Starla West makes a good impression. When I first met Starla, she was fairly new on the Indianapolis networking scene.  I hadn’t seen nor heard of her before, but from my first moments in her presence, I knew she was competent, confident, and someone I wanted to work with and get to know better. Thus, it didn’t surprise me in the least to learn that Starla is an executive image consultant. Ah, so that explains it, I thought. She knows how to give a great first impression.
However, over the next several months, I ran into Starla time and time again. No matter what the venue, or what type of meeting we attended, Starla continued to impress me with her professionalism, positivity, and expertise. Her genuineness, authenticity, and warm demeanor came shining through every interaction. And eventually I realized, every impression – second, third, and all of the rest – was a great one. And it wasn’t just on the surface. It is because she is so comfortable in her own skin, and confident in her skills, that I had such confidence in her.
So who better to teach others to do the same? By being her own perfect model of what she does, Starla is rapidly becoming one of the top experts in her field, and with good reason. She exemplifies what good business etiquette and personal brand management should look like… and she inspires others to want to do the same.
Why should this matter to you? First, whether you are deliberate about it or not, you are always making an impression. And equally as important as the first impression, your second and ongoing impressions are what your business is built on. The example Starla sets caused my confidence and faith in her to grow as my interactions increased. She continued to build more and more credibility. Contrast this to my current bank, which for their sake shall remain nameless. My initial impression of my bank was great. They seemed friendly, customer-service driven, and had some great services and product offerings. I loved my previous bank, so wanted to find one with a personal touch, and this bank seemed to have it. They promised personal service, ease of use, and great benefits. I expected nothing less than the same great experience or better than what I’d had at my previous bank. My first impression was exceptional.
Then, I actually started to bank with them. I found each transaction to be difficult at best. First, they promised use of alternate locations, but when I tried one, they acted as if they knew nothing of it. Frustrated, I drove out of my way to find a place I could make a deposit. Once there, I was given quite a bit of run around for a fairly basic transaction. I was floored. Why wasn’t this easy? Many of my questions were those I’d assume they’d gotten on a fairly regular basis. The representative did not seem to care that I was inconvenienced.
Thinking maybe it was a unique situation, I tried again. And again. And every time, I came away frustrated and dissatisfied. I feel as if they’ve pulled a bait and switch on me. I’d rather know going in what I was really dealing with, rather than have a false first impression. Now, you guessed it, they’ve not only lost a potential raving fan, they’ve lost a customer. And plenty of my friends have heard of my frustrations. That’s the thing about human nature, we are much more likely to share our bad experiences than our good ones.
So, ask yourself – which impression do you want to give? The increasingly positive one that Starla and her company exude, or the increasingly negative one that creates a need for damage control? Are you deliberate about the impression you are giving, at all times? If not, save yourself time, money, and heartache, and give Starla a call. Your customers will thank you!

By Amie Peele Carter

Strengths training is getting a lot of airtime these days. At back to school night two weeks ago, I sat in my son’s new classroom and learned about the strength training recently given to the school’s faculty.  I am even starting to see a greater strengths focus in the way they evaluate students.

Back at work, though, I begin to think about strengths from a corporate perspective.  What are the strengths of any given organization? And once they are identified, how can they be leveraged to better express the company’s brand?  After all, your brand is the way your customers and clients experience what you have to offer.

Here are some ideas to help you link the strengths of your organization to your brand –

1. Carefully identify your core strengths. This may mean getting an objective source outside of the company to help.  However you do it, make sure your methodology is sound.  Identify the top 3-5 strengths that provide the most ideal vehicle to carry your message to your customers.
2. Convey your strengths visually and verbally.  This step requires two levels of translation. The first is the translation of your strengths to a written and visual brand, which means that your strengths must be conveyed through words, design and color.  For example, although I’ve not done any strengths training or branding with Amazon.com, I suspect that one of their strengths is making people happy.  You can see that translated in the bright colors used in their logo, as well as the “smile” created in the design.

Lands’ End provides another good example. The company has a reputation for exemplary customer service, and the “Guaranteed. Period.” tag line is designed to support that reputation.  More recently, this company added a new lighthouse logo to identify its core product offerings, with both the product and the brand sending the image of “going back to basics.” That branding concept identifies the strengths of the company as longevity, stability and quality.

