July 24th, 2010
As a keynote speaker, consultant and business executive, I am often asked how to keep employees motivated. At our PhoneSmart call center, we work on motivation issues every day. Taking hundreds of phone calls a day can wear down even the most self motivated positive thinker. After all the things I have done and heard about to motivate employees, a carry-in lunch is by far the best.
Carry-in lunches are a great way to motivate your people and get them working together on a fun project. We try to have one at least once a month. You would be amazed to see how many excellent chefs you have on staff. People have so much fun preparing their favorite recipes and eating other people’s favorites. People spend a good week getting excited about what they will prepare and talking with everyone else about what they are preparing. The team work and cooperation that surround preparing a carry-in and cleaning up afterwards are very special and bonding moments.
You could not get better food from any restaurant or any caterer. Our carry-ins are delicious. You will be especially pleased if you have a diverse workforce with a wide range of ethnic heritages, because you and your coworkers will get to taste interesting treats you would otherwise never know about. The pride people feel when everyone raves about their dishes goes a long way to making people feel good about the people they work with and their workplace.
We sometimes have special theme carry-ins based on a holiday or a particular style of cooking. It is a lot of fun to see how everyone interprets the theme through their cooking. You’ll find that employees will become famous for a dish or two, and popular demand will mean they bring those dishes often.
Get this tradition started in your workplace and you will love the results. The eating will be great and your people will feel really good about it.
Tags: employee perks, food, motivation
Posted in Management, business speaker, keynote speaker, people | No Comments »
July 4th, 2010
I was reading a few profiles of people who bill themselves as a keynote speaker and was struck by how tirelessly some of them work on their businesses.
It brought to mind one of my current theories, which is that many of us are addicted to exhaustion. We seem to thrive on over-working ourselves, depriving ourselves of rest, relaxation and sleep. Exhaustion has a certain feel to it. One can become addicted to it as easily as one can become addicted to a sugar rush-crash, a caffeine buzz or a nicotine head. I am sure exhaustion has a whole chain of physiological actions that we can become chemically addicted to, just like we can become addicted to carbohydrate overload.
I realize that our worlds are fast paced and on a 24-7-365 schedule. I also appreciate the lift one gets from a tall cup of coffee on a morning when you are tired from working too many hours, too many days in a row.
Sometimes I push myself until I just can’t take any more before lying down. But isn’t that a little crazy? On the days when I rest when I am tired, rather than pushing on, I feel much better, think more clearly and get a lot more done. I am also easier to live with for my loved ones.
Maybe an addiction to exhaustion is just that: an addiction to something destructive, like any other destructive addiction. Or maybe it is just us fooling ourselves into thinking we are being super productive.
So maybe the next chance I have to work as a keynote speaker, I’ll use “addiction to exhaustion” as my topic.
Tags: addiction, exhaustion, keynote speaker
Posted in business speaker, keynote speaker, personal growth | No Comments »
July 3rd, 2010
When acting as a keynote speaker at self storage meetings I like to give some good tips for renting up all the empty space self storage owners have available.
I put all these tips into “Rent it Up!”, my book on self storage sales and marketing. You can order “Rent it Up!” by following this link.
You can also see some reviews of “Rent it Up!” on Amazon.
Please let me know how you like it.
Tags: books, Rent it Up, self storage books, self storage marketing
Posted in Management, Rent it Up, business speaker, keynote speaker, marketing, sales | No Comments »
June 18th, 2010
I have been thinking of submitting an essay to This I Believe dot org for a while. So here it is:
This I Believe
I believe I’ll have a nap now
By Tron Jordheim
In the quiet moments that I steal from the events of the day, the responsibilities of career, the joy of family and the stress of the news, I contemplate the things I believe. When I find a way to sneak into a forest to stand below a grand oak tree and feel the wind on my face, I feel many things. I know that love rules out over selfishness and evil. I know that there is nothing more wonderful than nature. I remember the miracles of my life and the people who touched me along the way. Then I think of the challenges at hand: to keep one’s joy in the face of all that would squash it; to laugh when threatened and harassed; to gain prosperity through collaboration and not through domination; to feel young and alive in spite of the weight of the world.
It all seems rather tedious and exhausting. I would rather spend my day laughing with my wife and playing with my children, with a few breaks to toss a ball for my dogs. And I plan to do all of these things for at least a little while today. But in the mean time, there are bosses who expect a high rate of return, bills that need to be paid, nest eggs that need some careful attention and people who depend on me to feed their children. There are street battles raging closer by than I care to know. The haves and have-nots are fighting all around me as I strive to stay out of their way.
It takes a great deal of energy to feel as if one is living just another lovely day in paradise. I tire from the people and events that strain at my view of this beautiful world. I know I can maintain my joy and contribute to my fullest if I can just get a little rest. It feels like time to find a comfortable spot to recline for a while. I believe I’ll have a nap now.
Tron Jordheim is a business speaker, executive, writer and family guy.
