When others know you are always looking for new clients and when you are someone who sends referrals to others, it’s amazing what can happen for you. This note (link above), you might be surprised to hear, was handed to me in church by a friend, Jon who sells insurance and someone I have referred clients to. Yes, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this in church but you should be networking and you need to be someone who seeks out people who either know people you could work with or is someone who could work with you. How many opportunities are you missing by sitting back? By not aggressively looking for work? We could all improve here.

When someone sees you in church and hands you a note with a lead on it, that’s a pretty good sign; you have made it clear you’re always looking for new clients. So, let me close by asking you to attend one of my field trips or my big event in February, GROW! 2011! I want your business!

Leads come from all kinds of places.

I hope all of you enjoy Labor Day and take some time to say thanks to all those who work so hard to make our country work! I thank you; you’re one of those people!

ATTENTION: To all of you who are not too far from Novi, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, Marty will be speaking at the 6th Annual Michigan Snow Conference and Expo on Thursday, September 16th at 8:30 am. Click here to view the schedule and get the registration form. Marty would love to see you in Novi.

My wife is from Chicago; we go up there quite a bit. I love that town and I love my wife’s family; they are wonderful people. At about the halfway point in Lafayette, Indiana, there is a Dairy Queen where the kids like to stop. For the past two years, they’ve had this sign on the door:

Now, why in the world wouldn’t you fix that door? This baffles me. The door is so hard to open; my kids can’t open it and surely Grandma and Grandpa can’t either. When you think of stupid things, this might take the ice cream cake! But, I see this in business all the time. I see entrepreneurs who overlook big things in their operations that make a big difference. The front door to an ice cream shop is a big thing; it needs to be easy to open. The best customers of a Dairy Queen are kids and families. If your door can’t be fixed, what else aren’t you going to fix?  And this leads me to my point. What’s stupid at your company?

We all have things at our company that are stupid. And we’d all be well served by having a meeting with our teams to determine what’s stupid around here. I have a few things that come to mind at my office at Grunder Landscaping Company and Marty Grunder! Inc. Here are 3 things that are stupid at my office:

1. The awning over our front door needs to be replaced. I know it; my team knows it but we haven’t done it. Oh sure, budgets are tight but not that tight. I’ll be getting that done.
2. We have all kinds of clients we’ve done business with in the last ten years that need a personal call or visit from one of us. After all, I’m the guy writing a book on relationship selling, right! Yes, we mail them newsletters but that personal touch makes all the difference in the world. I’m going to get that done too.
3. We haven’t taken our office team out to jobsites to show them the work we do. I mean, it can’t get much stupider than that. We ask them to do proposals, order plants, do work orders, prepare billings, talk to clients and so on, yet we never show them the byproduct of all their help? I’ll be taking them out to jobs soon.

Yes, even Marty Grunder makes mistakes and his business is not perfect.  Don’t get complacent with your business. Think about what the customer sees…..think about what’s stupid at your place and get those things fixed as soon as you.

And, if you happen to plan on going to the Lafayette DQ, bring your strongest friend along to open the door. Once you get inside, the service and ice cream are very good.

She made this salmon and sweet peas meal for us and it was so good I wanted to share it with you. It’s good for you and one of the best fish dinners I’ve ever had. So, in my ongoing quest to help you live a well-rounded life, here’s the recipe

My mom is a terrific cook.

Marty and his mother (the wonderful lady he gets his enthusiasm from)

Like all moms she has specialties. Growing up, I loved to eat my mom’s salmon patties, her Johnny Marzetti (a pasta dish she still makes for me), her beef stroganoff and her cherry pies. And her scrambled eggs are still the best I’ve ever eaten. My mom continues to amaze me with her cooking; she is still looking for new recipes. A couple of weeks ago, my wife was still in Florida with her family and two of my daughters and my son. It was just me and my 14-year old daughter in town and we got lucky; Mom cooked dinner for us almost every night. Oh my, did we eat well and healthy too.

