John La Valle – Starting an NLP business

 

John La Valle – Starting an NLP business

Product Include : 1 mp3, L txt

Product Size : 1 GB

Delivery : Digital Download Immediately

Michael: Good day, John. I’m thrilled to be here today to discuss how to expand your professional NLP Coaching or Consultancy practice.

To begin, may I ask you to briefly identify yourself?

Sure, John. My name is John, and my surname is La Valle. I’ve been in the NLP industry for quite some time, as well as a corporate consultant. I’m not sure what else I can say – I’ve had a lot of business experience, from founding firms to working in corporates and learning what made other organizations successful and if I could replicate some of those things.

And I’ve assisted and supported others in growing their businesses.

Michael: Superb. Excellent. What does commercial success mean to you?

It’s an intriguing thing, John.

Let me just speak about success for a bit because I was just talking about it with someone the other day, and it’s an intriguing concept to consider what people consider to be success.

I heard a quote the other day from someone who was either a comedian or a motivational speaker (I’m not sure, I was listening to someone and sadly I don’t recall his name.) and his definition was – He was discussing whether or not successful individuals were happy.

And I thought that was an intriguing issue to think about. He stated that success is obtaining what you desire, but happiness is desiring what you receive. And I really found it to be rather thought provoking. Let me explain why.

I’ve discovered that many individuals desire to run a successful business, whatever that means to them. Let’s assume it satisfies their requirements for a successful firm, but it isn’t precisely what they want, therefore they want to do something else – they want to do more.

And there’s nothing wrong with it, but the question is whether they ever stated their criteria in the first place. I got the opportunity to help some other individuals select what they wanted, for business purposes, not long ago. And it was an intriguing concept when I asked them, “What do you want?” The majority of them made an intriguing comment or said, ‘I want to start my own business.’

Some even stated, ‘I want to be able to start my own business.’

I enjoy the linguistics component of NLP – I like the substantial middle section – so when they say they want to be able to do it, that’s not good.

‘What do you mean you want to be able to?’ I asked. You just want to be able to accomplish it? You already have the ability to accomplish it; the question is whether you will.’

And they responded, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, I want to start my own business.’

But what happens once you start it? You must be able to run it – and you must be able to run it successfully. What about running it up to a Facebook or Google type of thing and selling it? Then I’ll start another one.

So, for me, business success is determining whether or not I am satisfied with what I am doing. Is it possible for me to pay my bills? ‘Do I have anything left over to put towards retirement?’

What we need to do for money and to maintain our lifestyle, which isn’t all that extravagant, isn’t all that difficult. So everything after that is additional to us – the icing on the cake, or the cherry on top of the frosting.

So we’re content with what we’re doing. We could certainly develop our business even more if we really wanted to, but the truth is that we’re not interested in doing so because it keeps us very occupied. We enjoy being active, and the money we earn is very satisfying to us.

I’m not sure what other people consider to be a successful business.

However, our consumer base plays a significant role in our performance. A number of things we look at include, for example, our rate of people returning – our return customers – which is really fairly high.

I’d guess – and I’m not sure what a reasonable threshold is – that at least one-third of our client base is repeat business. It might be a little more than that. And, of course, I’m talking about the NLP company, but you also have a consulting practice that is a bit different – there, it’s whether or not they can accomplish what they need to do without us having to come back in.

That’s a totally different market to me.

In terms of our consumers, it is whether they are pleased, what kind of feedback we receive from them – Products like that – Interestingly, we have a store where we sell things, and every year, maybe two people complain, ‘I really didn’t like this stuff.’

And that, to me, is useful knowledge. We’re constantly open to new ideas and input, therefore our customers, in my opinion, determine our success.

One is that we can continue to operate. Two, we’re not doing a lot of marketing; we have a strong presence, but we’re not doing anything extra, above and beyond what we’ve been doing for advertising for the previous four or five years.

Michael: Two queries: How did you get started? And what do you believe contributed to your early success? and what do you believe is keeping you successful now?

