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Monday, June 30, 2014

What If You Had a Team of Experts to Mastermind With?

Join me for the 2014 Ultimate Mastermind Summit in Chicago



What if you had access to some of the smartest business minds in the world? An International Community of experts that could help you design your business from the bottom up?

Well I am inviting you to join me for 3 amazing days at The Ultimate Mastermind Summit 2014 in Chicago, IL. on September 17th, 18th and 19th!

For three days you WILL have access to the very speakers you see onstage... who will spend time with attendees in a Mastermind Session on the 19th! Bring your business plan, and plenty of paper for note taking (or an iPad with Notes on it;-)...real business people who have written international bestsellers and have made MILLIONS advising businesses and business owners. And KNOW first hand what works and what fails.

Check out this Infographic of the UMS Speaker Lineup for 2014:

#Millennial Expert #Brad Szollose in Chicago this year! To take Your Business to another level!!!

Here are just a FEW of the Keynote Speakers and Business Advisers you will be able to work with:

Sales Legend and author of The Closers Ben Gay III.
• Chairman of CEO Space Berny Dorhmann. 
• Newsletter Guru Jim Palmer.
• Motivational Coach and Business Adviser John Di Lemme.
• Learn how to get your business message FOCUSED with Ann Convery. 
• The POWER of Small Business for Big Thinkers with Cynthia Kay promises to help you break out and up into a new level.
• A special keynote from Tom "Too Tall" Cunningham that will give you the tenacity to survive AND THRIVE! No matter how bad it gets.
• Or the POWER of word of mouth advertising with Dave 'The Shef' Sheffield, author of Blabvertising!
• Tony Rubleski will show you how to capture more customers, and get them fascinated with your brand in his Mind Capture methods.
• Lost your job and want to start a business? That's exactly what happened to Johnny Campbell. He has thrived so well that he earned the nickname The Transition Man.
• And of course You Know Who will be there...How Much Money Are You Losing because You Do NOT Understand Millennials? Brad Szollose (moi) will walk you through the steps that I created to build a multimillion dollar international brand that grew 425% for 7 straight years! (using Gen X and Millennial Talent)...

Stop playing SMALL and join me in Chicago. And if you get in EARLY on the 17th, we have a private VIP Event planned for VIP Registrants to have dinner and private sessions with all our speakers. Don't hesitate, REGISTER TODAY as seats are selling out.

I am excited to see you...



Brad Szollose 
Bridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is a much sought-after generational expert, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior… and how that impacts management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Is Your Business Being Disrupted by #Millennial Buying Habits?

...and You Don't Know It?














From Brad's Best Blog Posts: 9-19-2011


To the uninitiated, the Tourneau Watch Company appears to be in trouble. Pulling out of a rental lease obligation and closing their flagship store on 34th Street here in Manhattan didn't help their cause. Rumors are like that, once they get started people assume the worst.

Now most people are saying this is a sign of the recession, but high-end luxury brands such as Lamborghini, Cartier or Prada actually do better in bad economic times. Why you may ask? Well, as the U.S. Dollar takes a nosedive, our goods become more expensive to us, but cheaper to foreign buyers. Let me explain...

Although prices are fast becoming out of reach to an American who wants to buy using U.S. Dollar bills, that higher price becomes a bargain to a wealthy business mogul from another country who is paying for their item using a stronger currency.

It is now cheaper to fly to America, pick out the latest Ferrari Testarossa, have it shipped backed to their native country and pay the import fees, taxes and shipping costs!!! If they ship to Italy, there may not be an import or duty fee because the Testarossa was built in Italy. Imagine that - the value of our dollar is so low luxury goods become a bargain to people not using the U.S. Dollar. Usually foreigners flock here by the droves to buy some of the luxury items mentioned above...unless their currency is in the toilet as well.

So in the grand scale of luxury items, expensive watches should be THRIVING in our current market. So why aren't they? Or more precisely, why is Tourneau not reaping the benefits of a downtrodden dollar?

It is simple actually.

80 million Generation Y adults DO NOT WEAR WRIST WATCHES! (Hint) They use their Smart Phones to tell time.


And that number is only in The United States. Imagine how many young people globally are not really into watches and that is a whole lot of lost revenue. BTW: Generation Y are not kids anymore...they are anyone who is 39 and younger. They stopped using a wristwatch as a time keeping device because they can use their smart phones to tell time. Now I might be exaggerating when I say not one Gen Y wears a wristwatch, but look around and see for yourself...not many huh?

