This chapter is going to cover all things work and business related: finding the perfect job, getting the best out of the job you do, rapid promotion and even dealing with losing a job. I’m also going to cover retailing, flipping downturns, specialising and customer service – it’s all here.

Even if you don’t work or you’re not involved with a commercial business there are dozens of Flip It tools and techniques where you can ‘think transferable’ and move this into other areas of life.

Why do you go to work?

Tick all of the following that apply to you.

I work:

If you ticked mainly odd numbers then I guess work is a bit of a ‘means to an end’ for you. You don’t love it, but you have to do it.

If you ticked mainly even numbers then you love work so much that you’d probably do it for free!

And if you ticked just number 9 then you’ve been listening to far too much Abba!

The first part of this chapter is about:

How to get paid for what you love to do

The foundation for this is to go back to basics. Take a look at your list of why you go to work. Did you tick number 4 – ‘I go to work to make a difference’? I believe this is the number-one reason to get out of bed and clock in.

I regularly work with teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges. As they arrive, many have a touch of cynicism and morale can be low. My job is to get them to feel motivated and excited about the work they do.

In my view teachers have one of the most important jobs in the world and with that in mind I’ll ask them what they think they really do. When I suggest that they are directly involved with improving the quality of life of often some of the most vulnerable people in our society some may sneer, but most quite visibly have a mental flash to the very reason why they wanted to work in education – to make a difference.

And that’s the challenge.

Here’s how you can change your thinking using Flip It for your work.

Once, while I was teaching these three simple questions, a despondent participant called Claire said, ‘This doesn’t apply to me because I just work in a shop’.

After a little investigation I discovered she worked in a clothes shop, which I thought was brilliant. It took a little while for her to get her head around this concept but here’s how the exchange went.

‘Brilliant, you work in a clothes shop. So what do you do there Claire?’

‘Sell clothes.’

‘And what is the most common question people ask when they approach you in the shop?’

‘It’s normally something about size or price.’

‘Great! Then what do you do?’

‘Tell them the price or find them the size.’

I take a deep breath and realise I need to dig a bit deeper, so I ask: ‘Do you ever offer advice when you answer those questions?’

‘Well, if we don’t have the size or something costs too much then I’ll show them something else.’

‘And are people happy with that, Claire?’

‘Of course. Most times people haven’t got a clue what they really need anyway.’

‘And you help them with that choice?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘And how do people feel when you’ve given them good advice?’

‘Oh, they love it!’

‘And how does that make you feel?’

‘Oh that’s ace. It’s the best bit of the job.’

Bingo! She got it. Claire makes people feel good by helping them to look good. That is a cool job! Now that Claire goes to work with that thought foremost in her mind she’s having a much better time. And best of all if you ask Claire, ‘What’s your job?’ she now confidently says, ‘I help people to look good’.

I’m sure you know what I’m going to ask you to do next. Use the simple, ‘What do I really do?’ Flip It tool and ask the three questions about your work. If you’re happy with your answers, then focus on keeping those thoughts foremost in your mind during every working day. It’s not the solution to every work worry but it is a good foundation to build on.

Now let’s get specific and explore some other areas of working life and business where you can apply Flip It thinking for the best possible results.

Using Flip It to find the perfect job

What if you don’t have a job or you are looking for a new one? Would you like to know how to land the perfect post?

Have you ever applied for a job and been unsuccessful? Most of us know that feeling, but I wonder how many of us take the time to ask, ‘If 20 people applied but only one was successful, what did “the one” have that the rest of us didn’t?’

An unemployed friend of mine recently told me he was applying for 10 jobs a day online and had been doing this for three months with no luck. How long would it take for you to realise that that particular strategy wasn’t really working?

If you’re aiming to get the job of your dreams and not getting there, then perhaps your current strategy could do with a shake-up.

Flip It thinkers are doing something you’re not – that’s why they get the best jobs. Here’s a taste of what they do.