John : It was fascinating to see how I got started. I was truly employed by a corporation. And I know that when others hear this, some of them will say things to me like, ‘You lucky – bleep-‘

But I was quite fortunate. First, I grew up in a corporate setting, and before that, I was an entrepreneur – or so I like to imagine. I probably loved having my own little business when I was about twelve or thirteen years old, whatever it was, and back then when I was little, I would sell tiny little explosive devices like firecrackers and stuff throughout the summer months.

Of course, until I got caught. But I liked having my own small business. When I was caught, my father told me, ‘Son, you cannot do this, it is a horrible business. Someone will be injured. You’re going to get into a lot of trouble. ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ they say.

Then I obtained a newspaper delivery route for about two months, perhaps because I was unmotivated and didn’t make nearly as much money as I had been.

And I kept that business mentality alive. Of course, I worked a few jobs when I was younger. When I finally entered that corporate atmosphere, it was because I wanted to understand more about how “Official” firms operated.

Other than finance, I’d say I worked in almost every department in a corporation. Many people are surprised to learn that I worked in manufacturing, operations, distribution, quality control, and human resources.

But I did those things, and the organization I worked for at the time gave me the chance to do so as part of my growth, if you will. And I learnt a great deal.

Now, when I chose to go it alone, I was in human resources and realized that I was going to grow bored again and that I needed to do something else. And at the moment in my job, I stated that I would just walk outside to work as a consultant.

And I received confirmation when I got to write my first check to an outside consultant. I was at a firm and I got the persons invoice and I had to the order to pay the invoice – I looked down at how much this man made for one day and thought ‘I can do this’.

I truly did. I glanced at the money and thought, ‘I don’t know if I can make this much money in a day.’ But what he did wasn’t something I couldn’t do for myself.

I also knew that there was definitely something lacking, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Like a marketable skill – since I wasn’t quite there yet on my own.

Surprisingly enough. My initial duty as a trainer in the human resources department was to serve as an internal consultant. My employer had clearly specified that.

‘Listen, I work you as an inside consultant, as in you have to encourage people to want to utilize you,’ he continued. I’m not going to send you in and say, ‘Hey, listen to what La Valle has to say.’ You’ll operate it as if it were your own small business. So, if your internal customers are unwilling to utilize you, John, you’re out of a job.”

Michael: How did you persuade folks to hire you?

John: Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Mostly because I come from the manufacturing industry. I was essentially a “Plant Rat,” a man who walked about making sure that operations were operating well and that everything was in order.

So I had to completely change my idea of what I was capable of and what more I could achieve. And, to put it simply, I began to handle two important areas of the organization –

One was performance evaluation, which, of course, was paired with having the firm define – and I don’t want to use the phrase because it wasn’t a requirements analysis – the skills that were required so that I could conduct, or put together trainings that would please the company’s management.

So I ended up putting together a couple of systems, one of which was to do a skills assessment rather than a needs analysis, and then, because I really wanted to relate it back to skills appraisal, rather than just performance appraisals, I had managers first do a skills assessment on their employees – to rate them on a scale of zero to ten on a series of skills.

And then I took that and had them link it to the individuals performance appraisal – That way it was more objective for them. And then number two, I had that information put into a system that I had built so that I could determine which seminars would be relevant to the company.

Then I put out a schedule and go ‘Well listen guys, this is what you told me that you need. This is what you want. And this is what you need for skills development. Now here’s my schedule for the seminars. Start signing your people up.’ Which they did.

Michael : Excellent. Moving forward to the present time. What do you think is important about starting a business now in 2001, as opposed to starting it in the last couple of decades? If you had to start again now who perhaps hasn’t got that much experience what do they need to be aware of?

John : Well, that’s really a great question, and I’m thinking it through as I speak.

I don’t know that there is really that much more that is different today with the exception that the field is bigger. There are loads more consultants out there if that’s what they want to be doing.

But the idea to me hasn’t really changed. I learned most of my marketing skills from what most people would call an Old-Timer guy. J Conrad Levinson. This was the guy that was involved in developing the Marlboro Man, The Pillsbury Dough Boy, The Jolly Green Giant and I studied things from him – I know him personally – that were old-time marketing things.

