Sales – Page 13 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Making Your But More Powerful

February 3, 2010/3 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest blogger is Brian Ahearn who has written here before. Once again, we’re talking about buts. Sorry – I couldn’t resist acting like a third grader there. Take it away Brian before this goes further downhill…

A few weeks ago I read Mike’s article Managerial Miscues: The But(t) Sandwich (Reprise) and told him I really liked it but…

The article addressed how people often blow it when it comes to bringing about behavioral changes because all too often they want to appear nice so they say something nice then finish with “but…” and take the other person to the proverbial woodshed. Not effective management.

I teach classes on ethical influence and persuasion and one of the things I talk about with people is the power of transitional words like “but” and “however.” We focus on how to strategically use those words to make the most effective presentation because small changes can make a big impact!

Here’s the basic teaching point for you to remember when it comes to transitional words – people forget what comes before “but” and focus on what comes after. For example, has anyone ever said this to you, “Honey, I love you but…”? Odds are, all you remembered was the hammer falling after hearing the word “but.”

So how can you use your but better?

Bread, Lawn Mowers, and Cheap Customers: A New Year’s Resolution to Improve Your Business

January 4, 2010/5 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

To get your New Year started right, I’d like to share with you what I’ve been taught by homemade bread, lawn mowers, and cheap customers. They’ve all taught me my time is valuable and I have to protect it.

Bread

In this economy, money saving tips and articles are hot. You can read such advice all over the web. I recently read one of the dumbest articles I’ve ever seen on this exact topic. The basic premise was you can save a lot of money by doing things yourself. The example they used was one of making homemade bread.

The basic math they used was you buy 4 loaves of bread per month at $2 which comes to about $100/year. Their brilliant idea was buy a bread machine for $60 and ingredients for about $10-15 a year and you’d be saving bread in no time (pun intended).

Hey morons… how about the cost of the gas to go to the store? But that’s not the fatal flaw in this article. What they really forgot to factor in is the cost of your TIME. If you’re making $80,000 per year, your time is worth $40/hour. Suddenly that bread got extremely expensive.

This is only one case of stupidity. Of course I can’t help myself and I have to offer more…

Walking Away from the Cash is Good Business

December 21, 2009/6 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Sometimes there’s nothing tougher than a heaping helping of your own medicine. In this case it involves me, a nice pile of cash, peer pressure, and a tough decision.

You folks know how often I rant about the fact that strategy is about saying “no.” It’s easy for me to pontificate on this point. I tell you about companies I’ve seen do this well and others I’ve seen screw it up.

On Friday, it was my turn to put up or shut up. Today I’d like to recap the thoughts and events that led me to turn my back on an opportunity to earn a decent chunk of change. In sharing this I hope to make this critical strategic lesson accessible and easy to understand so you, in turn, can apply it to your business.

Allow me to bore you for a moment and explain my firm’s strategy so you have some context. I run a leadership training business. Our strategy is to offer training sessions on critical business skills to large companies. We differentiate ourselves with the experience level of our instructors. We value delivering outstanding service to our clients and delivering top notch business results.

We grow by deepening relationships with existing clients (translation: becoming part of corporate universities or recurring leadership programs) and adding new clients. When we’re not teaching, we’re developing new clients, building new classes, or eating Cookie Crisp while watching Spongebob reruns (it’s about a balanced lifestyle folks).

That strategy sounds pretty clear, no? This is where it gets screwed up though…

Do You Want Magic to Happen? Just Pick Up the Phone

December 14, 2009/4 Comments/in Career, Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Your business needs all the help it can get. A big part of that help comes in the form of customers, partners, and associates you hire. The problem is, all of those things are hard to come by.

Sure it’s easy to find them on the Internet. LinkedIn brings you a bevy of new candidates, websites point you to potential business partners, and if you don’t know how to find your customers, you need to step away from the computer right now and go file for unemployment.

For many of you it’s hard to convert all this information into real impact. Sure there are thousands of websites out there and profiles to look through but it’s not clear how to move all that data into the real world.

Even worse, I’m sure you know that one person who’s a rainmaker. They’re constantly landing new clients. New partnerships pop up on every side of them. Their team is always fully staffed with great talent. And we hate them for it. They make it look so easy.

