Leadership Skills - Inspire Your Team To Win

Sales Skills - 10 Best Sales Questions to Use When Talking with a Prospect

PRESENTATION SKILLS - SIMPLE NUMBERS TO IMPROVE YOUR MESSAGES

SALES SKILLS - 5 WAYS TO SPEED UP YOUR SALES PROCESS

LEADERSHIP - CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT

You can always rely on change

Evolving technology and our need for speed and convenience have always motivated entrepreneurs, scientists, inventors, and large companies to scramble to develop the next big gadget.

To capture the opportunities that an ever-changing marketplace offers, leaders need to think in new ways.

In his book, Third Thoughts, professional speaker and author Jim Cathcart asserts that your thinking expands your ability to capture the power of change. In a nutshell, tomorrow is created by today’s thoughts and belief systems.

Similarly, in his book, If It Ain’t Broke, Break It, Robert Kriegel calls for a complete overhaul of our traditional thought processes. He advocates that you fix things before the environment mandates that they be fixed.

LIFE IS A PROCESS

Change is a constant in life; therefore, there are no destinations, only journeys. You cannot stand still. Life itself is motion; you are either moving forward and growing or you are falling behind. To fully grasp the concepts in this article, it is important that you recognize and accept this. In fact, welcome change with open arms.

The world is changing rapidly. As Kriegel points out, “ The rules are no sooner established than they become obsolete.”

In this rapidly changing world, there is not a lot of time to figure out the new rules every time they change. That is where innovation and creativity come into play. Change and growth can either be designed by you or thrust upon you.

The time to change is when there is little pressure to do so. That is how you make change proactive rather than reactive. That is how you stay ahead of the competition.

SELF-DIRECTED CHANGE

Imagine a curve indicating growth. The upward sweep of the curve depicts a time when you are learning and improving your skills. At some point your growth peaks and you reach a plateau. If you were to remain stagnant in your professional development, you would follow the downward trend of the growth curve, going into a decline. The decline might represent decreased market share, income, enthusiasm, and momentum. If however, you anticipate change and implement it early, the plateau is brief and followed by another upward swing of the growth curve.

This is self-directed change. The growth continues until you reach the next plateau. After some time on that plateau, you improve your skills or change your techniques and grow more until the next plateau. One growth curve leads to the next. The lags in growth or plateaus are periods of investment of time and energy before the effort pays off.

There is nothing wrong with plateaus; everyone has them. It is virtually impossible to be growing constantly. The important feature of the self-directed growth curve is that, on average, it continues up over time.

On the other hand, environmentally-directed change is change that is imposed by external factors rather than being initiated by the individual. A person who operates with this M.O. will grow and reach a plateau, but instead of a short lag before further growth, there will be a fear of change. This fear will prevent the investment of time and energy and will prolong the plateau.

The plateau would become a downward trend until the person recognized the need for change. When you change too late, you lose market share and forward momentum. By playing catch-up, you will create a new growth curve, but rarely will you make up what you have lost by not changing early in the game. Your “ lag” is much larger, and costly.

YOU ACHIEVE WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Beliefs play a major role in your ability and willingness to change and achieve. Beliefs are the foundations for possibilities; possibilities lead to actions and actions create results, which foster new beliefs. All success has its roots in change and, as such, is a significant self-esteem booster.

FUEL YOUR PASSION

To capitalize on change you must have a fire in your heart and a sense of passion that propels you forward when others freeze. Selling skills, product knowledge, persistence, drive, education, and goals are some of the many sources of fuel for your fire. You must also be flexible.

Change will be thrust upon you regardless of your acceptance of it, so you might as well accept it and capitalize on it. If you are not adaptable, you will soon lose the race.

The drive for success does not happen by spontaneous combustion. You must spark the fire within you.

There is a need for leaders to adopt new thinking. While everyone else is swimming with the current, the leader of the 21st century swims against it. You have to blaze your own trail. That means initiating new ideas, devising new strategies and casting a creative eye toward everything you do. You will make great strides by developing an enlightened, independent attitude.

When you are on a roll, conventional wisdom dictates that you “ leave well enough alone.” “ If it ain’t broke,” the wise conformists would advise, “ don’t fix it.” Be a nonconformist because when “ it” breaks, it will be too late to fix it.

YOU MUST MESS WITH SUCCESS

The message is clear. You must continually plan ahead and position yourself for the future. Just as products have life cycles — including maturation and extinction — so do services.

Leaders become expendable commodities unless they continually find new ways to differentiate themselves from other people vying for leadership positions.

All the best with your business leadership!

SALES SKILLS... DO YOU HAVE A CEO MINDSET?

It makes no difference where you are in your sales career, whether you’re a sales manager, a sales broker, or a sales rep. The million-dollar question applies to everyone in the sales profession.

The fact is, you will not reach your potential as a sales professional until you answer the question, and answer it correctly.

"Am I a salesperson in business, or am I a business owner in sales?"

Having coached thousands of sales professionals to greater levels of success, we at EC have witnessed that in almost every circumstance, the first business breakthrough occurred when the salesperson adopted something called a “CEO mind-set,”.

This is the point at which one begins to see herself or himself as a business owner rather than a mere salesperson in business. It’s that simple change in thinking that becomes the catalyst for each salesperson’s climb toward greater success. And that simple change in thinking can jump-start your sales career as well.

