Maurilio Amorim

Author: Maurilio Amorim

Getting Your Vision Funded

There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t meet with someone who’s trying to secure funding for a project, business, ministry or church. I love meeting with visionaries who can see an opportunity to make a big impact whether it be in the business sector or in the not-for-profit world. But there are more ideas floating out there than money to fund them. Here’s a few lessons I’ve learned about why some people get their dreams funded, while others don’t.

The idea has to be viable. I know this sounds so basic, but I can’t tell you how many pitches I’ve heard of crazy and just plan bad ideas. Interestingly, I have seen people dip in their retirement accounts, take a second mortgage to propel what it was obviously, to me anyway, a flawed proposition. You can throw good money at a bad idea. It will just take longer to die.

The vision has to be developed. If your pitch passes the “bad idea” test, then any potential investor will want to see beyond the obvious. What’s the sustainability plan? what’s the business and marketing plan for the product, service or even the ministry? If you have too many unanswered questions, no savvy investor will put down money. One of the greatest errors visionaries often make is failure to realize they might only have one shot with a potential investor. If they don’t have their act together during the first meeting, they might not have a second chance. Find someone who understand business principles and systems to help you think through issues. Trust me, a good business coach will ask you questions you didn’t even know existed. Be ready.

The team has to be right. This is where most good ideas go to die. It’s the most difficult situation for any visionary to be in. Even after a promising idea, and a great business and implementation plan, you can still be turned down because your potential investor doesn’t believe you and/or your team have what it takes to execute the plan. I’ve seen this happen in the corporate as well as in the church world. Unless you have a proven record of delivering on big ideas or you have put together a team of high-capacity individuals who have experienced success in the arena of your idea, you might be rejected simply on the grounds of being an unproven risk. If that happens a multiple-investor strategy might work or maybe it’s time for that second mortgage.

If you knew you had money waiting to fund your best idea, what would you do?

January 9, 2012
When You Feel You Have Lost Your Influence

I wonder from time to time if the stuff I write on this blog really matters. Does it ultimately help anyone, or am I rambling on about things that no one really cares? I know that it often helps me to process thoughts and ideas and even to crystallize a concept that has been brewing in my mind for a while. But what about the rest of the people who read these posts? When I question my effectiveness, the reach of my influence, I am thankful for days like today.

I opened an email that read:

“You didn’t know it when you posted this, but I was influenced greatly by it. I was feeling “restless” just before Thanksgiving and your post opened me up to some new possibilities. As it turns out, I have taken a a new job. . . .”

You might be struggling with feelings similar to mine. Maybe it’s not your writing, but your

contribution at work,

your influence on a wayward son or daughter,

a difficult relationship that seems hopeless,

a career that feels stalled.

Let me encourage you to keep going. This email has been a reminder of a lesson I’ve learned long ago: we can never know our influence. So don’t stop doing what you believe you should do, speaking into the lives of those who often don’t respond the way you think they should, doing the work you think needs to be done. It’s hard to pour yourself into what seems to be a vacuum of response. But while it might not be instant and the way you like it, your influence is certain.

What area of your life you new to renew your commitment and move forward?

January 4, 2012
Target Text Gift Card: A Fail Experience

It is a great concept: send a gift card to someone using text messaging. That’s exactly what I wanted. I had a friend who was at a nearby Target, and wanted to send him a birthday gift certificate. As I consumer I was thrilled to be able to do something as cool as sending my friend an instant gift card and have him get it while on the phone with me. It didn’t work.

Target even created an iPhone app that allows one to send a text or email version of a gift card to a mobile-phone user. But what the company failed to tell me is that the transaction usually takes 24 hours to process! Yes, 24 hours. There’s nothing instant about that. I didn’t find that out until several hours and three different customer service calls to India later. In my mind there was nothing to process! You have my money, you have the recipient’s phone or email address, then send the darn email out. Now. Not 24 hours from now.

Great idea + poor implementation = fail. Marketing did its job promoting the product but IT (information technology) failed to deliver on it. After all, we can ship a package around the world in 24 hours. It’s ridiculous to expect that a text or email certificate needs the same amount of time to process.

I tried BestBuy‘s gift card option, and in less than 1 hour, my friend received his email confirmation.

Great ideas usually die on the crucible of bad implementation. Think about the great looking website that is slow and poorly organized, or a book that has a strong concept but that is tedious to get through. They are failed good ideas.

