Maurilio Amorim

Month: October 2011

  • Looking Sharp in a Vest

    For today’s Fashion Friday we are talking about a trend in men’s fashion that has made a strong come back in the past few years: the vest.

    The suit vest has some very distinct characteristics.  For one, vests, are almost always full back, unlike the standard tuxedo vest which has an open back design.  They also have two main style options, being buttons and pockets.  They can come with as few as three buttons to as many as nine, although the standard for a men’s suit vest is five or six.  And also pockets, which can come in a rounded style or as welt pockets, which only show a fold of fabric at the opening.

    You should never button the last button on a vest, sometimes you might opt to not button the last two, even if it’s casual wear.

    The vest should fit snug but not so tight that it pulls the buttons apart. Too much material and you’ll look disheveled. Too tight and you’ll look like a sausage trying to break out of its casing.

    A fun option is to wear a vest with an untucked shirt and lose tie. That’s a good look specially if the vest has design elements that set it apart from traditional suit vests, such as embroidery, or as in the case bellow, two row of buttons. Note that he has the bottom buttons fastened, but I think it’s because someone snapped the photo before a stylist could get to him.

    Guys have you ventured out in wear a vest with an untucked shirt? Ladies, how do you feel about the resurgence of men’s vests?

  • My Bad Parking Lot Experience: Why First Impressions Matter

    It’s hard to overcome a negative first impression. Your first gut reaction about a church, a business or even a person,  will determine how you feel about that institution or individual for a long time.  A while back I visited a well-known, fast growing congregation in Florida. I was not doing a secret shopper visit or a communication audit (some might find it shocking that I attend church without getting paid for), but I felt compelled to share with a staff member some of my impressions, specifically my run in with a parking lot attendant.

    yelling man in parking lot church first impression

    I was cutting it close to get to the church by 8:30 for their first Sunday morning service. As I tried to follow the serpentine of cones that led me around the back of the property and again back to the front, I realized that the cones were not there for the sake of the early crowd, since there were not too many of us. They were put down for the bigger crowds of the 10 a.m. service.

    When I finally found a “first-time-guest” parking spot on the front row, I was happy to park near the door and run in for the beginning of the service. But as I close the doors and began walking away from the car, a parking lot attendant, whom I hope was a overzealous volunteer, yelled from 20 feet away, “hey man, you’ve got to move your car two rows back.”  “Why?” I asked. “Because this row is for first-time visitors only,” he quickly added. “This is my first time,” I rebutted. “You’re ok then,” he replied and turned and walked away.

    A better greeting should have been, “Is this your first time with us?” I would have said, yes and he would have had the opportunity to be the first one to welcome me to the church. Had I said, “no, I’ve been coming here for a while,” he politely could have said, “that’s great, but we reserve these spots for first time guests so they’ll have an easy way to get in on time and hopefully have a great experience today.”

    Instead, I spent the first ten minutes of the service thinking, “that guy yelled at me from across the parking lot and didn’t even say hello.” Ok. Maybe I’m a bit sensitive to these issues, but if you going to serve people, the parking lot is the place where it starts!

    What’s your experience vising a new church or business? How was your parking lot experience?

  • 3 Reasons to Fire a Client

    Sometimes you have to fire your clients. That sounds almost wrong until you give it some thought. Early in entrepreneurial career, I would say “yes” to anyone willing to hire me. The reasoning was simple: I needed to eat and someone was willing to pay for what I had to offer. However, over the years I have lost a lot of money and opportunity courting and working with clients who were not strategically a good fit for my company. Until I realized the true cost of working outside my sweet spot, I continually jumped on every opportunity that came my way.

    What I did not understand for a long time is that for every less-than-ideal client or project we pursued as a business and took on, we gave up the ability to find and work on the projects that were the most enjoyable, most profitable and, therefore, most successful. The allure of the sale-at-any-cost mindset actually cost us business and kept us from growing faster and stronger.

    This frustration led us to develop the critical 3 P’s that we evaluate every ongoing and new opportunity that comes our way.

    Profit
    Some projects (even clients) are not profitable. In my experience the smaller the client, the more demanding and unprofitable they are. You usually spend the same amount of time and effort with less drama and more enjoyment on a larger project that’s much more lucrative. The best thing you can do for your business is fire unprofitable clients.

    Partnership
    It is important for us to be a partner and not just a vendor.  A true partnership is critical during large, complex or ambitious projects. It implies a trust between two parties and if we feel we don’t have that report going in, we usually don’t take the job. Some of our most successful projects have been true collaborations where there was a healthy give and take that made the final product the best it could be.

    Potential
    Not all of our clients are large. Some are small but with the right tools and guidance they  have the potential to grow and become very profitable for us. We love finding partnerships that have lots of potential and helping them grow. I rather partner with a client that has potential than with a large-budget client that’s not completely sold on the partnership. Enthusiasm infuses a lot of creative energy into any project.

    Have you ever fired a client in your line of work? What happened?