JD Stewart MD (magic dude)

Author: JD Stewart

  • Leadership Secerts of a Magician (Part 1)

    There is a tremendous lack of leadership today. The primary reason is no one is listening to anyone else. While one person is talking the other is thinking how to rebut. Then they have the audacity to think the other person will listen to them when they have not tried to listen first.  Speaking to someone does not mean they listen to you. Because people are sitting in front of you when you speak does not mean they are listening to you or care about what you are saying. If they do not care they simply tune you out.

    Magicians have that problem in spades. What does a magician do? They trick you or fool you. But here is the rub, no one likes being fooled. But they love being entertained. If you are fooled, you feel like an idiot.  People do not like feeling stupid.

    So the magician must learn a how to entertain rather than fool. As an entertainer he must make audience care. They must feel they are not watching a trick but rather they are experiencing something magical. Something that is just for them. The magician knows the audience probably does not believe in magic. Therefore, he must create a world where magic exists and a world the audience wants to explore with him.

    How a magician accomplishes this, can be used by leaders, speakers, sales people, and managers. How can a business leader get people to care about what you are doing and listen to your message? Here are 5 tricks magicians use to perform real magic.

    1. Listen to make them care.  Unlike an actor who is saying lines in a play a magician breaks the 4th wall and interacts with the audience. He is listening for reactions. Does he need to speed up or slow down?  What are the volunteer on stage saying or doing? Interaction by listening to what the audience is saying is the first key in making audiences realize the magician actually cares about them. He listens and adjusts the show based on what he hears. He may add or removing routines based on what the audience is telling him.

    Leaders too need to listen. Appreciate the other person’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. People can sense when you are not open to what they are saying. If you do not care about them they don’t care about you.

    2. Build an emotional connection.  There is a famous story about Harry Blackstone, a celebrated magician about the time of Houdini. Before each show Blackstone would peak out from behind the curtain and look at each person in the audience. From behind the curtain, he would whisper, “I like you,” to each and every person in the audience. He cared. Because he cared about his audience they felt it. When magician walks out on stage he has about 15 seconds before the audience decides rather or not they are going to like him. He must build an emotional connection quickly. Once it has been built then it can be strengthened.

    Leaders must connect with their audience emotionally. Why should the audience care about what you are going to say? What’s in it for them? Buy-in is never occurs intellectually. It occurs only at an emotional level. You must speak to a pain or problem.

    3. Know your audience’s style. Different venues and different audiences require different style. A children’s magician needs to be colorful and full of energy. A magician performing at a senior center must be aware of the audience’s physical limitations. A magician performing for college crowd should be more edgy than if one performing for a corporate meeting.

    To be continued….

  • How Sales Contests Destroy Your Sales Staff

    Sales contests are often used to motivate sales people. It is assumed sales people are naturally competitive. Therefore, giving them an opportunity to compete amongst themselves will be fun and improve both morale and productivity. In actuality it has the reverse effect. There may be a temporary boost in productivity. But there is a long term loss of both morale and productivity.

    With most sales contests there are winners and losers. The winners tend to look down on the losers because they are losers. And the losers are jealous of the winners. The result is a division within the sales team. Animosity is created between team members. In addition, the winners generally tend to be the same set of winners. Therefore the losers tend to be the same set of losers. The result is poor morale within the team which causes reduced productivity. If only one person can win then the others, even though they are good sales people, resent the winners. They would have won but the contest was rigged or, if only the timing were different, or the winner just got lucky, or the winner had been in their territory longer, or the engineering staff had sent Jim rather than Joe for sales support, or any of a thousand other things. In addition, the sales team learns not to share with one another or help each other because they want to win next time. The thinking goes, “Why would I want to help my competition?” This type of sales contest creates dysfunctional teams.

    Some sales managers realize this and therefore create contests where winning the contest does not automatically create losers. The contest is won by achieving a specified goal or sales level. Anyone who reaches a specified level wins the prize. That is theoretically better but in actuality, unless everyone reaches the specified level you still have winners and losers. Winners tend to look down on the losers and the losers are jealous of the winners. And the sales staff is still competing with each other.