What about your product? Whether is physical product, an experience, or a promise. Are you delivering on the promises or do you need to tweak your system so what was a good idea will not fail because of implementation?

January 2, 2012
My Loud, Scantily Clad Brazilian Christmas

I come from a place where on Christmas Eve people are battling extreme heat, Santa Claus wears thin silk pajamas, and Christmas day arrives with fireworks on the beach. Sounds like 4th of July in Florida, doesn’t it? Well, now that I’m thinking about it, it’s pretty much like that but with Thanksgiving meal thrown in for good measure. Today I’m in Nashville where we’re expecting a white Christmas and the days are short and cold.

But growing up in the Southern Hemisphere in tropical Brazil, I enjoyed Christmas mostly outdoors. Pool parties and trips to the beach marked the beginning of Summer on December 21. Brazilians eat a later dinner, 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve called “ceia”–interestingly, Christmas Eve is one of the only days Brazilians exchange their beloved beef for turkey and Ham. After the big meal, Brazilians still find stamina to go out from house to house to visit friends and family, while managing to eat, drink, sing and even dance until breakfast on Christmas day. On Christmas morning, toasted Panettone with butter and strong Brazilian coffee or “cafezinho” is always served.

Not matter where you are in Brazil, there are late parties going on most every home on Christmas Eve. I remember walking down the street as a teenager to the sound of samba and laughter into the wee hours of the new day. Aah, Christmas and summer are an awesome combination.

Even though Panettone is an Italian tradition, Brazilians have adopted it as their own

Christmas in Rio

This is the most "clothed" picture I was able to find of Brazilians during Christmas

Christmas is one of the only time of the year Brazilians exchange beef for turkey

It's Christmas, let's hit the beach!!

But no matter where in the world I am today, Christmas is a time to celebrate the Light of the World who was born to a virgin to redeem humanity, to redeem me, who desperately needed hope. My prayer for you is that no matter where you are, you’ll feel and experience love, grace and peace that only God’s son can provide. And as Brazilians say, “Feliz Natal”

What Christmas memories do you have?

December 23, 2011
Communicating with a New Generation

If you’re going to lead anything you need to learn to communicate across generations. Most of us have no problem communication with those are older than we are, but we often stumble when dealing with the younger generations. I have studied, worked with and watch e generation that prefers learning in a non-sequential, mosaic way–no doubt influenced by the a culture saturated with endless sound and video bytes. I have experienced that first hand in the lives of my own children whose world is one large media bucket where they both learn and interact with information in a much more informal and yet dynamic way than I did at their age.

We no longer search for information, but information seeks and finds us whenever we are. Between my Twitter and Facebook feeds I’m constantly aware of news, trivia, the important and the ridiculous searching for me every second of the day.

For those of us in communication this seemingly shift toward the chaotic and yet abundant information overload along with the changing learning habits has significant implications. Here’s a few to consider:

1.Publishers that survive this shift will have to figure out how to produce and distribute content that’s beyond the black and white printed page. We might not be reading books, but we’re watching YouTube, reading blogs, listening to podcasts, reading Facebook posts and sharing our own content online.

2. Educators who succeed will no longer be guardians of knowledge since anyone with a phone can now access the all the human knowledge base in seconds. The new educators will help students think, reason and make sense of the available information. Teaching facts is no longer the role of the teacher.

3.Pastors and speakers will connect with this generation by helping them understand the great timeline of faith and how their own stories fit within God’s plan of redemption. They’ll begin spiritual conversations instead of preaching didactic sermons on what not to do. They’ll create environments for Biblical discovery instead of legislating spirituality.

4.Employers will have to understand that this generation is not lazy, but that they live life full and in the moment and that relationships, causes and even pleasure will not be postponed for the sake of a career and “getting ahead.” Quality of life is the new currency superseding the almighty dollar.

5.Parents must instill a strong moral and ethical code within their children from birth. There are not enough Internet filters and tv channel blockers to protect our children from the culture’s information dump being pushed at them at the speed of light. If we can’t shelter them from life as we know it, we must get to their hearts and minds before the rest of the planet does.

What other areas do you see a need in a different communication approach?