The photo to the left is staged by a photographer...notice the big wristwatch on the young man? The belt on the young lady? Pay attention to subtle trends especially in fashion. What has the wristwatch become? A status symbol.

500 year old business models are being disrupted because of the habits of a new breed of adult.

What other business models—besides not wearing a wristwatch—are losing sustainability due to something Generation Y Millenials DO NOT DO:

Rarely wear a tie or belt (tie sales have slumped, unless you are a lawyer. Ties are still in vogue.)
Go shopping on a regular basis as a social activity (Notice the empty Malls?)
Browse a bookstore for the perfect book (empty bookstores, full coffee shops)
Stay late at work
Save for retirement
Buy used
Sit still for hours and watch television
Saving for a vacation (they just go somewhere...with a GoPro Camera)
Watch, buy or collect "old stuff" (Boomers do that)
Sending Christmas Cards through the mail
(you know, that building called the Post Office?
It is becoming a relic of the past as e-cards are easier to send.)

Now if you know your business sector is shrinking, would you keep selling the old-fashioned way or reinvent your brand from the inside out? Since Gen Y is not brand loyal, but is brand driven, what would you do to win their business? You can hate it, judge it or point fingers while you go out of business, or listen with your ear to the ground. Here is one of my favorite quotes that I put in my book Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia. It explains everything...

"You never change the existing reality by fighting it.
Instead, create a new model that
makes the old one obsolete."

—Buckminster Fuller
Time for reinvention. Time to create new opportunities. Time to listen to your younger employees who have a different method of operating and buying and you will understand your new customer. Listen for the big shift in buying habits that could save your business.

Tourneau is reinventing their brand with more modern stores like the Tourneau Concept Store, Tourneau Time Machine, Watch Gear and something new for high-end items, a less snooty attitude.

Younger buyers love the bragging rights that come from buying the best, especially in their digital devices, but they hate the exclusivity that some of the more traditional brands hype as part of their ad campaign. Look at the high-endHaute-Couturebrands that have made themselves open and available to a new consumer without destroying their high-end image: Hugo Boss, Gucci, Dooney & Bourke and Ralph Lauren.


Like I said before―Generation Y, Millennials
are not brand loyal, but they are brand driven.

Now these habits aren't just about business, everything is being disrupted. Hierarchy has flattened inside the household, but Baby Boomers may not be aware of it, (your teenager sees themselves as an equal to your 30 years of experience). In schools and colleges young people are bored unless challenged (many are dropping out, they don't see the point of going into debt for their career). People go to bookstores to buy coffee and go online to buy books. We are now allowed to be casual and play at work to release stress, yet work during our vacation. Expensive hotel chains charge for an Internet connection but less expensive, family oriented hotels offer WiFi for free. Our personal and professional boundaries are fuzzy now.

At work, you want someone raised on video games, karate classes and dance lessons to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day? Good luck with that. Generation Y are independent thinkers and they will not change. They are the ones driving all the digital devices and markets these days...after all, they spend regardless of the economy. Time for you to awaken and reinvent what you thought you knew.


Thank you for reading...



Brad Szollose 
Bridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is a much sought-after generational expert, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior… and how that impacts management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Time to Burn That Organizational Chart

Companies That Flatten Their Hierarchy are FASTER to Market...and More Creative


Brad's Best Blog Posts 3-14-2013


 

Excerpt from Liquid leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia,
Culture Shock, page 35...

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
One afternoon as I was preparing for a presentation to the K2 board of advisers later in the evening, a vigorous knock pulled me from my thoughts. Our receptionist, Jennifer Rivers, opened the door and asked...

“Do you have time to show some tourists around the office?”


It turned out that a small group of Japanese businessmen wanted to take a tour of our 3,000-square-foot facility. This was back in 1996, and K2’s main offices were at 55 Broad Street in the New York Information Technology Center (NYITC for short)... we were one of fifty new media tech companies but the only one in the building that was publicly traded. So, alas, we attracted the curious.

I had only one hour to spare. As I entered the lobby ten businessmen greeted me, along with the tour guide who served as their interpreter—all from Japan and all very curious about this phenomenon called the “Internet boom.” As we shall see, their curiosity was symbolic (and still is) of a much larger divide—not just between East and West, but between comfortably old methodologies smacking into radically new ways of doing business.