Level two of the translation requires that the brand you select not so immediately convey your message that it does not function as a trademark. If a trademark is generic or otherwise too closely describes the products or services with which it is associated, it will not be able to differentiate your company from others in the minds of consumers.  For those reasons, the best trademarks are usually arbitrary in nature, even coined words (like KOKAK).

1. Convey your strengths in real time.  This requires that your employees and your leadership both embrace the company’s strengths and live them every day.  At a granular level, customer service representatives must be both trained and empowered to activate the brand in their day to day work with customers.  And it also means that the company’s strengths must become part of the organizational culture, if they are not already.
2. Reevaluate and rebrand as needed. Brands can become stale.  Strengths can evolve and change.  Re-assess and rebrand when you need to. But don’t rebrand without a real reason, because you will need to explain to your consumers the reason for the evolution of the brand.  And you will need a trigger to easily do that.
3. Effectively enforce your brand in the minds of consumers.  This means you need to reach your customers where they live professionally – and that might be in person, in cyberspace, on the TV or radio or some other medium.  But without step 5, you will not leverage your investment in the brand you’ve developed.

Good luck!

Amie Peele Carter is a partner at the law firm of Baker & Daniels, LLP, where she practices in the areas of trademarks, copyright and ecommerce, with a focus on sports and entertainment projects.  She is also a branding, marketing and strategic development consultant with B&D Consulting.  Amie can be reached at amie.peelecarter@bakerd.com, or 317.237.1180.

Ignite recently moved offices, and I went from a furnished office to an unfurnished one. In all of the melee that is involved in such an event, I thought of all the big items… desk, chair, file cabinet, and the like. But I completely forgot about getting a trash can. Once I moved in, I quickly realized my need. I kept telling myself I’d run out and get one. But, then I’d get busy and forget about it until before I knew it another day had gone by, and I’d put it off until the next day.

This went on for two weeks until finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I carved out some time during my weekend to buy this hugely important when you need it item. On Monday, I was so excited to be able to throw things away. Anything I wanted! Any time I wanted! It was awesome! I have been so excited all week, thinking and even saying, “I have a trash can!”

And it got me to thinking. How much do I truly notice on a daily basis? How often do I celebrate all of those things I so easily take for granted? If one trash can can make such a big impact, and bring me such joy and amazement once I have had the opportunity to experience going without it, how much more so does my work, my team, our clients, my friends and family? If a trash can is cause for a celebration, am I also celebrating everything that truly matters… and telling them… on a regular basis?

Being grateful, and sharing that gratitude, brings a completely new perspective and energy, making the ordinary extraordinary.

Take some time today to celebrate your “trash cans” and be grateful for all that you have. Find your extraordinary. And take time each day to tell the people in your life that they matter to you. It just might make all the difference.

So, are you intelligent or are you curious? What does your mindset about these have to do with how well you learn? According to Dr. Carol Dweck… everything!

Training, learning and growing are essential to progressing in your business and your career. But, so many times we go to a training session, learn some great stuff, but we may be distracted or quickly forget the concepts we learn and go right back to the same old habits. How do we break that cycle? We start with curiousity.

According to Dr. Carol Dweck, psychologist at Stanford University, it is important to first move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. A person with a fixed mindset believes their intelligence is a fixed trait – you have a certain amount, and therefore the concern becomes that of appearing intelligent. They base their activities on whether or not what they do will show their intelligence. This person tends to have an aversion to effort or facing challenges, or simply isn’t willing to be open to doing things differently. They’d rather stick with the things they know they are good at and will demonstrate that competence to others. 

In addition, when we get caught up in completing tasks every day, and getting things done, our natural tendency to stick with the status quo and not really be open to learning new things. We may attend a training class now and again, or maybe it’s even mandatory, but no change is incorporated into our day-to-day being unless we start with a growth mindset. It is with a growth mindset that we find the motivation to put new concepts into practice.

In a growth mindset, you understand that your brain is like a muscle - it gets stronger with use. You view intelligence not as a fixed point, but something you develop throughout your whole life, that grows with passion and practice. You know that every time you learn something new, your brain forms new connections, and you can therefore improve your intellectual skills.