Adopting a CEO mind-set begins when you stop thinking of yourself as an employee with a job and start thinking of yourself as an owner of a business with a compelling vision to help people. Consider how your thinking has affected your investments in your sales career to this point. When it comes to your sales job…

Do you only spend money on the things that your employer will allow you to expense? A business owner would invest whatever is necessary to allow the business to thrive, even if that means using his or her own cash.

Do you simply stay busy so the time passes more quickly each day? A business owner utilizes every minute of the workday because wasted time equals wasted money and wasted opportunities.

Are you more concerned with your effort or your effectiveness? A business owner measures effectiveness first — sprinting on a treadmill gets one nowhere.

Are you more concerned with the quantity or the quality of your sales? A business owner focuses on quality, knowing that trust established with clients multiplies quantity of sales.

Are you more concerned with your activity or your results? A business owner measures results on a regular basis to determine what activities are and are not working.

Are you more concerned with earning a potential client’s cash or confidence?

A business owner knows that without trust she will never realize the full monetary value of a client, and therefore is willing to trade commission for constancy if necessary.

Would you say you’ve been thinking more like an employee or a CEO?

The defining characteristic of a CEO mind-set is thinking like an owner. It is taking responsibility for your own growth and the growth of your business. It’s understanding that what you do as a salesperson is operate a business that provides products and services, and to do that well and with integrity increases the likelihood of your success and stability. It’s knowing that you must have a business plan to succeed. It’s knowing that you must have accountability, a “board of directors,” to help you consistently make wise decisions that will grow your business.

Simply put, it’s acknowledging that you alone are the largest shareholder in your business, then beginning to act like it’s so.

Thomas Dreier once said, “The life each of us lives is the life within the limits of our own thinking.” And that is certainly true in your sales career. In fact, the successful salesperson knows that to elevate his career, to establish the lasting trust of his clients, he must first expand the limits of his thinking.

A Contrast in Thinking

There’s an obvious disparity between salespeople who’ve adopted a CEO mind-set and those who assume the mind-set of the majority. Here are several examples of how this contrast in thinking plays out every day in the world of sales:

Salesperson Thinking

• Pays only for what can be reimbursed
• Calls on anybody
• Reacts to interruptions
• Keeps safe clients
• Is busy and action oriented
• Puts quantity before quality
• Puts profits before people
• Puts revenue before reputation
• Builds business ahead of capacity
• Prioritizes schedules
• Is short-term oriented
• Relies on quick turnaround
• Succeeds by accident

CEO Thinking

• Invests money to make money
• Calls on the right body
• Makes sure interruptions don’t occur
• Terminates unprofitable relationships
• Is productive and results focused
• Knows quality creates more quantity
• Puts people before profits
• Puts reputation before revenue
• Builds capacity ahead of business
• Schedules priorities
• Is long-term oriented
• Relies on clients’ trust
• Succeeds by design

Thinking like a CEO is the first key to becoming a highly successful salesperson. You see, the future of your sales career begins not in your hands or your feet, but in your mind.

In other words, how you think as a sales professional will determine how you act as a sales professional. Successful thinking precedes successful selling. And until you begin to think like a successful business owner you won’t consistently make decisions or take actions that maximize your sales business.

Look at it this way: Until you can think for yourself, customers won’t trust what you’re thinking. And in sales, trust is everything.

All the best when selling!

PRESENTATION SKILLS... DO NOT SAY TOO MUCH

One of the keys to effective public speaking is knowing when to stop. And, this does not only mean at the end of your presentation.

Stopping within your presentation is also important. Your story can be too long or contain too much unnecessary information. You may take too long to answer a question; you may spend too much time explaining a visual aid.

The general principle for all of these speaking elements is to stop when audience interest is at its peak.

When telling a story, you must have a sense of direction. Never take too long to describe a scene and don’t take too long to get to the point of the story. The story has to be exceptional to take more than two minutes of speaking time. When you get to the point of the story—stop! Don’t explain and review the story after the punch line; this is the time to move on. Let the point of the story be what you leave the audience to think about. If you feel a need to explain the story, you probably have not done a good job of telling the story in the first place.

If you are telling a funny story, and the audience does not respond as you expected, do not explain what you think they may have missed. Just move on to your next point.

Answer a question as concisely as possible. Your goal should be thirty seconds or less. The only person really interested in knowing the answer is probably the person who asked the question; the rest of the audience might get bored quickly with information that is unimportant to them.

In addition, if you take too long to give your answer the audience will lose interest. If you start summarizing and repeating parts of your answer, you have gone too long. If you can answer a question in one sentence or with one word, do so. That will insure that you have finished at the height of audience interest.

In providing statistical evidence, stop with the most significant statistic and divide statistics into threes if you have several to give. That is all the audience can assimilate at one time. Providing information in threes is a pattern that audiences respond to with good attention.

There certainly is a point about knowing when to stop at the end of the presentation as well. Know before you begin how much time you have to speak and then plan to stop a couple of minutes before time is up.

Our culture is very time-conscious and a speaker will be perceived as more effective if he or she does not exceed the time limit.

The point of speaking is not just to share information with an audience; it is also to know when to stop sharing.

Leave the audience wanting to hear more.

You know you have succeeded when you hear departing audience members saying, “Time went so fast; I could have listened for another hour!”






All the best with your business communications!