‘Gonna get along without ya now.’ The words no CEO ever wants to hear…and what you must do to make sure you never do.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. In 1952 Teresa Brewer sang a peppy little ditty called “Gonna get along without ya now.” It was bubble gum music, all bobby socks and pony tails. Sweet sixteen though it was, its lyrics perfect for the soda shop, there was yet a salient point here that none of us can ever forget. We are all expendable, replaceable, just a movable part in any organization. It is a sobering thought for any person, but it’s vital every CEO of every organization not only understand this essential truth, but build his administration on it and rule accordingly.
Before reading the rest of this article, go to any search engine and find this tale of comeuppance warbled by Ms. Brewer. Carefully read its lyrics, including this unforgettable couplet:
“Got along without ya before I met ya Gonna get along without ya now.”
What a CEO is and what a CEO must do… crucial aspects of the job you never learn at Harvard Business School.
For the last almost 20 years now, I have been a CEO, specifically CEO of worldprofit.com, which began its life in 1994 as an Internet hosting company, expanding since then into providing complete Web traffic and online services, tools for every kind of business organization. Let me be perfectly candid with you; the daily education I’ve had over the past two decades has been not only practical, exhaustive and timely, but hands-on and never-ending, as must inevitably be any training and instruction about e-matters.
The necessary training has included, but was never just limited to matters fiduciary, legal, product development, marketing, and sales. But the most important instruction of all has been what I’ve learned about handling people; in this case the other partners, employees, our unique online monitors, and, always, our customers worldwide for together these far-flung people constitute the vital essence of our business… as such people will constitute the vital essence of yours. Just how you handle them will determine not only the degree of success delivered by your administration but whether you will be allowed to keep your lofty position at all.
My father’s insight.
My father, Donald Marshall Lant, spent almost all his life in business managerial positions. As a result he came to develop a keen understanding of why some executives rise, whilst others stumble, fall, and pass as a matter of course into oblivion.
As sharp as a tack at age 86, he is still adamant on a significant point he insisted my siblings and I understand, a principle not only for business success but also for living the best lived life: “Learn to manage people,” he insisted, “and you can achieve anything.” Right as rain here as elsewhere, he reminded us (particularly at such moments when we seemed to have forgotten) of this crucial adage; at these times he also taught us clear, practical and field-tested admonitions, tactics, and the wisdom that only comes from experience.
Now, here, I am enriching you with as many of these people management insights as the space allows.
1) Know their names.
The first rule for successful CEOs is to know the names of the people, ALL the people, who are part of your patrimony. People like to know that you, Poobah of the Western Isles, know them…. and their names.
Hint: Make up flash cards with the names of people associated with the enterprise you head. This is a superb way to turn “scrap” time into stronger relations with your people.  2) Use them.
This ought to be self evident to every CEO; yet how many of you wonder whether your CEO knows you even exist, much less your name?
3) Know their families.
Family and all its elements are most important to the people most important to you. Make it a point to get the names of spouse and children. And when you’ve congratulated their proud mama or papa, send this intelligence to them, so that they understand just how valued their parent is and how essential their services to you.
4) Contact them when they’re ill.
This is a biggie. When those connected with your enterprise fall ill, each wonders whether this will adversely affect their relationship with you and their job. By calling and visiting you reassure them at a difficult time. And, remember, while sending flowers and a fruit basket is nice; they want to hear from YOU!
5) Pop up at their work stations… and never come empty-handed.
Do you know every nook and cranny, every department and project of the company you head? If not master the elements of your enterprise by stopping by the various work stations which constitute the parts of your empire. And never, ever go empty- handed. Bring gifts, gift certificates, checks. Remember, you are the deliverer of the loaves and fishes. Act like it.
6) Share your (particularly edible) gifts and treats.
CEOs by virtue of their high office gets lots of presents. Share these with some of the hard working folks in your business. They will never forget the gesture, your kindness and thoughtfulness. These are the memories that they’ll remember forever… and the person who made it happen — you.
7) Praise and congratulate… and (get the drift?) never come empty-handed.
No one is better placed in your organization to give plaudits and kudos than you are. Thus because you can, you must. Within your company you are, like the sovereign of England in hers, the Fountain of Honor. It is an evocative image, an image of liberality, giving, and above all the empathy that should epitomize your administration.
 Make impromptu invitations.
No particular plans for lunch today? Great! Select two or three of the essential people in your organization and invite them to share tuna fish sandwiches with you. Make it clear it’s a chance to get better acquainted and to share their views and informed opinions with you. You’ll soon grow addicted to these “come as you are” events, making friend after friend, supporter after supporter.
9) Deliver promotions, raises and bonuses personally.
When the news is good, make yourself its Mercury. When was the last time you saw your CEO deliver even the best of news? Exactly. That’s why when you get to the top of the corporate tree, you’ll perform this task yourself… and gladly.
10) Implement at least one of these recommendations every day you wish to remain CEO, or advance from your present position. Don’t miss a single day or opportunity. If you do that, Teresa Brewer will have a very different song to sing, for they can’t get along without you now. Boom Boom Boom Boom.