1. Stay in work – even if you hate it: Flip It thinkers have in mind the perfect job they want but, in the meantime, they do anything to remain employed. Employers are happier employing people who are already in a job. They would rather employ someone who was doing a job that is completely different from the job they have applied for than employ someone who isn’t working.
2. Take all the risk: Imagine saying to a prospective employer, ‘I will work for free for you for the first month. Then pay me just 50 per cent of the advertised wage for the second month and only after those two months, if I have proven to you that I am worth 100 per cent of the salary you are offering, will you need to pay me at the full rate.’
   OK, not everyone can afford to do this, but for a dream job could you find a way?
3. Do your homework: Most people apply for jobs and turn up at interviews with little or no knowledge about the organisation they want to work for. Flip It and turn up with an arsenal of knowledge about your new organisation.
4. Get out there: Sending off 20 copies of your CV and waiting to hear back is no longer (and I doubt ever was) a very effective way of job hunting. You need to be building your networks, getting out there and meeting the right people and letting them know about you and your skills. Making sure that you are the first to know about new opportunities. Then you can be the one choosing who you want to work for. Yes, I did say choosing.
   Here’s what Martin Beeson did when his company announced they were moving the marketing department to America and he was being made redundant. He wrote a letter of introduction and attached it to his CV. He took 20 copies and attended a local networking meeting where most people were entrepreneurs trying to sell products and services. He was there selling a very important product – himself. He worked the room and gave his CV, letter and a brief introduction about what he was doing to 20 people. Just 24 hours later he’d had three job offers.
   Martin now lives and works on the East Coast of Australia working as a marketing manager for a company that makes and sells luxury boats. You don’t achieve that by sitting at home applying for jobs online.
5. Make yourself magnificent: When you do get a chance to be face to face with a decision maker, make sure you shine. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people for jobs large and small. Some, who really believed they were doing a good job in the interview, were so bad I wouldn’t let them look after my cat. Yet others have had me thinking, ‘I hope they will want to work for me’ and I’ve sold them the job!
   If you don’t get a job, it’s worth asking for a bit of ‘honest Joe feedback’. This means you ask for feedback warts and all. It can sting a bit, but if you get the same message more than twice you know you need to change.
6. Extra mile everything: Check your spelling, grammar and facts (twice). Use good paper (minimum 100 gsm) and send documents via registered post. When you get an interview, do a travel dry run so you know where you’re going, turn up early and look professional. Floss your teeth, check your breath, check your shoes, check everything!

These are the things that most people don’t even know they should do. Or worse still, know they should be doing them but just don’t!

My advice? Don’t be most people.

Rapid promotion

The people who get rapid promotion aren’t thinking in the same way as those who trudge up the corporate ladder. Fortunately for you, most people believe that the best way to get promoted is to be a corporate crawler, a direct member of the boss’ family or just plain lucky.

The truth is far from that. In fact most people who get promoted (especially those who are promoted rapidly) have one thing in common: they add more value to the bottom line than the others. Or, if they work for a ‘not for profit’ organisation, they add more to the mission-critical results.

Have you ever heard the expression ‘success leaves tracks’? In simple terms, people who are successful can’t help but leave the template of how they did it behind them and that’s good news for you.

Here’s how Flip It thinkers can use this knowledge to get promoted quickly.

Flip It on a really bad day – what to do if you lose your job

You worked hard. You gave 100 per cent commitment then one day, wham, you’ve lost your livelihood. When others feel despondent and pessimistic, could you Flip It and feel hopeful and positive? It’s a tough choice but to make it easier here are some Flip It tools.

Park the resentment

It’s easier said than done, but leave the resentment for another day. Or if you do need to get it out of your system, then do it quickly (five minutes) and quietly. We all know what the boss is and where he can stick his Bentley, so why not Flip It and be different? The most important action now is to think about you and what you are going to do next.

Don’t take it personally

So why did you have to go when Doreen in Accounts, who everyone knows is next to useless, got to stay? Questions like this will wear you down, create a wedge of doubt (see page 131) over your ability and ultimately hold you back. The chances are you didn’t do anything wrong other than being in the wrong post at the wrong time. Now here’s what you can do.