I immediately introduced myself and smiled to the group. The tour guide, a woman named Yumi, explained that they wished to see K2. Of course, I agreed. Knowing a little bit about both Japanese and Chinese culture, I bowed and said it would be my honor. Everyone bowed in unison and smiled.

Questions abounded as I began the tour with a description of the processes at K2: the careful balance among programmers, technology, and designers, and the great care taken to assure that an end user’s experience was seamless and memorable. Our visitors seemed to be mentally contrasting what appeared to be a loose management style with traditional Japanese management. To them, K2’s approach made no sense. Contrasts between East and West are not new, but the dot-com boom made them even more apparent.

Seeing their puzzlement, I attempted to enlighten them.  
“Everyone here is encouraged to bring fresh ideas to the table, and we do our best to support and reward those ideas. Nothing is considered a dumb idea, and without everyone’s input, most projects would be mediocre.”

This answer seemed to amaze them. According to Yumi, this was not how business is done in Japan. There must be hierarchy and structure. Communication was one-way in their organizational chart. Some in the group looked confused, and I imagined their blank looks were saying, “How in the hell do these young Americans get any work done?” Where is the taskmaster? They didn’t understand that mass collaboration was what made our business most effective. It was like trying to get Boomers to understand the business training a teenager was receiving by playing World of Warcraft.
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
What I failed to mention at the time, and what perhaps could have satisfied their curiosity, is that we always hired smart people at K2 who weren’t afraid to speak up. We gave people flexible time to get their work finished while balancing out deadlines. In other words, if it took four hours to get eight hours’ worth of work finished, then an employee could work on something else, create a project for the company, or leave early and work from home.

Without knowing it we had created at K2 a results-only work environment (ROWE), where our best employees were rewarded for their results rather than the number of hours worked. In these environments, productivity goes up, workers satisfaction goes up, and turnover virtually disappears.

By contrast, whenever a strict cultural paradigm does not allow for input from lower-level employees, executives miss innovations that could have made their companies instant leaders. In such a world, one must earn the “right” to be listened to and lower-rung employees can’t possibly have an effective contribution. Without permission, no one shares their insights.

In today’s world, self-motivated, peer-to-peer communication speeds up the creation of innovative ideas by giving them the platform to be heard.


This isn’t some new-age management philosophy; this has been field-tested all over the world by the best management and behavioral scientists on Earth. Giving smart people autonomy in an organization and the ability to manage their own time creates groundbreaking output.

In our company, project managers pushed every project through in order to meet deadlines, but they were just as responsible for input as they were for receiving a critique. Not seeing an official commander-in-chief must have seemed strange to these visiting hierarchy junkies, but to our project managers, a traditional top-down approach would have seemed like a cattle drive: “I don’t care how you get there, just get it to market.”

Our managers knew that the best way to build dynamic experiences and products for consumers is to give them not just what they want but what they need, and to do so alongside things that are exciting and add value.

In order to create such dynamic experiences for a user, the people building the website have the freedom to create one-of-a-kind experiences. Utilitarian doesn’t work in Internet development.

I took our tour through the programming department, then into accounting where Seth Bressman our CFO was overseeing payroll, then into the producer’s area. Everything at K2 had a tinge of corporate and creative rolled into one: cubicles but fully exposed HVAC and ductwork to give it an industrial air yet retain that loft feeling. The last stop on the tour was our design department, a five-sided, uneven room with a black Formica wraparound counter with multiple workstations, all Macintosh with twenty-three-inch screens. The only light sources were from the monitors and any light from the sixth-floor terrace outside. The design department was state of the art and the coolest part of our offices, so it was the best place to end our tour.

I opened up the floor to Q&A. A very polished businessman wearing corporate casual, with a camera strapped around his neck and a pair of thick glasses, asked a question.

Yumi turned to translate.

“What is your initial market cap?
“It’s $26 million and growing,” I responded.
There was a slight delay as Yumi would reinterpret my words into Japanese.
I was careful not to use slang or American colloquialisms.
“You appear to be in hyper-growth. Is that true?”
“Yes,”
I replied. “As a matter of fact we are getting ready to consolidate our other three divisions under one congruous, 13,000-square-foot office across the street at 30 Broad.” We were actually two months away from moving our workforce of sixty full-time employees. I wondered how these businessmen from the Land of the Rising Sun could see what we were going through when American investors couldn’t. Perhaps they were looking for different things.