The only thing that has changed with the marketing things is the availability now of the Internet. But I’m not even suggesting that the Internet is the best place for people to do marketing.

I’m not sure how much more has really changed – let me tell you why.

The things that I find that have not changed, that people are still interested in is, number one, that they know who you are, whether you have credibility in the marketplace. That hasn’t changed.

The bulk of my corporate work, even to this day, is done by word of mouth. Since we started our consultant business back in the middle Eighties, we’ve only spent on marketing dollars, in all this time, we’ve spent one hundred and ten dollars.

I know. And that’s called business cards and letter heads. And I don’t even hand them out! I have all of my brochures ready on my computer, I still keep updating them, but I’ve never had them printed!

So, the success that people can have in terms of starting and having business – I’m going to say, and I don’t like the word – is in your networking.

I think that’s where the value is. And I don’t mean networking on these social sites, all of these places – That’s not networking. I mean networking with the people that know you.

When I first started and I was leaving the company I really was fortunate. A lot of people say ‘John you were fortunate, but you did a good job for the company.’, which is true.

The company would literally, not let me quit because they didn’t want to have to replace me. And that was only because I had good feedback from the seminars that I was doing.

When it was time for me to leave, to take some time to build my business I took a couple of years to do that. And when I was ready to leave, because I was ready to leave my job actually – My boss asked me ‘What time will you have to leave?’

And I said ‘When I’m not here. And people say ‘Where the hell is La Valle?’

He said ‘That’s good criteria.’

When it came time for me to leave. I had already about six months worth of business set up. I was still worried by the way. What happens when the six months are up? How am I going to pay the phone bills? Things like that.

And the day before I was leaving my boss brought me in and said ‘You’re really going to do this aren’t you?’

I said ‘Yep.’

He said ‘I give you a lot of credit.’

I said ‘Listen, I’m scared as all hell, I don’t mind telling you this.’

And he said ‘That’s OK. I didn’t want to tell you this ahead of time because I wanted to make sure that you were making the right decision for yourself – I want to give you a one year warranty.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Listen, I know guys that have gone out there, they started their own businesses, they found that they made a mistake. If you find out in the following year that you made a mistake, just ring me up and I’m going to let you come back. I’m not even going to ask you what happened. I’ll bring you back no problems – Like you never left the company.’

And I thought ‘How could I miss on this one?’

And then he said ‘Do you have business lined up?’

I said ‘Yeah – I have about six month’s work lined up.’

He said ‘Good. I want to be your first big customer. I want to give you a one-year contract and get you back doing our training.’

‘Actually, make it two years.’

And then I started thinking again ‘Wow this is really great. Had I known this, I would have left sooner.’

Then he said ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

Michael : Just going back – You talked about networking. What specifically were some of the things that you did as you were networking? Because you’re saying that this is key and I’m fascinated to know what that actually means to you.

John : This goes along with what I was just saying actually.

So it goes like this – So I leave. Now, I didn’t do anything. I know that sounds crazy, but I personally didn’t do anything to do the networking. I had people that already knew that I was leaving, that liked me and appreciated the work I was doing and everything else.

So on my first day I had left the company, and now I have another two or three years work with the company that I had just left, I had six months work with business; I’m sitting pretty.

I’m smiling like a Cheshire cat.

And my telephone rings on my first day and it’s a friend of mine that I had worked with before.

He said ‘How are you doing on your first day?’

I said ‘Good.’

He said ‘What are you doing tomorrow? Would you like to go out for lunch?’

I said ‘I’m busy.’ Which wasn’t true. I wasn’t going to be busy for a couple of weeks, but I was taught to say that.

And he said ‘I was at the same seminar that you were at. You’re not busy tomorrow. How about we have lunch?’

I said ‘Personal or business?’

He said business, I said OK.

And he said ‘I knew that you were leaving so I wanted to help you out. I didn’t know if you had business lined up, and I didn’t want to bug you, and I didn’t want to encourage you.’

They all said the same thing, interestingly enough.