    I know of several sales managers who either think this is fine or do not care. Their thinking is like this, “I don’t want a bunch of losers on my team, anyway. If they can’t hack, too bad. I hope they quit so I can hire some winners.” The problem is they do not quit. They are just de-motivated. And besides that there are many more average sales people than super stars. So the probability is the sales manager will hire another average sales person and loose additional productivity while they are learning the ropes.

    I am not against competition. I think competition is great. I believe that, not only is competition a good thing, it is vital to any business. You just need to be sure you are competing against a true opponent not an artificial one. So ask this question, what is the purpose of a sales contest? Why have a sales contest at all? The ultimate goal is to have a motivated sales staff that consistently improves sales revenue. A sales contest with winners and losers fulfils none of those goals. You may motivate a few sales people. You may have a temporary boost in sales numbers. But the team has not improved. And if the sales numbers improve, they are not sustainable.

    Would it not be better to have the entire sales staff improve their sales revenue? Would it not be better to have the hot shot sales person motivated to share his tricks of the trade with those who are struggling?

    Instead of creating individual rewards. Create team rewards, a common cause if you will. The individual wins only if the team wins. If everyone is working for the same goal then they work together. The stronger help the weaker become stronger. The result is an over all stronger team. The skills developed during the contest are now sustainable. The team has long term improvement. Rather than individuals working against each other. Everyone’s goals are now aligned with not only with the sales manager but with the business as a whole.

  • The Flexibility of the Human Mind

    Go ahead and read the message below. I know you can.

    Bleow is a xemapel of sjut hwo pweorflu the uhman nmid is

    I cnduo’t bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

    The Real Paragraph

    I couldn’t believe that I could actually understand what I was reading. Using the incredible power of the human brain, according to research at Cambridge University, it doesn’t matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place. The rest can be a total, mess and you can read it without a problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole. Amazing, huh? Yeah and I always thought spelling was important! See if your friends can read this too!

    Tihs bcaeme vrial troghuh eiaml a cueolp of yreas bcak. Aodccring to caimbgdre uinseitvry it wsnat prat of tiehr atcual recraesh but was a good haox. Its a vrey ientestnirg ccenopt and hihgtlgihs jsut how flexlibe our midns can be.

  • The Law of Category

    I would like to thank everyone who joined in on the conversation on twitter and Facebook this past week regarding the Law of Leadership. If you would like to join in on the conversations I can be found on twitter at @jdstewart and of course I you can friend me on Facebook as well. The conversations centered around is there any sense in being the market if you are not the first mover or innovator. The short answer is yes but since it requires more than 140 characters to explain. That is the subject of this weeks cast.

    We learn the idea of being better early in life and it is continually re-enforced. Getting to the top by not doing something better but doing something new goes against so many core beliefs that is is difficult to except. We learn competition through sports. And the way you reach the championship is by being the best. So we try to reach the top by simply being better than everyone else. When we try to bring that understanding of competition to business and human nature it has limited success. We offer higher quality, faster deliver, greater variety, lower price. I mean, who would not want those things. But it is the first to market who grabs the mind share of the customer. That’s the law of leadership. But you can modify that law by defining a category or sector you are first in. You can gain a sizable market share by following the leader. And you can make a profit. There are companies who business plan is to always be a close follower. But if your goal is number 1 you need to innovate.

    All of this begs the question what is creativity Creativity is seeing old things in a new ways. It is putting things or ideas together in a way they had not be put together before. As Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. But we can re-arrange the old things in new ways. That leads us to our next law. The law of Categories.