Four things successful business people will do today…that you won’t!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Friend, let’s get one thing straight from the get-go. Successful people are going to do things today that you won’t. Read this, and you’ll discover what they are.
1) Successful people don’t just let today happen…. they plan for today… yesterday!
What did you do before you left your office yesterday? If you’re successful, you planned your success for today, determining your clear objectives and laying out the documents, materials, and other things you need.
In other words, you knew what you’d need, and you had it readily at hand so you could, without special effort, pick up first thing today what you so carefully planned…. yesterday.
Organization, a constant focus on time management and efficiency, not caffeine , are what the successful bring to the table. They cannot and do not consider yesterday concluded… until it is organized as the spring board to a successful today.
2) Email a stupendous offer just before you leave your work.
Want to walk in tomorrow to sales? To lots of great prospect leads?
Then email a terrific offer BEFORE you leave.
Most people, bushed, fatigued, tired, upon leaving their offices are contemplating the pleasures of the rest of today. But not the successful.
Successful people are mad keen on organization and efficiency… and constant bank account pleasing cash flow. They know that today’s dollars are the result of yesterday’s offers. Successful business people force themselves to stay, no matter how tired they are, no matter how pleasurable the day’s forthcoming events, until they have crafted the stunning offer that ensures cash flow throughout the hours they are not present.
This offer must be a lollapalooza… the best yet.
As I write, much of the United States, much of the rest of the world is mired in an anaemic economic recovery that is, at best, just limping along.
Yet, by staying focused at all times on the main event, successful business people will flourish and achieve even the most ambitious of business and financial goals.
The key is having cash readily at hand…. and the means to generate more…. at will.
This means offers, better offers, the best offers, never-ending offers.
Because you will be tired at the end of the day, craft your end-of-day offers earlier. To ensure that it delivers the big success you insist upon, shape that offer when your mind is fresh and your abilities keen. Aim to make your offer better than you have ever made before; aim to make it a stunner, head turning, a cash gusher.
What the most successful business people know is that cash is king, especially when other people, people who do not have and do not use such offers, don’t have it. If you focus as on your #1 Priority the shaping and constant sending of eye-popping offers you will have the cash, and thus the freedom, your less focused and clever colleagues lack and will always lack.
3) Call three prospects who have been hanging on the fence, uncertain about buying, and tell them you have the talking turkey offer of all times… if they will act now.
Offers come in many shapes and sizes… but one thing they all have in common is the “act now” factor. Offers to work must have deadlines… and the very best offers mean prompt, immediate response… no dithering allowed.
Most people, you see, even most business people, dither, offering excuses when decisive action is called for. In fact most people are not decision makers; rather, they are decision avoiders. The offer is made for such people, for only a truly superior offer will get these torpid ones to act at all, much less act on your speedy schedule.
Now, be honest. Did you, before leaving your office yesterday, call at least three people with a special, once-in-a-lifetime, knock ‘em, sock ‘em offer?
Or did you just turn off the lights and lock the door?
Want money?Then outline a “for my best customers” offer… and call them to discuss it. (You may also use email to send the offer… but never expect such an email to close the deal. For that the phone is the key).
Pick up the phone, I say, and, upon reaching these prime (if delaying) prospects, verbally embrace them, “Mary, you and I have been in contact for many years. I was thinking of you and wanted to make you a spectacular offer. Have you got a minute?” Then deliver the offer of offers, tellingly delivered, resoundingly delivered, convincingly delivered. This is a Special Offer…. for a Special Person. Deliver it accordingly.
4) Select 5 customers and give them a special unexpected gift.
People have always liked and will always like to get presents. It makes us feel wanted, warm inside. The most important people in your business are your customers; we all know that. However, what have you done lately to warm the cockles of their hearts? Not much, right? Change that today.
Pick a few customers, 5 is a good number, and give them a special gift, report, some free product, any kind of emolument… something that says simply, honestly, “I value you!” Then send it out.
Your customers will be pleased, gratified, impressed. No wonder. In our busy world, too few take even a little time to do the right thing; that thing that identifies you as a quality individual, well deserving of such customers. Out of the enhanced good will such valued offerings engender will come business, lots of business. You deserve it.
Are you going to be the business success you say you want?
You now know what to do. The question, therefore, is whether you will do it,and when.
24 hours from now, as you reflect upon this day, you will know just how successful you will be, based on what you have (or have not) done. It won’t take any longer than that to see how well you’re going to do. You see, now as always, the success you get (or forego) will be upon the actions you take and how well you do them. In short, it’s all about you.
Bon voyage.

