs scooters, motorbikes and motorcycles and creates amazing coffee (I mean this guy is a coffee artist)… Soon, I imagine he will have a Choke magazine, or a Choke online community, etc. He will be able to leverage his company into a brand that he can attract a possible investor or even a buyer.

3- Sales and Marketing, Sales and Marketing…that is what it is about. Today with Web Sites, Blogs, E Books, E Postcards, Guerilla Marketing ideas, etc there are more and more ways to get your brand, company or message out.

I will be discussing all these ideas in future classes and will also be turning you on to cool companies and people. Today I want to introduce you o my associate. Samantha Moske. She is a world class athlete and entrepreneur. She has done a very insightful thing by wrapping her business and brand around a revolution, as it were. Meaning her business is about a crusade, a call to arms and that is the best way to advance and promote your business…wrap it around a crusade. I urge all of you to visit: www.yourkidsdeserve better@wordpress.com to read what she has to say. Her message of child obesity, obesity in general, eating habits, exercise, etc. are from great research, experience and personal conditioning. This woman knows what she is talking about. Finally, her message fits right into the point of today’s post: In business, like life …everything is about you! Mastering your Career, Business, Health, Balance, Emotions, Attitude, etc. is a part of what one needs to be successful and then perhaps instead of a nation of underemployed, outsourced, in debt, fat, couch potatoes watching Deal or No Deal, we can begin to rebuild the middle class for our children and again be a nation of state of the art business people we truly are.

I urge you to come back often to the corporatedojo, for I am a machine with much to teach and offer. I urge you to subscribe and tell others. I urge to email me if you want to talk in depth kiproth@yahoo.com. I urge you to make it Personal!

MR

“Business is Personal”

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