She made this salmon and sweet peas meal for us and it was so good I wanted to share it with you. It’s good for you and one of the best fish dinners I’ve ever had. So, in my ongoing quest to help you live a well-rounded life, here’s the recipe

I hope you’ll make it and if you do, by all means, drop me and note and tell me what you thought of it. I’m sure my mom would love to hear how good it was.

My friends in Chicago brag about Sunset Foods. So I went there….nice place, yep, but Dorothy Lane Market is at a much higher level; even my father-in-law from Chicago, who knows his grocery stores, will agree. Others speak about Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati or Stew Leonard’s in CT. Nope, been to both, DLM has them beat as well. Anyway, there is a lot to learn from a successful business. I often say, “Success leaves clues.”

Here’s a photo of my daughter Emily and me at DLM last week.

It’s a wonderful store that completely understands who they are and who they aren’t. And they are proof that you can get ahead in business by zigging when everyone else is zagging. So, my idea this week is to go on DLM’s website and read about them. See what ideas of theirs that you can apply to your business. And, if you’re really looking for help with your business, come see me at one of my Field Trips and, by all means, sign up for GROW! And if you’re really ambitious, call Nancy to talk about having me visit your company and show you how to grow it and make some money!

Roy Bartell

What a great quote. And, so I ask you: do you listen very well to your prospects and clients? Okay, let me next ask you this: how do you feel when you know someone’s not listening to you? How do you feel when a salesperson is not listening to you?

This week seek to listen to your prospects and clients and hear what they are saying. If you listen closely, you will discover exactly what they want and you will know exactly what you need to do to make the sale. In the coming weeks, we’ll talk more about listening…..stay tuned.

The day after my son was pretty sick I got up and went to work. My wife said I couldn’t do anything and she would take Grant to the Doctor as soon as he woke up. So, I had a lot on my mind and went through the Starbucks drive-thru to get a lemonade, one of my pleasures in life. I’m not a coffee drinker….me on coffee….that’s a frightening thought. When I pulled up to the window, the lady said that the woman in front of me had paid for my Iced-Tea and told me she said to have a GREAT DAY. Wow…..I said to myself….”What a pick-me-up.” It made my morning, woke me up, and made me say, “I don’t have it so bad.” It is amazing what random acts of kindness like this can do for someone. There’s no way that lady knew I had a rough night and a lot on my mind and the love she showed for a stranger was awesome, to say the least. That night when I got home, my son was still sick, but better and acting a little more like himself. My daughter Lily who is 12 needed new basketball shoes, so I took her to the store to get a pair.

When we got to the store, her 12-year-old eyes lit up seeing all the shoes. As she looked at them and the prices, she picked a pair that she “really liked” and also picked a pair that was on sale. She tried them on; I saw the delight on her face and we made a purchase. As we walked out to the car, this little darling gave me a hug and said, “Thanks for the shoes, dad.” They were a $39.00 pair of shoes. We got in the car; she got them out of the box and admired them. When we got home, she put them on and proudly walked around the house in them. But, best of all, when her mom came home with our 14-year-old daughter, she had them on and showed them off to both of them. Look, I realize I need to get to the point. Here it is.

We all have a lot on our minds right now. We have an economy that continues to sputter. We have a world that seemingly can’t get along with each other as well as they should. We have a nation with a disaster in our Gulf of Mexico that will have a lasting impact. And we all are dealing with issues. But, at the end of the day, if we have our health, our families, our friends, and can slow down just enough to see what’s important, we’re all going to be just fine.

There is a recovery coming. I don’t know when it will get here but it’s coming. In the meantime, I’m going to work my tail off to improve Grunder Landscaping Company and help other entrepreneurs do the same for their operations. I’m going to have fun and I’m going to make sure the people I care about know I love them. I’m going to pay for someone’s coffee at Starbucks and look for other ways to help people see the good in all of us. I’m going to make sure I take time for my kids and my wife. And, most of all, I’m going to be grateful for what I have, not what I don’t have.