Running your own business? Think you’re listening to and serving your customers? You may be surprised what these customers think about that.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
We live in a society where the means of connecting with each other increase and proliferate every single day. And yet, we are communicating with each other less well than ever; in fact, it seems to me that as the means of communicating go up, the actual communicating we do goes down. And if this is one of the chief ironies of our times; it is also amongst the greatest, most irritating and always infuriating aspects, not least because it should never occur at all.
Irritation by phone.
Every Wednesday I have occasion to see how people who are not sufficiently client-centered handle their customers. The case in point is the team of Brazilian cleaners which comes every 7 days to help keep me sufficiently clean and tidy for another week so that I can do my important work for you, readers, with the complete focus required.
These cleaners have worked for me for some years now. I like them and (despite my exigent standards) they seem to like me.
Lately, however, the situation, once stable and acceptable, has declined. What’s more I know why and (if they’re paying attention) the cleaners and their fearless leader should know, too.
We have, in fact, arrived at the point where I say a thing, but they do not hear that thing, much less take action to do that thing. And so a “problem” that should never have existed… now needs the kind of action I am no longer sure these cleaners are able and willing to take. It goes like this…
“Hang that phone up.”
The head cleaner, not to put too fine a point on the matter, has never met a phone she doesn’t like. She’s always pleasant, personable, a smile ever at the ready even when things in her life are not going as well as she might like… and (and this is the gravamen of my charge) she’s a chatterbox who may well have been born with a phone in her ear, and this not only annoys me; it alarms me… for my particular lifestyle is unusual for our times…
Life in a museum.
Over the course of the last couple of decades or so I have focused on the acquisition of museum quality artifacts of every kind. Their care and protection is my objective… the better to give each of them the opportunity to be shown to utmost advantage. This means regular dusting and polishing. Here’s where the problem begins.
I have made it clear to the cleaners on now innumerable occasions that the way they work for others may not constitute the best way they should work for me. In other words, their whirling dervish style of dust removal must be changed when the object being dusted has literally hung at Versailles. Slow and steady is the desired approach…
“Don’t do it all at once.”
Dusting and the like, let’s face it, can be dull, excruciatingly dull indeed. I pride myself on an acute awareness of this fact. And so from the very beginning, with so many facets needing regular attention, I have advised the cleaners to do a portion of the artifacts one week; the balance the next… even extending full dusting over three visits; in other words caution and care are desirable, not necessarily the speed on which they pride their operation. That works for them; it most assuredly does not work for me. And, worse, as they rush through their tasks, I literally hold my breath while they swing their awkward and provocative vacuum cleaner in the very limited space at their disposal. To say I am nervous as they work is the ultimate under statement.
But no matter how often I advise them… that is the precise number of times they have not only failed to hear… but have made it perfectly clear that they regard this advice as superfluous, intrusive, completely beside the point…
The phone, the whole phone, and nothing but the phone.
The cleaners love to yap (a word my grandmother used to use for chatter that most assuredly did not rise to the level of more demanding and reciprocal conversation)… and they yap from the moment they arrive… to the moment they depart. They do it LOUDLY with each other (a situation that I usually ignore). More seriously, they do it on the phone while doing their cleaning… and this is a situation I most assuredly do NOT ignore. What’s more, I cannot ignore it… because, in my case, that would be careless and irresponsible, such is the rarity and beauty of the items herein, a fact I am never sure they have taken in, much less understand and make clear they understand by carefully considered and carefully rendered action.
The situation rises to boiling point when they focus on the telephone and their jejune yapping… instead of devoting 100% of their attention to the breathtaking portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) which arrests the attention of every connoisseur who sees it. For the cleaners, philistines, it is just another burdensome object to get through, get by, get over until they can go home — safe from the old geezer who demands not only an earnest effort, but one that does not on any way threaten the object in question.
And so the chief cleaner says this to me with complete incomprehension: “I never break anything,” her pout pronounced… her eyes smouldering. Thus, she indicates she has not heard my point, clearly doesn’t understand it, and does not perceive the benefit of attending to her customer, the customer she needs for her business but cannot be bothered to comprehend, much less conciliate and reassure.
Beneficial advice. Treat it accordingly.
Now let us draw what benefits we can from this situation, for it is time to resolve it, placing our relations on the better footing they once were.
1) Listen to your customers. They are the sole reason why you have a business in the first place.
2) Do not see the customer as the enemy but rather a fellow traveler with you on this planet, who has a right to your ear as well as your labor.
3) Do not casually listen to, or even ignore, what this customer says. Not only is that bad business; it is also bad human relations.
4) When the customer addresses you, listen… and see what you can do, not to ignore the point, but to implement it, as quickly and easily as possible.’
5) Where the customer has concerns respond to them with alacrity and with empathy. Then see what you can do about implementing solutions to them.
6) Even where you do not entirely agree with the customer, do what you can to accommodate that customer.
7) Where you know that such and such a thing disturbs your customer, go the extra mile to avoid such disturbance.
And, above all, ask yourself this fundamental and crucial question: have I done everything this day to ameliorate the situation, hearing, doing, improving the relations and so earning the trust and even admiration of this all important person. For, remember, each contact you have with your customer provides yet another occasion to earn this trust and admiration, and if you do not take it, you are yourself your own worst enemy… and that is unacceptable indeed.
But let’s end on the highest possible note of accommodation and joy, with “painfully fabulous” Siedah Garrett’s 2012 Academy Award nominated song, “Real in Rio.” Find it in any search engine… and samba. Just don’t do it when you’re polishing the silver.