December 20, 2011
Authenticity and Your Brand Promise

“We are good at copying but not good at being authentic.” Those were difficult words for a pastor to say, but both he and I knew they were true. As we talked, he told me he had visited enough congregations to know how churches freely “borrowed” others’ identity. I ran into that problem early on in my marketing career as I was asked to create something that looked exactly like someone else’s work . Even today, my company gets calls from churches that want to use one of our client’s logo, brand identity and promises as their own. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

I believe that’s a problem way beyond churches and businesses. We often want to copy the style of something or someone without possession any of the substance. I know church leaders go to great lengths to look and act like prominent Christian leaders without spending the time and discipline it takes to develop the skills that propel these successful men and women forward.

It takes more than plastic frame glasses, a shirt from the Buckle, and an iPad to make you a good communicator, much less a good leader. Wearing a vest with a t-shirt and jeans doesn’t make you any more relevant and authentic than wearing your underwear over spandex tights makes you a superhero. Substance, not style, ultimately wins.

Have you ever been taken in by the style but let down by the lack of substance? I’m sure you have. These are the times that an institution or a person promised something they never fully delivered. Sadly, many of us have walked away from churches, businesses, friendships and marriages because we fell in love with the promise of the packaging but couldn’t live with the performance of the product. It’s amazing when we get both, however.

When was the last time you walked away from a relationship or an institution because the product did not match the promise? What could have changed that?

December 19, 2011
Are You Asking the Important Questions?

Back in 1988 Eastman Kodak had a surplus of 1.4 billion dollars the equivalent of nearly 2.5 billion in today’s dollars and 11 profitable business units. This year Kodak is set to lose between 400 and 600 million dollars, its 12 losing quarter in the past 15 quarters according to an article on USA Today. The digital revolution has hit the once-global giant hard. Its stock peak at nearly $100 a share and now is considered junk, worth less than a dollar per share. Interestingly, Kodak researches invented the digital camera.

According to the article, the film business was just too lucrative to do shift gears into the digital opportunity with its much smaller margins. It didn’t happen overnight but the day Eastman Kodak decided to ignore the trend it help to start for the sake of their most profitable product, it was the day the company began to die. Today Kodak is fighting for its life and some analysts do not believe it can survive.

There’s a lesson here for all of us, no matter what we do for a living. Whether we work in the market place or we lead a church or not for profit, the day we ignore what’s best for the people we serve in order to preserve our best-selling, most profitable product is the day we set our organization into the death spiral that will land it into the state of irrelevance, bankruptcy or both.

The very company that ushered the digital revolution is now a victim of it. Think about it. How many great businesses and churches that were once innovators that are now gone or ineffective. I believe they got enamored with their own product, and their ability to improve upon it, that they failed to ask the important questions: is our product still relevant? Is this what people really need? What’s the future look like? Those are easy questions to answer when you have 2.5 billion dollars in the bank. They are impossible to answer when you’re fighting for you life.

Often my company is asked to help church and organizations that are fighting for their lives. Sometimes we get to enjoy the visionary leaders who know that while things are well, they need to think of a different future and start planning accordingly. They want to answer to important questions during the good times so they can still be successful 10, 20 years from now and seize not only the moment, but also the future.

Is your organization asking the important questions? Are you working hard to sell a great product, or are you working hard to solve a current problem?

December 14, 2011
My Near Death Experience with Spanx for Men

It almost pulled my bad shoulder out of socket and it pinned my right arm next to my right ear as I desperately tried pulling down the powerful compression Spanx undershirt that was cutting the blood circulation to my head. I panicked because I was alone at home and the only thought that came to my mind was a horrifying one, “I can’t die with spandex wrapped around my neck. How would Gwen ever explain that?” As the room began to grow darker because of the lack of blood flowing to my brain, I made one more desperate tug downward and got the t-shirt half-way down my chest. I sat down on my bed and rested a few seconds before the second half of my compression undergarment battle.

Spanx for men is a big hit these days. For centuries women have donned girdles, corsets and many other variations of undergarments, or as we call them now, “shapewear.” Through the miracle of spandex and elastane, the underwear industry has squeezed women into better looking legs, waist and, yes, breasts. Recently, Spanx, a 12-year old company that has had the corner on women’s shapewear launched a full men’s line. Men immediately flocked to it creating a 6-week back order ordeal in both high-end retail stores as well as online. The company obviously underestimated the market demand. My business partners, Tami Heim and Shannon Litton asked me to write a Fashion Friday post about it. Well, I couldn’t do it without trying the darn thing on. After a near-death encounter trying to get dressed, I thought I was not going to be able to wear it, but my body adjusted quickly, and I felt immediately trimmer.

