The other day I came home and my 17 year old daughter said she can not get me out of her head. I asked her what she was talking about. She said “every time I procrastinate or think about a task I either don’t want to do or find it hard to do, your words ‘Mind over Matter’ (if you don’t mind, it don’t matter) keep popping up in my head and I clearly see your face.” She then smiled and screamed “I can’t get you out of my mind. Help me!!!!!!”
That was the moment I was waiting for my whole life— getting validation that I truly am making a difference in my daughter’s life. It’s what we all strive for with our employees, customers, family and friends – making a difference and knowing your words of advice are being heard and being acted on.
There are 7 keys to creating lasting impacts in the lives of others:
Accept People for Who They Are— We are all different and therefore we look at things differently and have different aspirations. Stop trying to make people do things the way you do them. Accept them for who they are and guide them with your expertise so they can flourish in their own way.
Relate to People—People don’t do things because they are told to do it. They do things because they feel it will help them. Relating to others is sharing ideas in the context of how it will help them. Stop talking about your reasons as to why they should do things.
Acknowledge Successes—It is very important to tell people you love them and that you appreciate them and their efforts. We all need to hear this and when we do, our minds become open to new ideas. We are motivated to reach new heights. Acknowledge successes and never, ever follow that up with a criticism. Otherwise you just eliminated the good feelings associated with the success.
Personal Accountability—- It is very important to hold each other accountable for our promises and actions. Holding people accountable is not being mean. It simply is a method for not letting others allow excuses to get in the way of achieving results. Excuses are man’s best friend in providing comfort and reasons as to why we could not do certain things. Results, not excuses, are what produce a fulfilling and happy life. Let’s not become enablers for failure. Let’s help enable others to be the best they can be.
Listening—Sometimes our role needs to simply be a listener. Letting people we care about vent their feelings and frustrations. Sometimes all people need is just to be heard and not told what to do. Having a safe source to unload one’s burdens is critical in order to free up both physical and mental energy necessary to create better results in our lives.
Encourage People to Fail—-Failure is a critical element for success. We learn from our mistakes. In fact all successful people fail more than they succeed. A .300 hitter batter in baseball gets only 3 hits in 10 at bats, but is considered a superstar and makes millions of dollars. Allow people to fail. Encourage them to fail. I value those who fail more than those who do not fail because they are afraid to do anything that doesn’t work out.
Learn from Mistakes—As leaders, we need to help those who depend on our guidance to learn from their mistakes and figure out how to do things better. Critical in this initiative is not you telling them what to do. But rather listening to their thought process on how they will go forward. Leaders don’t manage actions. They coach thought processes. They look at how people think, identify gaps in the thinking process that need to be addressed and then help with those gaps. This is what a leader does for long-term growth and success.
These are the seven keys I use to make a difference in my daughter’s life and with those who depend on me. Life is about achieving and giving back to others so we can all achieve.
The fastest way to grow your business and sales is by providing your customers with great customer experiences. Great customer experiences occur when everyone in the company, not just the sales reps, accept the responsibility and accountability for the role they play in the process. This video shows one example of how people were not vigilant in creating a great customer experience. It also depicts how a 50 year old company excels in creating great customer experiences by enrolling all of its employees into the process of creating great customer experiences. (more…)
Getting people to accept your point of view or proposals depends on how well you portray confidence to the person that you are trying to influence. To close more deals and get people to do what you are asking, learn the mindsets from which you need to operate! (more…)
Tim Seale, president of Timber Trading had built a successful wholesale lumber business. However, he realized there was going to be a limited premium that customers would be willing to pay to a middleman to facilitate deals between lumber yards and mills. The only way he would remain profitable was to add value to the process.
Tim decided to buy lumber and bring it to a warehouse where he could regrade it and create a product that exceeded industry acceptable standards. His company created a whole new packaging and labeling system that actually drove down inventory costs. He added a few more innovative products and services, until one day, his competitors realized Tim had created a new way of doing business.
Tim Seale is a visionary. He realized that a new vision was needed and that a whole new set of actions were required if he was to succeed in turning that vision into reality. It wasn’t easy, but he succeeded.
In these difficult times, what steps do you need to turn your vision into a reality?