Be a first mover

I grew up in a town called Consett, County Durham. In 1980 the local steelworks closed with the loss of 3,700 jobs. I remember at the time, when people were given their redundancy payments, hearing former steel workers saying they were ‘going to take a couple of months off and then look for work’.

What actually happened was, after they had taken the couple of months off, they found: (a) it was very difficult to motivate themselves to find a new job; (b) the jobs that had been available at the time of the closure were gone; and (c) it was going to take several months or even years before the money available for new economic growth was going to create enough new jobs to go around.

Meanwhile, another group had used Flip It thinking and taken what I call a ‘first mover advantage’. As soon as they knew their fate they quickly started the process of finding a new job. Early birds and worms spring to mind.

Grasp your facts

Capture on paper as much knowledge as you can that may be helpful to you later. A short pencil is better than a long memory! By writing down names and numbers of contacts, specific knowledge you have and your ways of working you could be capturing valuable information to help you in the future. But be careful not to steal data from a company, it’s a bad energy and if you get caught you’ll find it a bit harder to get a job with a record.

Be careful who you spend your time with

You become like the people who you spend most of your time with. So although it may be tempting to spend time with other people who are unemployed, Flip It and don’t. Spend as much of your time as you can with people who are in employment. You will get a job faster by doing this.

Complete a skills audit

Many of these can be found online and they consist of a list of attributes you may have. They usually ask you to tick a box or score yourself out of 10. Rather than simply printing and completing the audit, add three extra words and a brief description after you tick a box. The three words are: ‘which means that’.

Here’s how this may work with some skills audit questions.

• I am able to work to deadlines which means that I can organise my time, increase reliability and don’t create unnecessary worry.
• I am practical which means that I can fix things, rather than calling for help. I am able to use this skill to help others.
• I have good use of grammar which means that I can proofread documents prepared for others, improving the professionalism of an organisation.

Most people think of their skills as a list. The real value in any skill is the benefit it brings to others.

By adding the ‘which means that’ statement and extending the skill, you increase your value, self-worth and employability.

Look after yourself

Losing your job can be a very stressful experience. You are the most important person in the world so it’s more important than ever that you stay (or get) fit, eat well and find time to relax properly (which doesn’t mean watching daytime TV).

Is it time to work for you?

Is it time to Flip It and be your own boss? Many entrepreneurs started their businesses because they lost their job. It turned out that their redundancy was a blessing in disguise.

Being an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean you have to start a big company, employ lots of staff and take masses of risks. It could be that you become self-employed doing something that you’ve always loved. Losing your job could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

Making the most of work

It’s worth taking a few minutes to review this chapter so far and make sure you have at least a couple of the ideas ready to take action on. Work is such a huge area of your time it should also be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of your life. When you use Flip It at work you’ll soon see how getting the best out of your job is easier than you think.

Flip It in business

Perhaps you feel inspired to start your own organisation, to step up and create something new. Or do you want to make your organisation better? If so you’ll need to understand how important it is to Flip It in business.

If you’re ‘in business’ – and for the purpose of this book let’s make that anyone who owns a business, leads in a business or feels they have a responsibility for the success of the business they work for – then this section is for you.

Buying street art – how to use the extras to make money

Good street artists make a great deal of their money from the little extras they sell. Here’s how they do it.

When you buy a picture, a caricature or sketch you will rarely see the artist displaying a price. When you ask them the price they may say, ‘50 euros’. Then they will watch your reaction very carefully. If you flinch they will then add some additional value by completing their sentence with something like, ‘. . . but today I am also offering a free frame worth 10 euros’. And if you are still flinching they’ll add, ‘. . . and a nice box to keep it safe for the journey home, which would normally cost another 10 euros’.

It’s a deal. Think about it, you got €70 worth of stuff for just €50. Clever you! Now what happens when they find someone who is happy with the €50 asking price?

Just at the point of transaction when you are happy with the €50 price they will say, ‘How would you like me to add a nice frame? It’s only 10 euros?’ The happy tourist keeps smiling and nodding as the artist adds, ‘. . . and how about a nice box to keep it safe for the journey home, it’s only another 10 euros?’

