4/13/2016 -- It takes time to build a business. First comes the idea, followed by the will to make the vision become reality. Once logistics are determined, the hard work of implementation begins. Any 12-volt retailer can vouch for the difficulty of opening a store, but all successful retailers share the same feeling at the end of the day -- a sense of accomplishment. 

Now in its second year, KnowledgeFest Spring Training has achieved a similar sense of accomplishment, nearly doubling last year's attendee numbers and gaining a confidence from manufacturers and retailers alike. The most common thing I heard while walking the halls of the event was, "this is great." Everyone was in agreement that the event was a success and better in many ways than last year. Considering it's a work in progress, the trade show has proven its worth as a mainstay for the industry, and in some ways, more timely than its counterpart, at least regarding its educational value. 

Taking place at the beginning of April, a time when most companies are planning the year ahead with new product purchases, manufacturers see the event as an opportunity to teach new products and gain new retailers for those products at the event. The centerpiece of the show was the theme of training. Regardless of whether it took place in the seminars, on the show floor, in manufacturer trainings, or at a table in one of the bars of the JW Marriott where attendees hung out after hours to talk over tasty libations, the word was getting out about anything and everything 12-volt related. 

Having only been in this industry for less than three years, I've learned a lot about the products and services offered, but nothing has given me more insight on what 12-volt is all about like its people. When I went to my first KnowledgeFest, I was overwhelmed with the positive, welcoming nature that everyone showed me, an outsider with zero experience. When I asked questions, no matter how rudimentary or naive, they were always answered without judgment by such names as Del Ellis, Bryan Schmitt, John Schwartz and Solomon Daniels, among others. 

The same spirit was represented at the town hall discussion where a panel of five retailers discussed how they got to the top of their game. Matt Schaeffer, last year's Installer of the Year Runner-up, spoke on the importance of how keeping passion at the center of his mindset allowed him to continuously improve his work. Ken Ward of Musicar Northwest delivered some of his signature wisecracks while mentioning how his shop does it different from others to help distinguish itself as a business. 

Overall, whether the comments were made on stage at the town hall, or in one-on-one conversations with individuals, the sentiment was the same: KnowledgeFest Spring Training is a great event and is here to stay. Regardless of whether you choose to go to Dallas or Indianapolis, your attendance is crucial if you hope to one day sit on the stage and tell the story of how you reached the top of your game. 

"Find a need and fill it." Ever since I first heard this profound statement, which was spoken by 12-volt sales guru Del Ellis at my first KnowledgeFest, I found that it was also representative of the industry I'd soon come to adore.

When I was first hired by Mobile Electronics magazine I was a daisy-fresh rookie with a journalism degree who didn't know a double-DIN from a DSP. Although I'm still no expert on the technical side of 12-volt, what I have gained a strong grasp of is how the industry works. That's also what intrigues me the most about it.

In my first year, here's what I learned: car audio isn't just putting a deck and four's in a car but an entire industry filled with music lovers who also love cars. The products are vast and complicated. Installing those products takes great skill and expertise that is acquired through countless hours of trial and error, through which most are done for no money and could potentially ruin a vehicle's electrical system if done incorrectly.

My second year consisted of me basically trying to make sense of the whirlwind of things I'd learned in my first. I developed my writing, streamlined my management processes for assigning stories and kept in touch with industry representatives that would come in handy for different stories throughout the year. Mainly, I gobbled up the topic that the industry was all about: passion.

I also went from working in an office to work from home. I struggled to stay focused when the TV and video game console were a few feet away, then remembered Luke Fidler, a solo retailer who was able to stay focused despite not having a team around to motivate him. His motivation was to be passionate about the thing he was doing and keep getting better every day so his customers would notice. I didn't have customers, but what I did have was you. So I focused on doing a better job. I wrote what I felt were more engaging articles focused on the people of the industry. I listened to comments from people all around the industry, from young first-year installers to 30-year veterans. Jason Kranitz called me out when I got a company detail wrong. John Schwartz nailed me for incorrectly writing his store's name more than once (sorry about that, John). But through it all, I learned both how to be better at my job and how to be a better professional.

The fourth year was about not letting stagnation set in and staying motivated despite feeling like I'd accomplished all the goals I'd set out from previous years. So I worked on finding new ones, listened to the industry and worked to be better at things I wasn't so good at before, like product names, how a DSP works and what the future landscape of 12-volt might look like based on today's latest tech innovations. Thinking about how the outside world will continually impact 12-volt, I remembered Josh, Jeremiah and Jared Mojica of GNC Customs, a family retail operation who took a store that sold furniture and jewelry and transformed it into a powerhouse in the industry. They saw the same thing I see in the world: everything is relative.

