The Triangle Times

The Coaches Corner with Katharine Giovanni

The Fan

I've been getting some interesting calls lately. In the last ten days, I've gotten more "panic" calls than I've had in a long time. The reasons for the calls vary. Some people are calling because they're worried about money and the recession. Others call because the "you know what" has hit the fan and they need help figuring out what to do. I've had several of these.

Since I'm pretty good at putting out forest fires, I thought I would share some tips when you come across your own "forest fire" .

First, let's chat about your perspective and focus. So ... the "you know what" is hitting the fan right? It's your entire world right now. You're focused on it, dreaming about it, living it, breathing it and trying to get out of it ... am I right?

Well, I've said this before but it bears repeating ... there is a universal principle out there called the Law of Focus. It's a natural law similar to the Law of Gravity. This law suggests that what you put your attention to … grows. So if you put your attention to fear, a lack of money, and start to think that the sky in your world is falling, then your “sky” will fall. If we put out negative thoughts and actions and constantly focus on the negative, we will attract negative back to us. It will become our entire world. Conversely, if we try our best to see the positive, then we will attract the positive back, and this will become our world.

As the late Peter Jennings once said in a newscast I was watching a while back, “the mind/body connection has become serious science.” What you decide to focus on, and the direction you decide to go because of this decision, will determine your company’s reality and its direction.

So ... as I said before, the crap is hitting the fan. How do you stop looking at it?

Focus on your future. Focus on where you want to go instead. I'm not telling you to ignore it (mostly because you can't) but you sure don't have to focus all your attention on it!!

Here are some tips ...

Stop watching the news. It teaches us to be scared, and reminds us on a daily basis what we should be afraid of.
Cut some pictures out of a magazine and pin it to the bulletin board above your desk. Pictures of where you want to go ... limousines, private jets, your dream house, your dream office, your dream car, your ultimate vacation destination ... whatever. Something that will remind you where you are going and what you are working towards. I have several on my own bulletin board as they remind me on a daily basis where I am going.
Listen to music. Whatever music empowers you and makes you feel good. Dance. Sing out loud! It will lift you up.
Don't listen to the naysayers who are saying you can't or shouldn't. Turn your ears off and run your business (and your life) from your heart, not your head. TRUST what your intuition is trying to tell you. Listen to it, you know it's never wrong. Get quiet and focused and listen to that small voice deep down inside of you. It knows the direction you should go, and it knows how to get you there. Trust it.

And what if you fall? What if the sky does fall down on you?

That actually happened to me. Want to know what I did when it happened?

First I cried ...

Then I got really really angry ...

Then I calmed down and started to think. That's when I realized that I had just learned what not to do. Once I realized the lesson, I was able to stand up and dust myself off. Sure, it hurt like hell but I was able to slowly move forward knowing that I wouldn't do that again! I then forgave everyone involved (including myself) and moved on. I let go of all judgments, resentments and anger. I let go of it all and walked away.

We then regrouped, refocused, reorganized and tried again.

Did we close the business?

No.

Want to know why?

Because even though falling flat on my face hurts, it actually makes me even more determined to succeed. If only to prove them all wrong.

So keep going everyone! Don't give up and keep your eye on the prize.

Oh ... one more thing ...

Try to stop looking at the fan.

Until next time!

Katharine

News from Triangle Concierge

Due to the 4th of July Holiday here in the United States ...

Triangle Concierge will be closed for vacation from Saturday June 28 to Sunday July 6. All orders placed after Friday June 27th at 12:00 noon will be shipped out on Monday July 7th. We will have limited access to email, but will be checking it periodically.

Thank you! Have a wonderful holiday week!!!

Katharine and Ron

We're bringing our acclaimed workshop to ATLANTA from August 7-8!!!

GAS HELPER SPECIAL - The first 10 people to register will get an additional $50 off. To learn more, please CLICK HERE

Our Masters at Home Program also has a GAS HELPER SPECIAL this month ... click here for more information

Quote of the Month ...