The lady from Maine laments and quits; the gentleman from Oklahoma says shoot ‘em, and we revisit the savage beating — on the Senate floor no less — of Sen. Charles Sumner by Rep. Preston Brooks

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. There’s a whole lot of lamenting going on in Washington, D.C. It goes like this: once upon a time the Congress of the Great Republic was a genteel place where ladies and gentlemen put on their white gloves and best manners, taking tea while cozily arranging America’s affairs… thence home to a Dickens novel and well-earned slumber. The problem is that such a time never existed in the Congress of these factious United States. It’s the merest myth… for all that the poor lads and lassies who represent us yearn for such a place, such a time, and such amiable, thoughtful, sympathetic colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

And so, these folks give way to frequent tears and even more frequent sighs and vapors… with lamentations loud, frequent, poignant, heart-rending — and silly.

The most recent to give way to this “feel sorry for me” rubbish is the lady from Maine, senior Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. On February 28, 2012 the Honorable Olympia announced her inability to stomach the poisonous, internecine, downright nasty senatorial environment for another term. And so, lamenting, petulant, self-pitying, she said “basta!”… and started packing her valises with the accumulated treasures and heirlooms — not to mention the pensions and emoluments — of over 33 years in Congress. These will be substantial indeed.

As for me, I cannot find a single tear for the lady, rather the reverse. She says she was armed for another campaign, had money aplenty to fight the good fight… but she clearly lacked the stomach for so much closeness to her feisty and outspoken Mainers. Senators are revered, coddled, kowtowed to in Washington, D.C. Back home amidst the problems and bleakness of Portland, they are asked, insistently too, just what have you done for us lately, Missie… and you’d better have a detailed answer at the ready. Demigods like Senator Olympia find such directness rude, and long for fragrant camomile in a fragile cup of Old Worcester while aides fan her with cooling air…. unlimited incense… and deference to every word and wish.

Ms. Olympia says she’s a Greek from Spartan stock… and while that might have been true 30 years ago in her elected salad days, it is most assuredly true no longer. She’s gone Athenian, and now demands reverence, not the stark choice of returning with her shield — or on it. And so she must retire… because she is no longer able to fight the good fight for Maine, for Mainers, and for the Great Republic which needs visionaries, fighters, not aging voluptuaries who crave comfort, not confrontation.

Enter Congressman John Sullivan (R-Oklahoma).