Tags: believe, nature
Posted in business speaker, people, personal growth | No Comments »
June 9th, 2010
BP Oil Spill creates Sacrifice Zone
We have created a sacrifice zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We were willing to accept the risk of a huge disaster. However, since most of us are busy doing their own things day in day out, we did not give it much thought. We get up in the morning. We drive to where ever we have to go. We fly to a business speaker conference. We go home. We know that we are totally reliant on dirty, dangerous energy sources. But we get a tall mocha and go on with our day.
Now we see what happens when we create a sacrifice zone. So the question is: should we identify other sacrifice zones and accept that they may one day be destroyed, too. We need to feed our economy, our appetite for luxury and our need to travel. We can’t do that without oil.
We never thought much about wells in the Arabian Desert leaking or burning, or water sources and wildlife habitat in Nigeria being destroyed for ever by our oil businesses. But we have already sacrificed these places. Do we even know we might miss them?
Now we have sacrificed the Gulf of Mexico and maybe more.
Do we make this our policy and our practice? It is our unstated policy now, isn’t it?
Tags: bp, gulf of mexico, luxury, oil spill, sacrifice, Travel
Posted in Travel, alternative energy, business speaker | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2010
You should take a look at the vaccine song on you tube.
My mom used to work in a polio ward before polio vaccine was invented. She told me horrible stories about watching kids die. I don’t doubt that there are vaccine manufacturers who have been less than 100% careful in their production. I don’t doubt that some vaccines have been released before they were thoroughly tested. I imagine there is such a thing as over-vaccinating children. But it is also clear to me that some horrible illnesses like polio, small pox and TB have stopped being the heartbreaking family destroying killers that they once were.
As a business speaker, I would not want to develop some new material about risk management that uses the resurgence of polio as a lesson in disregarding the potential impact of risks we assumed had passed. We do need vigilance and persistence to make sure former risks do not become future risks.
Tags: illness, polio, small pox, TB, vaccine
Posted in business speaker, health care debate, people, politics | 1 Comment »
May 15th, 2010
A business speaker needs to write books to get the information that people could use out to people. I am working on a new title about sales culture.
I could have picked many titles for this book. I could have chosen a challenging title like: “So you think your company’s sales culture is good?” I could have picked a brusque attention getter like “Hey, your company’s sales culture sucks!” I could have picked something a little more academic sounding such as “Stimulating a 2 percent improvement in bottom line corporate profits through the institution of sales culture enhancements”. I could have picked a title that boasted: “I quintupled the revenue of my company by creating a sales culture…and so could you!”
Any one of these might express my feelings about the value of a good sales culture and about my opinion of most companies’ current sales and customer service practice.
But why did I choose the title I did?
Tags: books, bottom line, business speaker, revenue, sales culture
Posted in Management, business speaker, marketing, personal growth, sales | No Comments »
April 29th, 2010
On of the things a business speaker likes to talk about is the moment when someone changes his or her mind. We all have opinions. Some are better informed than others. Some are just other people’s opinions that we regurgitate. But if we are lucky, we come across a time in our lives when we look at an opinion and realize that it is “off”. If we stand strong, we change our mind.
I am not so interested in the little changes, like when you might decide you really do like guacamole after having avoided it for years. I am more interested in the big changes, like when you decided that the invasion of Iraq really was a stupid thing, or when you decided that acquiring more parks and open space really are good things to do for the next generations.
It sounds like Governor Crist of Florida has had one of those moments. After taking an airplane tour over the massive oil spill that is uncontrollably taking over the Gulf of Mexico and after thinking about the people who died in the explosion, he said that he had changed his mind about off shore drilling. Crist is now convinced Florida does not need it or want it. After seeing how much damage can come from an accident, he has set aside one of his party’s biggest mantras: “Drill, baby, drill!”
Now Crist might be heard saying, “No drilling near Florida!”
As a business speaker, I would find a way to use this turnaround in a speech about leadership. Sometimes you have to take the right stance, even if it is opposite of the mantra of the day.
Tags: crist, drilling, florida, gulf of mexico, oil spill
Posted in Management, Travel, alternative energy, business speaker, history, people, personal growth, politics | No Comments »
April 17th, 2010
You may or may not be interested in self storage. But I took a lot of the sales know-how I have been assembling and put it into a book for self storage operators to use as a guide. All businesses need to sell better. You can order “Rent it up!” from Wheatmark publishing or from MiniCo Publishing. Even if you don’t work in self storage, you might find a useful perspective or two.
Tags: book, sales konw-how, self storage, sell
Posted in Management, business speaker, marketing, sales | No Comments »
April 14th, 2010
I rent a lot of cars traveling around as a business speaker and a corporate leader. I am usually unimpressed with what I drive. Granted I always rent the least expensive cars, so I don’t expect much. I have driven a few hybrids i really liked. I enjoyed the Prius. I thought it drove well, was comfortable and handled nicely. But the other day i rented a Volkswagen Jetta. I had two different Beetles back in the day and I loved them, so it was a sentimental moment. I really liked the Jetta. It was comfortable and it was zippy. I drove it in Dallas, which is one of the towns where you have to drive fast or get blown off the road. I was able to run with the big dogs and fly like the wind. I had no idea the Jetta was a sports car. I’d have to say it was a treat to drive.
Tags: dallas, hybrids, prius, volkswagen
Posted in Travel, business speaker, people | No Comments »
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