How to Plan for the Future in Difficult Times
Timber Trading survived the housing downturn that crippled the building industry and the lumber industry. They understood the importance of visualizing the future and building a plan based on that future.
Here are questions to consider:
1. What changes do you see in your industry?
2. What ways can you improve your business and its way of doing business?
3. What can you do to set your company apart from competitors?
If you think the problem through, you’ll see the hidden opportunities that will help you reach your goals.
Justin Bieber is by far the biggest teen sensation today and for that matter one of the biggest stars of all. At the ripe old age of 17, you may be wondering how he achieved this phenomenal success. Truth be told, he did it the old fashioned way; a lot of hard work coupled with ingenuity.
In looking at his success over the past 4 years, the three key strategies he used to build his fame are what I have been urging my audiences as a motivational sales speaker to do themselves on a daily basis. And you can use them too to enhance your success in life.
1. Hard Work – Justin knew that in order to succeed, he had to win over all of his market segments. That included the fans, radio stations and recording studios. He first started making YouTube videos of his songs and posted them on the internet. Slowly but surely, he developed a following until one day a record produce saw his video and signed him to a contract.
Justin did not stop there. He then went to hundreds of radio stations to promote his songs and gain their support to play them on the air. He gained their support not just by showing up, but by using the internet to make the radio stations successful. Before each appearance he would send tweets, write blogs on where he was appearing next. Fans started to show up and before you knew it the radio stations had huge throngs outside their studios waiting for Justin. He made the radio stations successful that were happy to return the favor.
2. Be Damn Good- There is an old marketing saying that you are your best marketing brochure. Want to sell more of your stuff and ideas, be good at what you do. Better yet, be great at what you do.
3. Create a Phenomenal Customer Experience- Justin excels at creating phenomenal customer experiences. He is all about being out there with his fans and making sure they are enjoying themselves. On this morning’s Today Show, Justin was promoting his upcoming movie and talked about how he enjoyed going to the top row of the venues he was playing at and giving front row tickets to some of those folks. That act alone has created hundreds if not thousands of lifetime fans who are now promoting his work to all of their friends. He understands the power of the customer experience and how that can propel anyone’s success.
During that same interview, Matt Lauer brought in a female fan from the street to ask Justin a question. The girl was in shock. First thing Justin did was to give her his 3 D glasses and made her feel comfortable. After answering the question, he told the girl to come here and he gave her a hug. In Matt Lauer’s words to Justin, “you just made that girl a hero in the eyes of her friends”. Justin knows that each and every encounter with a customer is an opportunity to either lose or win a customer for life. He excels at winning customers for life.
Justin Bieber may only be 17 years of age, but he has a lot to teach all of us on how to propel both our organizations and ourselves to greater levels of success.
To learn more about this subject, please join me on Monday, October 3rd at 2pm ET for a free webinar where we will show you how to engage alliances as well as other strategies to immediately grow your sales. Click here to reserve your free seat now!
Check Out the November Sales Success Summit ’11 in Orlando Florida, an event destined to dramatically increase your sales success. Spend two days with me and I will personally customize ideas that have generated millions of dollars for my clients to your selling environment. This is a small group. Two days of personalized attention. Reserve your seat today by clicking here!
The key to your success is the ability to influence others to accept your ideas, requests, etc. The good news is everyone has the capacity to influence others. All you have to do to harness the capacity is remove three self imposed obstacles that usually get in your way.
First obstacle is your belief that you cannot influence others. Anytime you think about what you cannot do, most often you will create that dreaded result as a self fulfilling prophecy. The mind cannot process the negative. If you think you cannot get that person to say yes, the mind is only thinking about that person saying no. Everything you do will be centered on that result and that’s how you produce a self fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if you think about how this person is going to agree with you, then your mind is now thinking about a different end result and your actions will be different. Influence starts and ends with your mindset. Click here to read more on the beliefs that will enhance your success in life.
Second obstacle is your need to put your self-interests ahead of others. People act on things and ideas for their own reasons, not yours. Find out what people are trying to accomplish. Then show how your ideas/requests are going to help them achieve their goals. Do this often and your level of influence will increase significantly. Your ability to influence others does not lie in the words you use, but in the context in which you say them.