This is brilliant Flip It thinking which can be used during any transaction. Try it when you are buying. If you can’t negotiate a reduction, ask for something in addition to the item you are interested in. Try it when you are selling. If the price seems too much for your customer, what can you add without discounting your price? If they jump at the price, what else can you add while your customer is in a buying mood?

Specialise

Smyth & Gibson make some of the best shirts in the world. The Belfast-based shirt makers focus on making shirts, shirts and nothing but shirts. They offer a 20-year guarantee – on a shirt!

But it gets better than that. Smyth & Gibson employ staff who just make and attach collars to shirts. That’s all they do – world-class collar attachers. They employ people who just cut cloth in a way that makes every seam appear seamless. They employ people who just attach sleeves and match stripes perfectly. In fact up to 15 people are involved with each and every shirt.

‘So why not teach people to do a little bit of everything? Surely you’d make more shirts?’ I asked Richard Gibson. He told me how his Flip It thinking was transforming the way they made shirts. Where everyone else was automating and looking for volume they were specialising and focusing on detail. I challenged him and asked, ‘Why is it so important to match the stripes, as most people wouldn’t even notice you’ve done it?’ He simply replied, ‘We notice.’

I love that confidence and certainty.

Flip It by using negatives

In the 1970s Allen, Brady and Marsh (ABM) were an exciting brash advertising agency. They were lucky enough to be on the final list to pitch for the British Rail account. At that time, British Rail was one of the biggest accounts in the country and highly prized. So how do you go about winning an account like that?

Several agencies on the shortlist decided to ‘woo’ the chairman and the board with fancy slogans, mocked-up adverts and slick presentations.

ABM decided to Flip It.

A disinterested receptionist greeted the British Rail chairman and his board before taking them to a dingy meeting room. Although there were seven of them, there were chairs for only six. Lukewarm tea, soggy biscuits and curly-edged sandwiches were served and, worse still, the team from ABM was late.

After an excruciating hour, and with the chairman about to leave, the head of ABM, Rod Allen, walked into the room. He didn’t apologise and barely acknowledged the BR chairman. To say the British Rail representatives were livid was an understatement.

Then one of the best pieces of Flip It thinking to win an account was revealed. Rod Allen simply gestured around the room and said, ‘This is what your customers think of you, and we’re going to change it.’

They got the account.

Oh, weren’t they the lucky ones? How many times have you heard the word ‘lucky’ used when someone has a major success? The truth is often far from that.

In most cases this so-called ‘luck’ is where individuals have brought together imagination, foresight, acumen and a good dose of graft to create something different and memorable.

Turning a downturn into an opportunity

Business has good times and bad times. When things are going well it’s hard to imagine that things can go wrong. But they will. When things are going badly it’s hard to imagine how they will pick up. But they will. Smart people know this and very smart people know how to profit from it.

A mate of mine sold 38 properties in two months because he couldn’t believe how much money he was making on them. He did this about two months before the 2007 housing stall and obviously well before the 2008 housing crash. How did he know?

You may think he was lucky but in fact he was just very intuitive. When you ask him how he knew, he always replies, ‘It just felt too good to be true’. Many other people who invested in property were caught out because not only did it feel too good to be true – it was.

Knowing that cycles occur like this, it’s tempting to wait for an upturn before putting in effort, starting new projects or taking a risk. However, the very smart don’t think like that, they Flip It, double their efforts, start extra projects and take more risks. They know that when the good times re-emerge they’ll be at the forefront and they’ll reap the rewards.

I don’t know what times you are experiencing as you read Flip It but I do know that the opposite will be the case at some point in the future. My challenge to you is to use as many Flip It tools as you can to maximise your business now and reap the rewards in the future.

Think like a customer

Who could you think like to Flip It and get different results? You’ll frequently hear people saying during important inter-departmental meetings that we must ‘think like a customer’. Nice, but what does that really mean?

The best way to think like a customer is to be a customer.