Pulling the Lid off the Past


The older Japanese businessmen didn’t seem to understand that the greatest innovations in technology and the freshest ideas can come from anyone—young or old—especially when the environment is right. Products that have excited consumers do so because the company that created them built something passionately and creatively to solve a problem or excite the customer. From dishwashing liquid to sports cars to computers, the leaders are always the most creative and the ones that incite an emotional response from their customer. You may not be aware of this, but just about everything you have ever purchased in your life was due to the fact that it was the most creative, coolest thing in your world and it made life better. Period. We don’t buy things; we buy experiences. What we think this product or that will give us, whether it’s cleaner clothes, faster Internet access, or the most luxurious car our dollar can buy.

Without consistent creativity, there is no innovation.
So why do so many companies ignore creativity as a line item?


Part of the reason creativity appears to be absent in most companies is that most executives don’t really understand it—or how to manage it. The old saying “If it isn’t measurable, it isn’t manageable” has been flipped. It doesn’t look like a real business environment when it appears that people are having fun. And ROWE works only for companies where more complex, conceptual, creative output is their business. Traditional management and reward paradigms work well in companies where there is a narrow band of focus—a simple set of rules, goals, and tasks to follow and a reward for top performers.

But in companies where complex, out-of-the-box thinking is needed to stay consistently in the innovative sweet spot, managers would do well to adopt a results-only environment. With no clearly set work hours, the emphasis is on results—not time at a cubicle. Measuring individual output becomes the standard for measurement in a ROWE-run company. No one cares when you decide to work or where, as long as it comes in on deadline and is impeccable. Not surprisingly these environments have the highest employee satisfaction and the lowest turnover.

But results-only environments are not the best environments for everyone, especially those environments where an actual amount of work is measurable—for example, how many pieces did you assemble during an eight-hour shift? Or how many welds did you accomplish? Certain jobs and departments—accounting, baking, and construction come to mind—just cannot be run openly like this. But we can make these environments better places to work by giving employees the incentive to come forward with money-saving and money-making ideas—ideas that won’t interfere with productivity.

Results-only collaborative environments can actually be destructive to people who lack the discipline to self-manage their time or those who are incapable of taking responsibility for their work. People like this should stay in environments where management is hanging over their shoulder, where all they have to do is follow rules and finish a task. For people like this, working alone and taking responsibility for their own time management is not something they can ever get used to. It is too loose for their work ethic. They need (and want) to be managed.

To have consistent breakthroughs, intense creativity, and innovation, however, letting people manage their own time and output is the key to success."


Don't you think it's time we managed people better? Thank you for reading...



Brad SzolloseBridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is a much sought-after generational expert, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior… and how that impacts management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.


Liquid Leadership has been called "THE guidebook for the 21st Century" and has won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award silver medal for leadership, The Indie Business Book runner up silver medal as well as becoming a #1 Best-Selling Business Book on Amazon for Organizational Learning. Published in the United States by Greenleaf Book Group, in India by Prolibris and in South Korea by UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing.

Mr. Szollose also writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Brad Szollose Bio:


__________________________________________________________________

Who Is Brad Szollose?: 

Brad Szollose, host of Awakened Nation®
First things, first. How do you say Szollose?
It’s pronounced zol-us.

From founding partner and CMO of K2 Design, Inc. the first Digital Agency to go public on NASDAQ to international leadership development expert, Brad Szollose has worked with household names like MasterCard, American Management Association and Tony Robbins, to create leadership training programs for a new generation.

As an award-winning creative director, he has been the creative force behind hundreds of high-end corporate events, personal and consumer brands, and website launches. Brad is the recipient of the Corporate Identity Design Award and the Axiom Business Book Award along with various awards for website and print design.

Brad's unique management model was awarded the Arthur Andersen New York Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation Amongst Employees (Workforce Culture).

Today, the world’s leading business publications seek out Brad’s insights on next-generation leadership development, branding and modern Management Strategies, and he has been featured (both print and online versions) in Forbes, Inc., Advertising Age, USA Today, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, International Business Times, Le Journal du Dimanche (France), and The Hindu Business Line to name a few, along with television, radio and podcast appearances on CGTN America, CBS, Roku Network and other media outlets.

Brad continues to challenge the status quo with the 10th Anniversary Edition of Liquid Leadership, and his new podcast, Awakened Nation®: a Deep Dive into Extraordinary Conversations.

After 35 years in New York City, he now splits his time between Las Vegas and Denver. In his free time, he enjoys hiking in the mountains, working Star Trek quotes into everyday conversation, and painting and drawing the stunning landscape of the American Southwest and The Rocky Mountains.