Have a GREAT WEEK! And how about all us who are reading this e-mail practice 1, just 1, random act of kindness this week. If we all do this, then thousands of people might turn their week, and maybe even their lives, around.

Examples of Great Customer Service

After Michelle Teegarden spent 10 minutes in the cold with a customer retrieving a blown-away deposit, the customer returned the next day with a box of chocolates and a card that read: “Thanks so much for weathering the cold with me to find our checks. You truly went above the call of duty!”

Theresa Schroyer was waiting on a customer who talked about her daughter being off to college, but in need of an account. Rather than wait until her daughter came home, Theresa prepared all of the paperwork in advance in order to make the process extremely easy for the customer. It was due to the extra steps she took to get this done that her customer left the office extremely happy.

Sarah (Philhower) Knight sold a Plus Package over the phone to a quite difficult customer who had called in to inquire on the cost of a check order. Later in the day the customer came in to sign the paperwork for the Plus Package and Sarah noticed she was having a hard time writing. Sarah offered to assist her and wrote out all of her information for her. The customer thanked Sarah for her excellent customer service! No one had ever seen the customer so warm and appreciative.

The message this week is a simple one. It’s really not that hard to offer service that clients notice and remember you for. In today’s business environment you need to be finding ways to impress your clients and let them see through your actions that you care. Use these stories from Park National Bank of Southwest Ohio as motivation for you to get your team to do the same. It doesn’t take much and if you’d like to see your clients stay with you, instead of looking for a new group to work with, you’ll embrace this suggestion enthusiastically.

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will.

When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill.

When funds are low and the debts are high.

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When care is pressing you down a bit.

Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns.

As every one of us sometimes learns.

And many a failure turns about.

When he might have won had he stuck it out; 

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –

You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are.

It may be near when it seems so far; 

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

− Author Unknown

Every day we all have the choice of sitting around waiting for something to happen or we can go make it happen. How about you go out and make it happen starting today? It’s up to you! But don’t do this in the landscaping business in Dayton, Ohio, because I’m months ahead of you and it’s working!

We all have different ways we observe the Fourth. There are family picnics, fairs, carnivals or festivals, car shows, charity races, concerts, parades, baseball games, political ceremonies and, last but not least, there must be fireworks. The common thread for all these events is community – the community of family, friends and neighbors.

We found some interesting facts on the Internet about the history of the Fourth of July. Here are a few of them:

• July 4th, 1776 commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, declaring independence from Great Britain. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. The Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author, was finally approved on July 4th.
• One of the most enduring myths about Independence Day is that the members of Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Most delegates actually signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776.
• John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only two men who signed the Declaration of Independence to become president, died on the same day: July 4, 1826.
• In 1777 13 gunshots were fired, once at morning and again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island.
• Held since 1875, the Bristol parade is the oldest continuous Independence Day celebration in the United States.
• In 1778 General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute.
• In 1781 the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.
• In 1791 the first recorded use of the name “Independence Day” occurred.
• In 1870 the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees.
• Since 1916 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, supposedly started as a way to settle a dispute among four immigrants as to who was the most patriotic.
• In 1938 Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday.
• A salute of one gun for each state in the United States, called a “salute to the union,” is fired on Independence Day at noon by any capable military base.
• The Boston Pops Orchestra has hosted a music and fireworks show over the Charles River Esplanade called the “Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular” annually since 1973. The event has been broadcast nationally since 2003.
• On the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C., “A Capitol Fourth,” a free concert, precedes the fireworks and attracts over half a million people annually.
• Since 1959 the International Freedom Festival is jointly held in Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, as a mutual celebration of Independence Day and Canada Day (July 1). It culminates in a large fireworks display over the Detroit River.
• In 2009 New York City had the largest fireworks display in the country, with over 22 tons of pyrotechnics exploded.

Take a minute to stop and wonder what kind of life we might have in the USA in 2010 had our politicians in 1776 not voted for independence!

Happy Fourth of July!