I worked with a company (who will remain nameless for this example) who were concerned that their online sales business wasn’t being used as much as they had hoped. I was working with their senior directors and asked, ‘How many of you have ever ordered something from your own company online?’

Almost everyone nodded. Then I took a file from my case and continued with, ‘I have a list of all the people who have ordered online and I’ve had it cross-referenced with the participants here. Please raise your hand if you know for certain that you are on this list because you have made an online order. Only a few hands went up. Ten faces went very red, including a now purple chief executive.

How could they truly begin to think like their customers when they had no experience of their own online offering?

A brilliant example of really thinking like a customer comes from the Summer Lodge Hotel in Dorset. Julia was getting married on 2 January and in preparation had had ‘gel’ nails applied on New Year’s Eve. Twenty-four hours later (New Year’s Day), three had fallen off and she wasn’t too sure how much she liked the ones remaining. Unfortunately, the salon she had visited for her manicure had closed. Her wedding was the very next day and she was in a panic.

She called Summer Lodge and talked to the Spa manager, Rosemary Sumner-Pike, and begged her to help. An appointment was made for her later that same day (again this is New Year’s Day, when many places are closed). Here’s where Rosemary did some brilliant Flip It thinking. She gathered her team and got them to imagine that it was the day before their wedding and asked them to consider how they felt and what it would take to make this a very special visit.

On her arrival Julia was given camomile tea to help her stay calm. The old nails were removed and a manicure carried out. Then the big decision: what colour should her nails be painted? She couldn’t decide between bright red and pale pink. So the manicurist painted her nails on one hand red, and the other pale pink. Unfortunately she still couldn’t decide as she commented that her make-up wasn’t done and her hair was down.

Here’s where the Summer Lodge Spa stepped up to super service. As one member of staff applied her make-up another put her hair up while a third made another cup of camomile tea. With the look complete the decision was made: bright red!

As Julia left she promised to stay in touch. Little did they know how soon this would be.

Her wedding went beautifully, the reception was magical, but when Julia and her new husband arrived at 11 pm outside the hotel they had chosen for their wedding night they were amazed to find it was closed. Here’s where all that thinking like a customer started to pay off. Who did the newlyweds decide to call? Yup, Summer Lodge. They booked the best room, stayed for most of the next day, enjoyed lunch and had further treatments in the Spa.

We’ve all heard this type of story before; maybe something similar has happened to you. What makes these situations magical is the human element. Yes, if Rosemary hadn’t encouraged her staff to really ‘think like a customer’, they wouldn’t have created such magic. The key was they created deposits in the emotional bank account of a potential customer. Most businesses aim to create magical moments and do them for their existing clients. Flip It thinkers create the magical moments first.

Flip It for small retailers (and how the big boys can do this too)

I’m often amazed when smaller businesses think the secret of success is to be more like the big ones, when in fact the opposite is true.

In my local town we had two fishmongers, and life was good for the fishy folk. Then within two years we were bestowed with a Tesco, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. I love buying fresh fish, so keenly observed what happened next to my local purveyors of poissons.

Fishmonger one started to complain about Tesco. He complained to the local press, the other retailers and even his customers. I remember him telling me that he couldn’t compete on price with Tesco (I hadn’t even asked about price!). After a lame and bitter fight he closed and even put a notice in his window blaming Tesco et al.

Fishmonger two was different. She got to work creating a local brand and local loyalty. She would tell you about the fish, when and where it was caught and offer some little extras (often as simple as a lemon) if you spent a few pounds more. She must have felt the effects of the three new arrivals in town but she didn’t complain once. She survived, thrived and, since her rival closed, has never been busier.

And if you are a big retailer, what can you learn from the smaller guys? Warmth? Pace? Individualism?

When you’re the big guy it’s worthwhile taking the opportunity to Flip It and learn from those who are smaller (and better?) than you.

Looking ahead

The world of ‘business’ big and small needs to Flip It now more than ever. Ideas, pace and enthusiasm are more important than ever. So is a clear vision of where you want to be. That’s why you must . . .