    The law of leadership is modified by the law of category or as some refer to is a the niche. Let’s start off by re-examining a question I asked last week. Do you know who was first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic ocean? Most people do. Charles Lindberg. And the second question is, do you know the name of the second person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean? You probably do not unless you listened to the last podcast. That person was Bert Hinkler. As you may remember Hinkler was a better pilot and navigator. He made the crossing in less time and used less fuel. But being better did not put him in the history books. No one knows who he is. Next question. Do you know who the third person was to fly across the Atlantic Ocean? I bet you do. But you don’t not them at the third person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. You know her as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart was still a first. She was first in a category she created. Being first in a category can be just as good as being first over all. You are still an original. This works well even if it is a made up category. For example Tito’s Handmade Vodka. Tito did not invent vodka. But prior to Titos there was no such category as handmade vodka. It simply did not exist! It was a made up category. They made it up simply to be number one in that category. Marketing genius! Any one who wants to compete with Titos in that category will be an also ran.

    Innovation is not simply creating a new product or service. It is creating a new way to look at that new product or service. When Apple came out with the iPod, it created great stir in the electronics community. Why? It was simply a mp3 player. Mp3 players had been around for a long time. Apple created a new category itunes. None of the technology was new. The technologies of e-commerce and downloading content had been around a long time. Apple was not first in any of those technologies. Apple created a new category. A category that provided secure, trusted, legal method to distribution music and other mp3 content. While today mp3 stores are all over the internet. No one has even comes close to what Apple is doing. Apple owns the mp3 player market because the created a category of mp3 distribution. Of course there are other laws at play here but those are for another time.

  • The Law of Leadership

    If you are like most business people you believe that in order to succeed, you have to convince your prospects that you offer a better service, or product. In other words you are competing in a me-too world. You are offering the same thing only your’s is better.

    But if you really want to be successful offering a better product than your competitors does, is simply going about it the wrong way. Your prospects need to think of you, not simply as one of many, but in a class all by yourself. You have to be in a category where you are first. Simply being first, will usually make you number 1. The truth is, it is better to be first than to be better. Innovation will make you number 1. If all you are doing is implementing someone else’s idea, you have an up hill climb. Because no one remembers number 2.

    Here is a quick example. Who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean? Charles Lindbergh. Now, who was the second person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean? That one is a little harder. It was Bert Hinkler. Hinkler was the better pilot. He made the crossing in less time and expended less fuel. But no one remembers Bert Hinkler. Being better did not make him number 1. It only made him another one.

    The law of leadership applies to any product, any service any brand. Do you know the name of the first College in America. You can substitute the most well know and make a good guess. Most people would say Harvard, which is also the name of the first College in America. Do you know the name of the second College in America? William and Mary, which is only slightly better known than Bert Hinkler.

    Which came first Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola. Coca-Cola was the first and is still the leader in the cola wars.

    Growing up almost every soft drink was a coke. The only question was did you want a grape coke or an orange coke. Everything was a Coke because Coca-Cola was the first. In fact it wasn’t until the last few years that I stopped calling all soda pop cokes. But I still call all cola’s Cokes. I don’t care if it is a Pepsi, a RC or the generic anything else it is a Coke. Coke has become the generic name for all colas.

    My mother claims Pepsi-Cola is the superior product. Even if that is true (a point we disagree upon) Coke was first and remains the leader.

    In spite of all the evidence to the contrary businesses continue to try to be a better followers than innovators. The leading brand in any category is almost always the first. People tend to stick with what they’ve got. You don’t change spouses simply because you come across someone a little better. (Thank goodness or my wife would have left me long ago.) It is just easier to stay with the familiar. The law of leadership applies to everything. Chrysler was the first to come out with the mini-van. Almost every manufacturer of automobiles make min vans. Yet over half of all minivans sold in the United States are built by Chrysler.

    One reason the first brand tends to maintain it leadership is the name often becomes generic. I make a Xerox copy. I do not make a Sharp or a Kodak copy. People ask for Scotch Tape not cellophane tape, a Kleenex not a facial tissue, a Band-aid rather than a … Well I don’t know what the generic of a band aid would even be.

    If you think simply being better will take you to the top, you are ignoring both history and human nature. Innovation is the fastest and quickest way to succeed. You can not lead by following.