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie

Feature Article - 1

Generate Word of Mouth in Six Steps

By Alan Fairweather

Let me ask you a simple question - do you want your customers to say positive things about your business to other people? I bet you do, because as we all know "word of mouth" is one of the most effective and low cost ways to find new customers. And the most effective way to generate "word of mouth" is to provide extraordinary customer service.

Remember - the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just that little bit "extra." So what is that little bit extra?

I recently decided that I needed a new pair of training shoes. I was suffering from sore calves after exercising and put it down to the state of my shoes. (And before you say anything, there's no way I'm putting it down to old age).

A visit to a local sports shoe store resulted in me walking up and down the length of the store in my bare feet with my suit trousers rolled up to the knee. Two sales assistants were sitting on the floor watching my progress.

After much discussion between us they recommended two pairs of shoes that I should try. New shoes were purchased; no more sore calves and I told you it wasn't old age.

These sales assistants provided that little bit "extra."

They made me feel important, they were warm and friendly, they responded to what I had to say and they listened to my complaints about my aching muscles. I've now recommended that sports shoe shop to several people.

Research tells us that customers want two basic things from a supplier:

Firstly, they want quality core service. - In other words, they expect your product or service to work, to do what you say it'll do. (However, do this alone and you'll only provide "ordinary" service).

Secondly, they want friendly caring service. - They want to be acknowledged, to feel that someone is interested in them as an individual and that they're cared about. (This is what provides that little bit "extra").

Here are Six Steps to add that little bit extra and generate word of mouth:

1. First impressions are vital - It therefore makes good sense to consider what you look like and sound like. In a face to face situation it's important to make eye contact and smile. On the telephone, it's not what you say as an initial greeting that matters, but more important how you say it.

2. Warm and friendly - This is what most people want and it makes your life easier too.

3. Use names appropriately - A person name is one of the warmest sounds they hear. It says that you have recognized them as an individual.

4. Respond - If a customer says something, the intention was for you to hear it. And if you hear it, it's a good idea to acknowledge it.

5. Actively listen - When you think about it, most people aren't very good listeners. We'd all rather be talking. You have to work hard at listening particularly if you want to let the other person know that you care. Many people listen but don't show that they're listening. You've got to do all the nodding head stuff and look like you're interested. And remember over the phone; occasionally make some indication that you're still there.

6. Close positively - At the end of an interaction it's a good idea to make a positive statement on a business level and a personal level. Say something like - "If you have any further problems then please phone me on this number and I'm sure you'll enjoy your holiday next week".

Make no mistake about it, providing friendly caring service creates that little bit extra and generates word of mouth for your business.

About the Author: Discover how you can generate more business without having to cold call! Alan Fairweather -"The Motivation Doctor" - is the author of "How to get More Sales Without Selling" To receive your free newsletter and free e-books, visit the [http://www.howtogetmoresales.com target= _blank ]Motivation Doctor. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Fairweather http://EzineArticles.com/?Generate-Word-of-Mouth-in-Six-Steps&id=100497

Ron's Rants with Ron Giovanni

Ron is always ranting about something. Sometimes he rants because something irritated him, other times he offers a life or business tip to help people out.

From politics to family life to sensitive issues, you can bet that Ron will rant about it. He understands that not everyone will agree with him! He's not trying to change opinions, he's just ranting.

Here’s Ron’s Rant for the week …

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all ready for a great summer! I understand that we are all concerned about the economy and how we all are going to handle the next 6 or 9 months that all of these so-called "in the know people" say we need to be prepared for. The prices of everything just keep going up and up. However, what seems to be the most important item that affects us is the price of gas.

What amazes me most about the gas issue is that it is something that has been coming for a long time, but yet nothing ever gets done about it until we are hit in the face with it. Why is this great country of ours (and the many other industrial countries throughout the world) such procrastinators? Is it about dollars and cents? Some say yes, it is always about dollars and cents. I guess it is and always will be, but if our big time businesses do not get off their butts and be more creative, and not just sit at their desks counting stock shares and get back to being creative again, dollars and cents will continue to fly out the window! No doubt for fuel as it owns us!