‘I wanted to find out whether you were actually going to do it.’ Which I thought was a really interesting response considering I had it from two people already, now I had it from three.

and she said to me ‘Listen, I put aside Eighty Thousand dollars in my budget for you this year.’

And I was like ‘Oh boy. Wow. This is great.’

Now the funny thing is that I got a call two days after that from another guy that I had worked for a while back. And he was out there, he knew I was leaving – He called two days later and said the same thing except it wasn’t Eighty thousand it was Fifty thousand. That’s a lot of money for a contract.

He said ‘I knew that you were leaving. I thought that I would be able to help you out now that you’re on your own. I love what you do and we can use you. And by the way I’ve put aside fifty thousand in my budget for you to come and set up some dates.’

So I didn’t really do anything. I started on my first day by – people ask me if I make cold calls or you know, canvasing – I said ‘I made two calls. On my first day in my office, I made two calls. That was it.’

And I qualified people when I called them. After the first two calls I said ‘This is not for John. This is not going to work for me.’ And I would qualify people instead of getting to the make decision.

Part of your reputation is really going to be important. I did not build it this way when I first started. I did not plan it this way. So when I go back and think about what the element of it were it’s that :

Number one, I was consistent. Number two, people knew that I delivered the goods. Number three I would deliver more than I promised anyway.

And number Four the people would be happy, they would get some skills and the business would start to run better.

So all of those things I believe, contribute to people calling me and saying ‘I’m interested. I know what you do, I’ve heard a lot about you – I’m not sure if we want to use you yet, but we want to talk to you about a few things.’

So I didn’t have to be so proactive about the networking thing, but even though I didn’t have to be I still did some other activities like –

In anybodies local area there are loads of non-profit organizations – The women’s clubs, the men’s clubs, the rotary clubs – I don’t know what you have in different countries, what they’re called.

They’re all the business clubs. The young presidents clubs. They’re always looking for speakers. They’re always looking for someone to do the lunchtime speaking event, or evening speaking event – because they all have a monthly meeting.

They don’t pay very much, but then again, you don’t even have to charge very much. I never took the money.

They said ‘How much do you charge?’ and I’d say ‘How much do you pay?’

And they’d say ‘Well to tell you the truth we’re a non-profit organisation. We have a few bucks, but the most that we could pay you is about five hundred dollars.’

And I’d say ‘I want you to take the five hundred dollars and keep it in your kitty; keep it in the bank. And what I want in return is I get every body’s business card who is at the meeting – If you want to share your database so that I can mail to them and I also want a reference letter from you telling everyone how great I am. And if you’re not willing to do that because I did a lousy job let me know.’

So those were the things that I was able to do to build a portfolio. If I did anything to network it was more about getting my name out there. And that was in the local area – That was only in New Jersey.

The other thing is to contact people. Just call a business up and let them know. Say ‘This is what I do…’ and let them know if they have people that they’d like to be contacting – contact them on their behalf.

Michael: Looking at a new business – What would you look for if you had to forecast whether a firm would survive or thrive in today’s climate?

John : First, I’d want to know the expertise level of all the different functions in the firm. In other words, can they perform accounting? – In your own firm, you must be a chef, cook, and bottle washer.

Then there are a number of things that I want to make sure they grasp. When you advertise, you are not earning money, and when you make money, you are not promoting. So, where is the equilibrium?

You understand because you are doing it yourself. So you’re not making money when you’re out there advertising yourself. But, as a notion, do they get it?

What I see, and especially in NLP, but I know it can happen in a lot of other industries, is that people believe that if they announce, “Here, I have this business,” people would rush to their door, but this isn’t true. Of course, they must continue to market.

Also, get their name out there so people may become acquainted with them. But there are a handful of essential criteria that we’ve always lived by – and I say we as in my wife and I – by the way, we’re the only two in our firm. People believe that we have forty employees – No, we don’t.

First and foremost, we react to all inquiries or emails within twenty-four hours. Something is wrong if someone does not receive a call or email back from us within twenty-four hours. The phone system, power, or internet are all out of commission. Aside from that, they will receive a response from us.