During my tenure with the magazine I met top industry gurus like Bryan Schmitt, Del Ellis and Marcel Newell. I had fun-filled, engaging conversations with manufacturer execs like Nalaka Adikari of Orca (still waiting on those NFL tickets), Chris Kane of AudioControl (Teddy K!) and Steve Witt of American Road Products (we'll do lunch soon). 12-volt techs like Matt Schaeffer, JT Torres, Tom Miller and Chris Pate showed me the value of hard work and how you can reach your dreams by constantly being better than yesterday.

Being a judge for the Industry Awards was also an experience I'll never forget. I was asked to review videos from people I'd never met and make judgments on things I barely had any knowledge about. But thanks to the information I got from Solomon [Daniels], Chris [Cook] and the rest of the industry, it became easier to know what to look for and who ultimately deserved my vote for the top honors. I honestly believe that everyone who won deserved to win during the time I was judging the awards. I hope everyone felt the same way.

As a musician and music lover, I immediately recognized the connecting threads that I shared with all of you in 12-volt. I'm extremely grateful to have been able to take part and learn from you all and am humbled by the dedication, work ethic and passion you all continue to have despite the long hours away from family, stressful changes in the marketplace and complex nature of the job that no doubt drains each of you in ways I could never imagine.

Goodbye, 12-volt industry. Keep innovating and stay in touch. 

8-21-2016 -- Everyone wants success. But are you willing to change?

Without change, there can be no growth. And in order to get what you’ve never had, you must become someone you've never been. Before you go into the woods, you'll need a map. Rest assured others have forged the route before you. Their experiences can help guide you to your own best you.

Live forward by making a life plan.

With "Living Forward: A Proven Plan To Stop Drifting And Get The Life You Want," authors Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy help you begin to become the architect of your own life. Most of us make plans for everything -- vacations, dinner, our children's school functions. But rarely does a person make a life plan. If I asked you to summarize your life plan, could you tell me? Probably not.

If you finally want to live with more intention and purpose in your life or become an entrepreneur now and not later, then your extraordinary life is on the other side of your life-planning design process.

"Living Forward" offers solid advice in several key areas:

• Understanding why you need a plan (because as humans, we drift and get distracted).
• Learning how to create your life plan beginning with the end in mind (answering, "What legacy do you want to leave behind?").
• Making it happen (triaging your calendar and scheduling your priorities). 

Many of us see change as threatening. Some even regard it as the destroyer of what is familiar and comfortable rather than the creator of what is new and exciting. Unfortunately, comfort is the enemy of excellence.

“For the timid, change is frightening, for the comfortable, change is threatening, but for the confident, change is opportunity," motivational speaker Nido Qubein writes in "Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement."

Decide what you'll do with your current opportunity. In order to grow and achieve new heights in your life, you must make a commitment to change. Focus your attention on growing in areas that will add personal and professional value. Don’t let your comfort zone kill the excellence within your reach. Make your life plan today.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur -- If you Google “daily habits of successful people” you’ll find almost every business-focused media outlet represented in the results. But if you’re looking for a guaranteed roadmap to success, don’t get excited just yet. If you read all of those articles, or even a few of them, you'll soon realize that successful people have a wide range of daily habits.

Some say you have to rise early, some sleep until noon then work from their bed for another hour. Some say to get the toughest thing out of the way first, some start their day in an easy flow of reading over coffee and don’t “eat the frog” until later. Some plan out their day the night before, some start their day by devising a plan. Some hit the jogging trail first thing, some barely take time for a stretch before hitting social media and email.

So how are any of us supposed to figure out which daily habits are critical to success, and which are personal preference and idiosyncrasy?

If you take a look at all the different lists of habits, routines, principles and priorities among successful entrepreneurs from Ben Franklin to Mark Cuban you’ll find these three universal success factors.

They spend time getting to know themselves.

If you know who they are, chances are they devote a lot of their daily practice to knowing themselves better than you can even imagine. Successful people are self-aware on multiple levels.

They know their energy patterns, so they know how much sleep is optimal. They know when they get their best rest they are at their best when they are awake. They know what fuel their body needs, and what kind of exercise it takes to feel the way they want to feel. They know what environments they need to be creative and productive, and they know the difference between those two states.