I can remember when I was a little kid and saw all those cars of the future. I often wonder where are they today? There are no cars of the future now because we have the same old combustible engines we had when I was a kid. Yeah I know it has changed, but not one car of the future is anywhere to be found. So yes, it is all about the dollars and cents. To be able to bring us those cars of the future, we would need free thinkers who are not held back by the bottom line, we would need inventors who can bring their ideas to the forefront without someone squashing it before it makes out to the drawing board.

We need independent thinkers who can make us less dependent on others, especially those selling fossil fuels. We all depend on petroleum as it controls every facet of our lives. We need independent thinkers from around the world to explore, develop, invent, write and create so that we are no longer controlled by oil. We need to think hard and think fast. Let’s all take life back and not have one thing control us.

Which brings me to something else that is irritating to me, mostly because I hear it on the news every day. How much more it costs to travel because of the cost of gas. I hear people are canceling vacations because of this cost. Now I understand how hard it is for people who drive for a living, and the long trips back and forth to work ... it’s enough to drive a person mad or broke! Over the last few weeks, several friends of mine are telling me that gas is going to kill them for their trip. Some have even said that they will cancel their vacation because of gas prices. Heck I read an article about families doing ‘staycations” ... which are staying home and doing vacation type day trips. Yes, Staycations! Now I know that the price of gas has gone up 40 to 45% over last year’s prices, and yes that sounds like a lot, but is it ?

Let's do some math ...

Let see ... if you used two full tanks of gas to travel to and from your vacation destination, and it cost $90 last year for the round trip, this year it might cost $135. Would this be a reason to cancel a vacation? Not in my opinion! There are many ways to make up the difference. Everything goes up when you are on vacation, gas is the least of problems, at least for me. Why don't they try to ...

Cut out eating out as much
Don’t order lattes, have a coffee instead
Eat pizza, hoagies and burgers instead of expensive meals.
Rent a smaller property off the beach instead of bigger house on the beach.

Yet when I hear people say that their vacations are so expensive because the gas is going to kill them for their trip, I just have to scratch my head. I've heard this from friends, family, on the news, and from those fabulous talking head guests who are always popping into the news with their theories and opinions. Whenever I hear this, I have to bang my head on my desk and ask them why? Yes ... why are they using gas costs as a reason? If it is not the gas and just the economy, I can go with that, but gas prices should not be the reason for not traveling and making memories with your family.

I just heard it on the news by one of the talking heads who actually was Secretary of something or other with our government, but he just said that if we drive more we will be paying the bad people who are charging all this money for fuel. I am not making this up. Wow, and here I thought it might have been due to the weak dollar or possibly the demand from around the world, but what the heck do I know, I'm just a simple business person. So if this Secretary of whatever says that, then it must be true and all the other stuff is just junk fed to us.

Listen, take your family on a trip and enjoy it. Make memories because your kids grow up fast and will soon be in college, so please make the memories. However, if you really have to then I guess a “Staycation” is the way you have to go. There can be memories to have there to. But like I wrote at the beginning, don’t be controlled and let others run your life. There are a lot of ways to adjust for gas prices even if it is only $40, $50 or even $100 dollars more this year, it should not be the reason for not traveling.

As the sign says in my house ... Live, Love and Laugh ... but most of all enjoy all that you possibly can because life needs to be lived on your terms, not on the terms of others.

Ron

Feature Article - 2

3 Ways To Keep And Build Unshakable Confidence You Can't Get There From Here
By Bette Dowdell

A man stops to ask directions, only to be told, "You can't get there from here. If you were in Freeport, you could get there, but you can't get there from here."

So he asks how to get to Freeport. "See. That's the hard part. You can't get to Freeport."

We laugh, but too many of us are behaving as if this were serious information about the journey called life. If, in fact, you can call stuck-in-a-rut a journey at all.

Too many of us invest in the "can't get there from here" scenario and give up before we take the first step. The Chinese saying, "The longest journey starts with a single step," doesn't apply because we won't take that first step.

And what is this misinformation that causes us to give up without trying?