That is number one. The other is credibility based on consistency in the marketplace, which I cannot underscore enough. And let me tell you what I believe the difficulty is today – it’s not the same as it was years ago, but it’s still relevant today.

I know folks who have been battling for years to get their business off the ground. They’re really struggling from the start. This is because people change their email addresses more frequently than they change their undergarments.

They also do not stay in one place. They begin somewhere in Washington DC, then three months later they are in Alexandra, Virginia, and three months later they are in San Diego, California.

There is nothing consistent. They switch phone numbers. It’s almost as if they’re being pursued, so they have to keep going. That’s my thought: why continually replacing all of your contacts? It’s as if you don’t want others to contact you.

And, as far as I am aware, consistency in the marketplace is the single most important contribution to their success.

It’s all about consistency, consistency, and more consistency. I’m not saying you can’t wait a little longer or reformulate certain items. I know people that are always altering their marketing and what they do.

They may advertise that they are a jack of all crafts. And the money, really, is in the niche for people starting their own businesses.

Michael: How would you propose they handle pricing, especially if they were just starting out today?

John : Pricing has always been an intriguing subject. Personally, I believe that if I were to establish a new firm, I would first determine the pricing median.

Now it depends on what it is. The lecture industry is one thing; consulting is quite another.

We have largely maintained constant pricing over the years. We haven’t upped it much – just a bit here and there. However, if I were just starting out, I would want to know what the median and maximum are. I’m curious as to who is charging the high.

I’d also like to know what kind of reaction they’re receiving to that figure.

It’s fascinating how some would promote a very high price as if they’re providing good quality, but then haggle the price. However, this is not promoted.

So I always charge more than I believe the market will bear, and when it comes to consulting, I’m not afraid to say ‘charge what the market will bear.’

That doesn’t mean you can’t be greedy, but what exactly are you delivering? If you’re delivering items that no one else can, or services that no one else has – and most people don’t think of it that way.

So I consider it this way. If someone invites me in and wants to hire me as a consultant, they will compensate me for my brainpower. I do a lot of NLP stuff, and a lot of people do NLP stuff. I don’t only practice NLP; I have ways of applying NLP in different situations.

My business background alone likely has a larger repertory than most people’s. I am not only in charge of sales and marketing, but also of production and operations. I assist businesses in utilizing their staff to make choices and engage in management.

So those kind of things allow me to be in a niche and charge – base my prices on – whatever I believe the market will bear.

Unless the price is exorbitant, people absolutely associate quality with money. And I read somewhere that clients come because they are welcomed. They stay because they are well taken care of.

High costs are only a motivator. They stay because of the quality and client service.

As a result, individuals are not scared to pay extra money to be handled well and with quality. So, for example, when people lower their prices, it is just an encouragement for the other person. It does not imply that they will be of high quality.

I have yet to come across someone with low-wall pricing who can give quality, and they don’t survive long in the market. Even if they remain in the market, it is only because they must enter a new market. Perhaps they’re training someplace in Indonesia.

And individuals that go for the low-wall pricing are duped, and once they go to that new market, they find they’re not receiving the quality. They’ll then travel to Singapore. They may also travel to the Middle East.

I’ve had a number of people contact us and want to bring us to do other things in other countries, saying, ‘Here’s the fee we’d want to pay since that’s what everyone else is charging.’

‘I’m not everyone else, so thank you but no thanks.’

And they’d usually come back two or three years later and say, ‘Well gosh, you were correct.’

I believe it is reasonable to charge a reasonable fee, even if it is a little excessive.

I’d like to give a basic overview of this. I was leaving my house after my first formal sales call when my wife asked how much I was going to charge, and I answered, ‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘Well, you can’t leave the house until you have a price in mind,’ she added.

As a result, I did. I began to think of a buddy of mine. Even though I use that name a lot, his name is Charlie, and Charlie was charging six hundred dollars a day at the time, which was fairly excellent in the early Eighties – so I said I would charge six hundred dollars a day.

‘All right,’ she replied.

