Excellence is the new mediocrity: Author

Mike Lipkin: Motivational speaker and author.

Attention all high-functioning executives: it's time to fine-tune your training, further refine your service skills and pull out your finest thank-you card stationary, because according to elite motivational speaker Mike Lipkin, excellence doesn't cut it anymore.

"Excellence is the new mediocrity," says Lipkin, president of motivation and sales empowerment practice Environics/Lipkin, and author of the new book, One Life, One Meeting: How to Build Preeminence One Conversation at a Time (see www.mikelipkin.com for more information).

Achieving pre-eminence is essential to winning at the sales and service game, he says, and it's a subject he'll discuss in detail on June 18, when he presents as part of The Phenomenal View world-class speaker series (see www.phenomenalview.com).

Beyond excellence

In his view, today's highly competitive global economy requires business people to constantly push beyond being excellent. The good news, he says, is that execs already performing at excellence only have a short way to go to the next level.

"One step beyond excellent is outstanding, which is when we clearly differentiate ourselves as part of the cluster at the front of the pack," he says. "You go from being part of a long list [of potential service providers] to a short list for somebody's business."

What does it take to be outstanding? According to Lipkin, it's the things you consistently do that go above and beyond what people expect, including: handwritten thank-you notes; anticipating client needs before they're expressed; demonstrating caring; and showing more depth and speed in the way you respond to customers.

"Once you've made it to excellence, outstanding is almost easy. I say almost, because it requires a constant, disciplined desire both for oneself and for others," he says.

The main thrust of Lipkin's message is that even outstanding isn't really enough, because the market is full of people performing at this level. The only way to secure extraordinary results, he says, is to achieve personal pre-eminence.

"There's only one person or organization that gets the deal, so you want to be the benchmark by which all others are judged," he says. "You are defining the best breed of who you are and how you do what you do."

People can achieve pre-eminence by focusing on their single strongest talent, and then giving everything they've got, and more, to maximize that talent. The best way to understand pre-eminence is to look for its expression in the corporate world, he says.

In MP3 music, Apple's dynamic, sexy-looking iPod is setting the benchmark; in coffee, it's Starbucks, with its countless beverage combinations that can be customized to one's specific tastes; in the search engine area, it's simple, straightforward Google that dominates.

"If you go to the Google home page and see how simple it is, and compare it to Yahoo or MSN, which are as cluttered as the rest of our lives are, there's no contest," he says. "Google excels in its single-minded approach, as opposed to trying to fill as many functions as it can."

Pre-eminence is also apparent in many of our culture's top entertainers, he says, citing Mick Jagger, Madonna, Phil Collins and Tina Turner as examples of performers who have stood the test of time.

He refers to the 10,000-hour rule of thinker and The New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, which says that success isn't mainly defined by one's innate genius, but by the time, energy and awareness one invests in their craft.

No shortcuts

"If you're looking for shortcuts, you're looking in the wrong direction -- you may come up short," Lipkin says. "It's not about scaling tall buildings with a single leap, but achieving pre-eminence one step at a time."

The key thing to keep in mind on the journey to pre-eminence, Lipkin says, is that it's about helping others as well as yourself.

"One can reach excellence and outstanding by focusing on themselves, but pre-eminence is about taking others for the ride," he says. "You have to give back. It's about keeping the energy going and paying it forward."

THE PHENOMENAL VIEW SPEAKER SERIES

On June 18, renowned motivational speaker Mike Lipkin will share his ideas on achieving pre-eminence as part of The Phenomenal View, a new speaker series sponsored by The Toronto Sun.

Taking place at the Royal Ambassador Event Centre, situated in a beautiful 55-acre natural setting on Innis Lake in the heart of Caledon, the all-day event will cover how to pursue pre-eminence in your personal and professional life and become the benchmark by which all others are judged.

To find out more about this event, other speakers in the series and to purchase tickets, visit www.phenomenal view.com.

LEARN HOW YOU CAN ...

Here are some of the topics Mike Lipkin will be discussing on June 18 at The Phenomenal View event: How can you create conversations that help others grow, contribute and celebrate? n How can you make every meeting a once-in-a-lifetime experience that expands and inspires others? n How can you become someone other people seek out because you consistently deliver so much value to them? How can you prepare to win so you always play at your personal best? n How can you break through your fears so you go where you've never gone before?

How can you get more out of every situation through the power of fascination?

How can you listen in a way that magnetizes the truth to you?

How can you communicate like magic?

How can you become a completion-maniac so you always finish like a champion?

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