Being curious also means you are willing to make mistakes. The difference between success and failure is what you do with those mistakes. Those with a growth mindset are able to enter the “zone” and stay in the zone, even when they make mistakes.

As Dr. Dweck states, “You can’t keep up with this changing world if you can’t grow or can’t learn.”

So, are you curious, or wanting to appear smart?

Ignite Consulting is now offering Mind Of A Champion training that gives you a solid foundation of beginning with a growth mindset. For more information, contact us today!

Leaders must go beyond addressing actions – they must coach their teams on thinking.  According to Dr. Julie Bell, well-known sport psychologist and author of Performance Intelligence At Work: The Five Essentials to Achieving the Mind of a Champion, the MIND is a great acronym for identifying thinking we must overcome to get past ourselves, and get to where we want to go.

M stands for Monkey on your back – those things we tell ourselves to beat ourselves up. The key is to recognize the monkey (or several), and refocus on the desired outcome: What would you like to happen?

I stands for Intimidated. Remember, you can only be intimidated if you agree to it, by choosing to ignore your personal strengths and resources, and instead, building up concepts or people. This can paralyze your instincts. Make the choice not to be intimidated – it makes all the difference.

N stands for Natural mindset – doing what you are trained to do. When you sign your name, you are in the Natural mindset. This is where we want to be, and where we are when we are well trained with skills sharpened. Research shows we are in natural mindset only about 10 percent of the time. The good news is, you can train yourself with determination and repetition to be in natural mindset more often.

D is the Determined mindset that occurs when you make a conscious choice to focus on a solution or correction, rather than worrying about what you are doing wrong. It is the practice of intentional thinking.

Performing your best when it matters most is an intentional choice. It really is all in your MIND.

Carla Feagans is the President and Chief Learning Officer of Ignite Consulting. Ignite is the premier strengths-focused training and coaching firm in Indianapolis, Indiana, that specializes in focusing on what is right instead of what is wrong. For more information about our talent assessments, Ignite Your Strengths programs, and Mind Of A Champion training and coaching, please contact Carla at 317-777-6470, ext. 401, or Carla@ignitehr.com. Because Life’s Too Short To Be Unhappy At Work!

That’s right, I called you an ink blob. And how you take that is entirely dictated by you, which is precisely my point.

When I work with individuals and teams, one of the most common challenges I come across is conflict. And conflict in relationships is mostly caused by people taking things personally. (Something I am sure you never do!). Taking things personally can also destroy self-confidence, create un-needed drama, and keep you from having the things you truly want in your life.

I was recently listening to Brian Johnson at philosophersnotes.com as he was discussing the book, The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. In a nutshell, these agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don’t take anything personally
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Always do your best

Agreement number two – Don’t take anything personally – means basically this: nothing anyone does has anything to you. It’s all about their own issues that are basically being projected onto you.

This is best illustrated by Brian’s ink blob comparison. We’ve all heard of the ink blob test used in psychology. Ink is smushed between two sides of a paper for a mirror image. People are then asked to interpret and react to that ink blob – which is entirely dictated by the person viewing the ink blob from their own perceptions, preconceived notions, and maybe even the mood they are in that day. The ink blob is completely neutral, yet 1000 different people might see 1000 different things. Does the ink blob change as opinions change? Not one bit. And neither do you. Yet when you take things personally, you allow others to change your opinion of yourself. How’s that workin’ for ya?

Some final thoughts:

If we base our opinions of ourselves based on how someone else treats us, we are in trouble.

If we are complaining, blaming or criticizing, someone else has power over us. Don’t be a victim – it really is totally up to you!

Don’t worry about the opinion of other people, who don’t even have a good opinion of themselves.

Amazingly, the number one top trait that Chief Executives really want is something I am quite excited about – Creativity. According to today’s article in Business Week, citing a new IBM survey of 1500 chief executives, creativity was named the “most important leadership competency for the successful enterprise of the future.”