This workplace was an hour’s drive away. I started with $600 and by the time I got to this point – Are you ready for this? I more than quadrupled my pay.

By the time I arrived into the office to find this individual, I had persuaded myself into charging $1200 per day. When I get upstairs, I see this individual in a meeting.

‘I’m terribly sorry, he got caught up in this meeting,’ remarked the secretary. If you don’t mind, you’ll simply have to wait.’

And in my head, I increased it to fourteen hundred dollars every day because I thought, ‘I’m not waiting for free.’

I had fourteen hundred in my brain. When I arrived at his office, he said he’d give me a shot for one day. He stated that he had a lot of work here – what is my rate?

And I have no idea what motivated me to do this. ‘Fifteen hundred a day,’ I replied.

By the way, my friend Charlie now has a PHD. He’s very magnificent. I’ve attended to a few of his events.

In an hour, I went from six hundred to fifteen hundred.

And I told him, ‘Fifteen hundred a day.’ ‘That’s all?’ he said, looking at me.

I’ve got to tell you, Michael, I’m not the brightest candle on the cake in certain areas, but I’m also not the slowest.

“That’s for the first time you utilize me,” I told him. It’s similar to an audition.”

“How much is it after that?” he asked.

I’m not really sure where I obtained the numbers.

“Twenty-five hundred a day,” I said.

And I expected him to reply, “That’s a lot of money.” However, he stated:

“That’s much better. That’s what the truly excellent consultants nowadays charge.”

This was back in the early 1980s. I considered telling Charlie that he should charge more money, and I did, by the way, tell Charlie.

Charlie told me, ‘I want to raise my enrolments,’ because he was holding these very intimate seminars that were available to the general public but focused on the corporations with which he was working. I believe there were no more than eight persons at the class. Personal and informative presentation.

‘I want to be able to expand my business,’ he stated.

‘How long in advance are you booked?’ I ask.

‘Probably six months ahead.’

‘That’s not so awful,’ I say.

‘Yeah, but I’d feel more at ease if I knew nine months in advance.’

‘Raise your pricing, Charlie.’

And he did it.

‘La Valle, you’re insane,’ he said.

‘Listen, you charge $900 for the entire session,’ I remarked. ‘I believe you should go to 1500 and see what happens.’

He said ‘You’re crazy.’

‘I know. I know I’m crazy. But try it out. What have you got to lose?’

He tried it out and he began booking out nine, ten months in advance. Then he called me up and said ‘It’s really working – What do you think that I should do now?’

I said ‘Raise it again. Just a little bit. Raise it again and find out!’

And he raised it again and he booked out a year in advance.

Now can I explain that? No I can’t explain it. I just know that it works.

Michael : OK. Taking what you’ve said. Is there anything else that you think is important for anybody that is starting business of this ilk to think about?

You’ve talked about networking, you’ve talked about pricing, we’ve talked about consistency – Is there anything else that you would like either to emphasise or to add?

John : I think that there is a couple of important things for them personally. They have to know themselves. They have to know themselves really, really well. They have to know what they’re able to do and what they’re not able to do.

And don’t promise something that you really can’t do. It’s OK to be proud of what you’re able to do and say ‘I can do this.’ But I find that too many people jump on the opportunity to get business, which, to me, is not the right thing to do.

I’d much rather look at the availability of continuing business.

I had a president that I had worked for in the company, and we were talking about profit one time. And he said to me ‘What’s profit?’

‘Well, it’s how much money that you can make.’

He goes ‘Yeah, that’s the accounting term. But to you, what is the philosophy or concept of making profit?’

I said ‘Well. I dunno. To make a lot of money and be able to buy a red (I don’t speak car.)?’

He said ‘No. Profit is determines your ability to determine your future. Plain and simple.’

So I thought : What does that mean?

For people who are thinking about going into their own business;

Number one – Don’t borrow money for intangibles. A lot of people want to borrow money to start their business. If you’re in a position where you have to borrow, to take a bank loan out, my suggestion is to have enough money in the bank first.

I’ve known people who have borrowed money, taken out loans

COURSE CONTENT