February 22, 2012 Representative Sullivan made a few red-blooded observations during one of his regular “town hall” meetings with constituents. The subject was how to get the Senate of the Great Republic to get serious, I mean really serious, about balancing the out-of-control federal budget.

“I’d love to get them /the senators/ to vote for it. Boy, I’d love that, you know. But other than me going over there with a gun and pointing it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them, I don’t feel they’re going to listen unless they get beat.”

Cornered by the ever present Thought Police, Representative Sullivan, that able and forthright member for Tulsa, backed down. He didn’t mean it….shouldn’t have said it… certainly didn’t imagine… and would never, ever do… You get the picture. The Honorable John was tripping over himself, back pedaling to beat the band. But why?

After all, he is far more what we actually want in our elected representatives, even while we say we prefer the Olympia model. No, we want our reps to represent us robustly, directly, rudely, shrewdly, without limits … because unless they do that our share of the pie — and the extra bucks we covet — will go to others more able to bring home the bacon than our shrinking violets… and that will never do.

The great example of Representative Preston Brooks.

In 1856, the great issue of the day was slavery. It was a question which overshadowed all others. It was intractable, divisive, perhaps insoluble… certainly unavoidable. And because moderates could not prevail in resolving the matter, it was left to the zealots on both sides to see what they could do, using whatever means they chose to use.

And so on May 18, 1856 the Honorable Charles Sumner, the Senator from Massachusetts, arose to see what he could do to resolve the irresolvable… his vehicle being his great speech “The Crime Against Kansas” given to ensure that slavery did not encroach into the Kansas Territory and so augment the South and the slave owners he despised.

It was a great speech in every way — 50 single-spaced pages in length, a detailed analysis of the problem, the most brilliant, vituperative language; language meant to insult, to scald, to enrage, with a position that absolutely no one could misunderstand, whatever side they supported.

Picture the scene. Not a cup of camomile to be seen.

Great Sumner rises sustained by sanctimony, rectitude and rage; each word is sonorous, delivered with venom, designed to sting, outrage, rebuke, condemn, no quarter asked, none given.

And so this man of Harvard, of Boston, of Massachusetts, this man of certainty, no doubt or hesitation rose to challenge the nation and to reshape the Great Republic.

Every eye was on the man, a mere man no longer, but the agent of a stern, implacable God, God the Avenger, majestic, awe-inspiring, I Am that I Am.

“Mr. President,” he began, “You are now called to redress a great transgression.”

And every word that followed in that vast torrent of words beat home this point.

There was no note of accommodation, no politics as usual, nothing less than total victory would do.

In the course of this great philippic, which ultimately saw one million copies distributed, Senator Sumner attacked Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, not just the man or his ideas but his stroke-impaired physique. It was brutal, it was hurtful; it was insulting… and a few days later inspired the Senator’s outraged nephew, South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks to enter the Senate Chamber and, with his gutta-percha cane with solid gold knob, beat Sumner insensate, even when Sumner was comatose, lying in his puddling blood.

So did immoderate Sumner make his case…so did immoderate Brooks retaliate.

And so was the Congress of the Great Republic shortly peopled by representatives carrying devices of every kind, guns, knives, and of course the gutta-percha sticks with gold knobs made fashionable — or abhorrent — by this incident which moved the Civil War appreciably closer.

That is why, Senator Snowe, your decision to leave is a bad decision. The people of Maine need you.. the Congress needs you… the Great Republic still has great need of your services. No, it is not convenient for you; not least because you must present yourself again to your constituents, and, being Mainers, they will question you closely, for they are no respecters of persons and so may affront you. What of it? You have the Great Republic’s work to do. And that is far more important and pressing than your own personal feelings or comfort. They count for nothing against what you can do, must do and cannot abandon now.

Thus I give you this song, “John Brown’s Body”, a rousing tune which arose from the American camp meeting tradition in the early 19th century and, after many changes of words, became the marching tune for people who understood the implementation of Truth was a long, difficult, often dangerous process. Go now to any search engine and find the rendition you like… and bookmark it, for you will have need of it in the work ahead:

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave His soul’s marching on.”

And so must you, too, Senator Olympia Snowe, for your work for the people is most assuredly not finished yet.

Dedication: The author is pleased to dedicate this work to Joshua Aaron Sumner and Roshelle Elena Sumner, descendants of the magnificent Yankee who alerted the world to “The Crime Against Kansas,” children of dear friend, Lance Sumner, fellow Internet argonaut.