"Well, you came from a dysfunctional family. You can't expect to get to success from a start like that."

"You blew it when you didn't go to college. You'd be better off if you learn to be content where you are."

Or we're too young. Or too old. The wrong color. The wrong sex. Our history has blemishes. We're too poor. Come from the wrong place. The list is endless.

The fact is, people are willing to stand in line for a chance to tell us why we can't get from here to there, there being where our dreams are.

And they're wrong. What we've come through provides the gas in the engine for where we want to go. We've learned a lot from our so-called "problems," and it's stuff that can't be learned any other way. We just need to let it motivate us and not let it drag us down.

But we won't even try if we keep listening to the naysayers. Who are these dream killers? They're people coasting through life without dreams, mainly because they don't want to do the work that dreams entail. The way they see it is if you don't try, you can't fail. You also can't succeed, but apparently that's less painful to them than risking failure. And don't bother trying to explain to them that failure is a building block to success if you keep on keeping on.

If the quit-now gang consists of casual acquaintances, we can just tune them out. It's harder if they're friends. They're not going to change just because we have a dream. And they don't want us to change because our success will reflect poorly on them.

If they can't talk us out of it, and we persist in following our dream, they'll dump us like a bag of wet garbage. And that's just fine. Anybody who wants to hold us back isn't really a friend. We'll need to find new friends who prefer goal-setting to coasting, Full of dreams themselves, they'll understand. And cheer us on.

Dealing with dream killers is hardest if it's our family who insists we shouldn't try to be more than they say we are. We can try to show them how they would benefit from our success. We can try to press on toward our goals in spite of all their talk of defeat.

But if they're pulling us down faster than we can climb up, we may need to love them from a distance. Or we can give up our dream, stay down, and spend our days mourning our loss of what might have been-dead people walking.

The important thing to remember is we can get to some place good from wherever we are-if we're willing to start the race. Regardless of where we've been, everybody has to start somewhere, and where we are now is the only place we have for starting.

Where you are now is your place of new beginnings.

Go get 'em, Tiger. Or Tigress, as the case may be.

About the Author: Bette Dowdell is a former IBM Systems Engineer, small business consultant and software company owner whose avocation has always been teaching the Bible to just about anybody who will listen. Read about Bette's books, check out her Meeting Life Head-On blog, listen to her speak and subscribe-free-to her original, take-the-hill quotes at http://ConfidentFaith.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bette_Dowdell http://EzineArticles.com/?You-Cant-Get-There-From-Here&id=1241971

Calendar of Industry Events

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AUGUST 2008

workshop

August 7 - 8

TRIANGLE'S ACCLAIMED MASTERS CONFERENCE!!!

Atlanta, GA

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SEPTEMBER 2008

2008 ICEA Annual Professional Development Conference: Building the Network

September 24 - 27, 2008

The Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay

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Katharine will be teaching a pre-conference workshop as well as a general session.

You can't afford to miss this great event!!! Network with concierge from all over the world!!!

NOVEMBER 2008

November 6-7

TRIANGLE'S ACCLAIMED MASTERS CONFERENCE!!!

The Concierge Workshop^TM
The Capital City Club
Raleigh, NC

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Click here to read some comments from our clients.

HTH Mobile Health

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Triangle Concierge, a global leader in concierge consulting, has announced a partnership with HTH Worldwide to provide its global health and safety databases to Triangle's clients. The partnership enables concierge in the U.S. and Canada to provide their clients access to global healthcare and safety information from their wireless mobile devices, laptops or desktops via subscriptions to HTH Mobile Health^sm.

Help travelers manage health needs in 180 countries from any cell phone or computer. Find emergency or urgent care centers, carefully-selected English-speaking doctors, translations of medications and medical conditions, pharmacy practices and even security alerts!

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For more exposure on the web, we also suggest joining the International Concierge and Errand Association at www.ICEAWeb.org. Not only do they have a terrific directory, but there are some incredible benefits to joining as well!

If you would like to exchange links with us and get your company listed in our free directory, then please visit our website for the details at Triangle Concierge Inc.

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