Creativity has shifted to highest importance as executives anticipate global complexity to be the top issue in our current and future world of global connectedness. Even in the last two years, our world has changed dramatically and will continue to do so – and this rapidly shifting environment requires “fresh thinking and continuous innovation at all levels of the organization.” In other words, corporate leaders as well as corporate cultures need to think like entrepreneurs, be nimble and constantly aware of the changing environment around them. The only status quo is that there is no status quo.

Are you prepared to move forward into this brave, new world, full speed ahead? Or are you stuck in Organizational Paralysis, waiting for full, complete clarity and stability before making decisions – and thereby missing the boat?

Don’t wait, Ignite can help. Contact us for more information.

People today have less time, fewer resources, and want to make the most of every minute. We live in a byte-sized world, a world of tiny iPods, Netbooks, and 140-character Tweets. People want to move quickly, learn quickly, and grow quickly. Workforces are smaller and everyone is being challenged to accomplish even more in the same amount of time.

Enter Ignite’s Lightning Lunches. In just 45 minutes, you and your team can learn great, educational gems from five different experts. Energize your lunch hour, energize your business, do something fun and productive while you build teamwork and take away real value.

Learning Tracks include: Communication, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Wellness, Productivity, Career Growth, Customer Service, and more!

Don’t have a team? Come to one of our public Lightning Lunch events, starting in June 2010. Contact info@ignitehr.com for more information.

Don’t waste another minute – contact us to get one scheduled today!

Lorraine Ball of Roundpeg gave a great speech on – you guessed it – donkeys and dirt. Huh? How does that relate to business? That’s what I was asking myself when she began telling the story of a donkey being buried alive after falling into the bottom of a well. What kind of macabre inspiration is that, I found myself wondering. But then, she continued. She told us about how that donkey refused to lay down and die. No matter how much dirt the people piled on him, trying to put him out of his own misery, that donkey didn’t give up. He shook that dirt off… and stepped up. Over and over and over again. Never wavering from his goal, never laying down to whine and moan, he shook it off again and again until he was standing at the very top of the dirt pile that filled in the well, and walked right out into freedom. Click here to read Lorraine’s original story.

Are you ready to stop wallowing in the dirt, and step up into a better, stronger life? How much longer are you going to lay down and take it? Take that tax refund and invest it in yourself – and even get a tax write off for next year. Find a plan, training class, program or coach that works for you and start living your strongest life – doing what you do best, every day. Stop letting the dirt get in your way. Step up and step out into freedom.

If you want to learn how to Maximize Your Personal Power and Strengths, sign up for our May 21st workshop. Hope to see you there!

In my business, I work with people to find their strengths and create their strongest life, investing time in developing, contributing, and focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses. But every time I work with people, we run into all kinds of roadblocks and stopping points, most of which are so ingrained they almost become the unconscious, reflexive response. I too have often put up my own roadblocks where none really existed. The one thing that 99.9% of us share is being our own worst enemy. Our head trash may look different, but we all have something that is holding us back in some area of our lives. For many of us, it’s where we spend most, if not all, of our time.

I was brilliant at head trash, and keeping myself from fully embracing and creating the life I really wanted. And I need to take a moment to thank those who have helped me cross over to the other side (though it’s an ongoing process). First, a huge kudos to my business coach, Tony Scelzo. Thank God this man took me under his wing and gave me the love, patience, persistence, and PUSH I needed to move forward in a way I never would have done on my own. He was also instrumental in getting me to sign up for the Breaking Through workshop with Jim Zarvos. Thank you Tony!

And now, a word about Jim. Wow. This is amazing that we have something this powerful right here in Indianapolis. Jim has traveled all over the world to do this training with businesses and individuals from every walk of life, and yet he has chosen to make Indianapolis his home. What an incredible opportunity for this city! Those who have been through this intensive, experiential training and coaching workshop are profoundly changed, myself included. I am different. Better. Lighter. That head trash was pretty heavy stuff to be carrying around. Isn’t it time to dump yours?

If you’d like more information on Ignite Your Strengths coaching, Tony’s business coaching, or Jim’s Breaking Through course, feel free to send an email to carla@ignitehr.com. As I’ve told my family and friends, if you love anyone – including and especially yourself – it’s time to invest in what really matters. It’s time to invest in YOU.