Third obstacle is the propensity to take rejection personally. When someone does not accept your ideas, they are not rejecting you. They simply do not feel it is in their best interests and that the risk vs. reward is too high. Stop allowing the stories in your mind to take over. Simply find out what’s missing for the person you are trying to influence and fill in that gap. Remember, people do things for their own reasons, not yours.
Bottom Line: Many times ideas are rejected not because they are bad, but because their value has not been properly communicated. Influence is about meeting the needs of others and helping them achieve their desired results. Concentrate on eliminating the three self imposed obstacles and watch your level of influence skyrocket. Click here to download three free chapters of a book that will help you increase your sphere of influence.
Please comment on this post and let us know what you have done to help incresae your sphere of influence.
If companies are to survive today, they must convince customers and prospects that their products/services are not just nice to have, but are a “must have.”
That’s the position Karen Cone found herself in at the beginning of the Great Recession when she was President and CEO of TowerGroup, the leading research and advisory services firm focused exclusively on the financial services industry. Having to cut expenses in all areas, her clients were wondering if they truly needed those services. Her competitors were losing clients as well so Cone started working with me.
“We needed to change the sales strategy and find a way to deal with clients in crisis. And we needed to communicate and sell our value proposition in a way that was different and more compelling than what had worked before,” she said. “In other words, we needed to move from being considered a “nice to have” to a “must have.”
We both agreed that if her sales force was going to succeed, it had to move from selling a product to selling an end result. That way they could raise the importance of the service in the minds of the buyers.
The results were extraordinary.
“Many of our competitors were being cut out all together,” she said. “We actually retained the vast majority of our clients. And we retained them at a level of spend that was extremely respectable.”
“As budgets loosened up, TowerGroup was really well positioned to take advantage of that,” she said. “These methodologies and approaches made a big difference in helping that happen.”
To learn more about this subject, please join me on Monday, October 3rd at 2pm ET for a free webinar where we will show you how to engage alliances as well as other strategies to immediately grow your sales. Click here to reserve your free seat now!
Check Out the November Sales Success Summit ’11 in Orlando Florida, an event destined to dramatically increase your sales success. Spend two days with me and I will personally customize ideas that have generated millions of dollars for my clients to your selling environment. This is a small group. Two days of personalized attention. Reserve your seat today by clicking here!
Please Comment on how you turned your products/services from a nice to have to a “must” have
Yesterday I was sitting in the exit row on a flight when the flight attendant came to all three of us sitting in that row and asked if we would assist in helping to evacuate the plane in case of an emergency. Two of us replied yes. The person sitting next to me incredibly said NO! The flight attendant was stunned. Then he asked if anyone would change seats with the guy.
I asked the guy why he wouldn’t help. His reply: “I am not sticking around to save people. I am only concerned with getting my butt out.” How selfish can this guy be? I then told him “Dude, all you have to do is open the door and get your butt out. Everyone will be following you.” He then accepted his mission.
This self focused mindset is one that I often see occur with sales executives, managers and business owners at one time or another. It is often not meant to be self serving as it is in an attempt to protect one’s self interest and achieve one’s goals. It is also perceived as being arrogant and self absorbed and does get in the way of one getting rich and growing one’s business.
The key to growing sales and a business is to be dedicated to helping people achieve their goals. Help others get to where they want to go safely and you will in turn get more than you ever thought was possible. Customers do business with people who help them succeed. Not with people who are only interested in saving their butt at all costs.
You most probably do care about your customers. But please stay vigilant and do not let your actions position you as a self centered and arrogant individual like the guy sitting next to me in the exit row. It can be the difference between have a good year and having a great year.
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In today's sales world there's no room for followers. But there's plenty of room for leaders. In Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way, Ron Karr outlines a repeatable process based on the powerful idea that great sellers lead relationships in the same way that great leaders sell ideas.
The other day I came home and my 17 year old daughter said she can not get me out of her head. I asked her what she was talking about. She said “every time I procrastinate or think about a task I either don’t want to do or find it hard to do, your words ‘Mind over Matter’ (if you don’t mind, it don’t matter) keep popping up in my head and I clearly see your face.” She then smiled and screamed “I can’t get you out of my mind. Help me!!!!!!”