They know their priorities, too, and they know that all of their decisions must start with the highest level of their vision, mission or purpose. Benjamin Franklin’s documented daily schedule starts each day with a question; “What good shall I do this day?” Steve Jobs said in his commencement address at Stanford in 2005 that he spent 33 years asking the same question every morning; “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Bottom line, no matter how many articles, interviews or opinions you read, you’ll find that successful people are always tuned in to the one most critical success factor in their business -- themselves.

They spend time improving themselves.

Speaking of being tuned in to themselves, successful people know that to increase their net worth they must increase their personal worth. They’ve mastered the personal SWOTT analysis and they consistently invest in themselves.

It’s no secret that successful people read. They read story books, they read how-to books, they read news, they read industry articles. They read to improve their knowledge, their mind-set, even their mood.

But they do more than read. Successful people study. They study trends in their industry and outside of their industry, they study things that interest them and, most of all, they study people.

Read more HERE.

To maximize your driving power, no matter how busy you are, you need to slow down in order to speed up business. Take the time to create an accurate road map to lead you to the best route for your business.

Take a good hard look at your business with the eye of an outside, unbiased consultant and gather honest answers to the hard questions on the High Performance Road Map below. Include your team, and keep their involvement ongoing.

HIGH PERFORMANCE ROAD MAP

What are our three greatest strengths as a business?

How can we leverage our greatest strengths to grow our business?

How’s our reputation in our community?

How’s our reputation in our industry?

Do we need to make a bigger effort to develop a reputation customer service excellence?

Are our advertising, sales, and marketing strategies working?

Do we need ads and visuals on our website that are more eye-catching than any competitors’?

Do we have enough video on our site to draw traffic to our site and show customers what we can do?

Are we obtaining business and inquiries from our website, or is it time to obtain the services of an SEO specialist?

Are we using online marketing to draw more traffic to our business?

Do we have a newsletter we send out with great visuals, ads, and the latest information on new products?

What are we doing that is different from other retailers that will make us stand out in the minds of our customers and promote word-of-mouth advertising?

Where are there opportunities to obtain more referrals or drive more business to us?

How much of our business comes from referrals? Are we asking for them?

How can we promote our business in a way that is different than the competition?

Can we depend on each other, so we can focus on the most important person to our business—the customer?

How can we improve communication on the team and with customers?

How would customers rate the level of service we provide?

Are we obtaining feedback from our customers, or should we start calling after every job or major sale?

Are we consistently working to improve our service?

How quickly do we respond to calls? Is it easy to do business with us?

Are we making a conscious effort to be friendlier than our competitors?

Do we make our customers feel like “family”?

What have we done to exceed expectations, and what practices can we put into place to exceed expectations in the future?

What three areas need the most improvement?

How is our pricing?

Do customers feel they receive value from the price they pay?

Do we consistently strive to be a better business?

Do we consistently work toward being better than our competition? Do we make an effort to be better than our competition in every aspect of the customer experience?

Do we strive to under-promise and do everything we can to over-deliver?

Who is performing well? Who is not?

What should be our major strategic initiative for the remainder of 2015?

Once you finish compiling answers, which may take some time, you'll be in a better position to see things more clearly, make decisions, and create your winning race strategy. This can be hard work, but your biggest challenge will be to implement necessary changes to sustain the momentum of the drive.  

So after this session take a good hard look at your answers, and then create an action plan that will help drive the growth of your business and improve profitability. Unfortunately, we sometimes (even unknowingly) put up our own roadblocks to success. We make an action plan with a road map to follow and we don’t follow it. We go back to “business as usual.”

Smart business professionals, however, understand that,

“Knowing what you should be doing and doing it are two very different things. Execution must be a strong part of your competitive strategy!”

Here’s another key: Put Knowledgefest as one of your destinations. There, you will obtain the knowledge and skills to accelerate your business.

Keep in mind:

 •    Always maintain a clear focus on your customers. Encourage everyone who works in your business to embrace an obsession for customer service excellence with every customer encounter.

 •    Follow your race strategy. Once you have completed the road map stage, you will have your own plan. Follow it as closely as you can in order to stay on course. But if something is not working, do what any smart executive or business owner would do—shift gears fast!

 •    You will always have to find ways to be better and smarter—and drive faster—than your competitors.

Once you decide what needs to change in your business, implementation is crucial. Attend my session, What Needs to Change in Your Business – 10 Steps to Successful Change Implementation, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association.

See you there!

To hear more of Carelli's insights, attend her KnowledgeFest seminar. Details are available at http://knowledgefest.org/exhibitors/item/95.