The makers of these “extreme compression” under garments don’t make any big claims: while you will not get six-pack abs by wearing your Spanx shirt, you might look 5 lbs smaller and be able to tighten your belt one more hole. Well, that’s enough for a lot of men to pay anywhere from $55 to $80 for one of these shirts.

There are two main categories of guys buying shape wear: really fit men who want to show off their hard work by just wearing the undershirts with pants in public and overweight guys who want to get rid of love handles, bulges and moobs (aka man boobs).

I tried on the grey sleeves tank version under a tight casual shirt and I must say that while I did not need the extra compression to flatten my stomach, I did like the way it helped me keep a better posture by helping me sit up straight and keep erect without slouching, which is something I have always struggled with. Amazingly, the few extra pounds I have been trying to get rid of were forced to go somewhere else. I’m not sure where, but who cares? Another unintended benefit is that I could only eat small portions of foods since my stomach had no room to grow, literally.

It’s not all fun and games however. Since my undershirt was sleeveless, it only had a narrow band of material connecting the front and back. Hour 6 of my day I could feel a furrow being created on both shoulders. When I tried pulling it up, it would snap back making the furrow deeper and causing suspicious looks from those nearby.

I forgot I had it on and went to see my Chiropractor that afternoon. As he tried to gain access to my back and couldn’t muscle the powerful sausage casing from my body, he yelled out for everyone to hear: “What the heck are you wearing? Is this a girdle?” “Uh, no. It’s called “compression wear” I retorted and quickly asked him a question to get off subject.

Women have suffered for beauty for a long, long time. It seems like guys are willing to be squeezed a little in order to enjoy a few more 5 Guys Burgers.

Guys, would you wear a Spanx if it took care of your gut, love handles or unsightly bulges? Ladies, would your man wear one?

December 9, 2011
You Cannot Tweak Your Way into Effectiveness

I have been guilty of trying to tweak something that needed a major overhaul. After a lot of effort and resources making minor adjustments here and there, I usually end up with slightly more effective and yet still unsatisfactory results. Yes there might be some change, even some forward progress, but not enough to make a difference.

I don’t know your circumstances, but I’m almost certain that there’s an area of your life, your business, or ministry that is in desperate need of a complete overhaul right now and all you are doing are minor tweaks. I understand the fear of the disruption a bold course of action might cause. I get the fact that the consequences of a difficult move might be more than you have bargain for. They usually are.

I also know that when we fail to do the difficult thing, we fail, period. If I have learned anything in life is that “tweaking” something that’s not working is an expensive game that can costs us our health, our relationships and even our business. It’s choosing the appearance of leadership instead of paying the price true leadership. But with it comes resolution, forward momentum, a new lease on life, a different future.

What ares of your life are you tweaking into failure? What needs an overhaul?

December 6, 2011
I Did Not Get Here on My Own: My Turn to Make Deposits

“How did I get here?” I thought to myself yesterday as I was hanging Christmas lights in front of my home. It was not as much an existential question but one of introspection and thinking through my life journey. It didn’t take long to answer it, however. First I thought of how faithful God has been to me over the years. Since the day I decided to leave my parents in Brazil and go to Bible College in America, God has been the only constant, never disappointing force in my life. But then I thought of the people whose lives I have intersected over the years and whom have been such a blessing, encouragement and friends to me. I know I could not have the life I have today without their deposits in me.

Early on during my college days, I had families “adopt” and take me in their homes when I trip to Brazil was just not possible. I was mentored by godly men and women and loved by strangers who became dear friends. God’s provision oftentimes came in human form. These were gracious people who found time in their busy days to give of themselves, and often their resources, to help shape my life, and, therefore, shape he live I know lead. My children now benefit from their kindness and generosity.

This morning I’m taking inventory and praying for those who have shaped me. But I’m also challenged to think of the people whose paths are crossing mine right now. I’m compelled to be a blessing for them.

My challenge today is to make deposits into the lives of those whose paths cross mine and to give them a chance to look back a few years from now and ask the same question I did yesterday, “how did I get here?”

Who came to mind as you read this? What kind of deposit are you compelled to make?

December 5, 2011