I’m here to tell you that you can be that rainmaker. What’s the difference between you and them? They know how to punch 10 digits into this odd little machine called a phone. Here’s how it works:

Want People to Think You’re Brilliant? Then Don’t Say a Word

December 7, 2009/13 Comments/in Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

We judge people based on our interactions with them. Their clothes, their looks, their coiff (yes, I’m looking at you Blagojevich), and most importantly, what they say. But remember, we are also judged by others on the same basis.

In difficult financial times, you’re eager to make a great impression. You want to blow away senior management with how brilliant you are. You want your customers to love you. You strive to influence business partners to work with you. The thing is, you’re probably trying too hard.

I recently had a couple of experiences that reaffirmed an important lesson I learned long ago but have occasionally forgotten. One of those experiences reminded me I hadn’t been applying the lesson and the other experience confirmed the power of the technique.

There’s one surefire way to guarantee people think you’re amazing: don’t say a word.

You read that correctly. Shut your pie hole and great things happen.

Did You Blink? 4 Leadership Trends You Can’t Afford to Miss

November 23, 2009/1 Comment/in Communications, Customer Service, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Social Media, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s been a crazy year. Bank implosions, wars, Adam Lambert not winning American Idol… craziness I tell you! It has also been a crazy year for leaders. Leading organizations through a turbulent economy has been a Herculean effort.

Fortunately for me, I sit in a position where I can watch leadership trends unfold across the many industries and companies we work with here at thoughtLEADERS. We’re blessed to have the opportunity to train some of the brightest client organizations out there.

This year, we’ve seen four major trends take center stage. If you’ve missed them, you’re missing huge opportunities to improve your organization. As a leader, you need every edge you can get so I encourage you to explore these trends and figure out how you can take advantage of them. So in no particular order, here are trends you can’t miss as a leader:

Are You Telling Customers You Don’t Care if They Die?

November 2, 2009/5 Comments/in Communications, Customer Service, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

If you have kids, you know the nauseating feeling of one of your kids going down for the count and having to rush to the emergency room. I had that wonderful experience very recently. What I learned from that visit to the ER is businesses can make very strong statements about how little they care about their customers simply through the processes they use to run the organization.

I’m betting you have a few standard business processes that leave your customers and prospects feeling like you don’t care if they die. First let’s understand the ER story then evaluate how it might apply to your organization. Yes, I’m back on the kick of talking about how stupid policies can destroy customer relationships.

My daughter was curled up in a ball on our couch. She was grabbing her stomach and howling in pain. After a quick set of questions, I made the decision to take her to the ER. I’ve done some consulting work in health care so I understand and appreciate that the ER is also a business.

Once we arrived, she laid down on a couch howling in pain while I was subjected to a barrage of questions to get her registered. Net time: 5 minutes. We then headed to triage. That’s when it started getting stupid and infuriating.

Courageous Decision Making – Quit Being a Wimp and Lead

October 19, 2009/12 Comments/in Leadership, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Waaah. The economy. Waaaaah. Boo hoo. Woe is me.

Stop. Right now. Stop.

Tough times like these demand leadership. I’m sick of hearing how organizations are “hunkering down” until the storm passes. Guess what people? It won’t start to pass until leaders like you make decisions that take us toward a solution.

Of course there’s a balance between being conservative in case the environment worsens and making bold decisions and taking on their associated risks. My argument is simply that we’re doing all of the former and very little of the latter.

The fix to all of this begins with you. The leader. Everyone (your team, your peers, your boss, your business partners, your competitors) is looking at you to see what you’re doing and how you’re acting in this environment. It’s the business equivalent of monkey see, monkey do. If the monkey sees you hiding under the banana tree, they’re going to hide too.

Why is this so important? Because courageous organizations who are aggressive when others are scared are the ones that will kick everyone’s butt when things get better. We’ve told you before that as a leader you have to make decisions (the 4 D’s of decision making) and doing nothing is not an option.

So how do you snap out of the funk? Three steps.

An Influence Shortcut: “What do you have to believe?”

October 12, 2009/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

I was recently invited by Brian Ahearn to write a guest post on his blog Influence PEOPLE. Brian recently wrote a great post here on the thoughtLEADERS blog and I’m happy to reciprocate and give his readers something to read over at his place.

The gist of the post is this: you spend a ton of time and energy doing completely wasteful work and analysis. You do so in an attempt to influence people to make a decision based on your recommendation. The problem is, you can get to that answer much more quickly and efficiently (thereby saving yourself tons of time and effort).

What’s the magic pill, you ask? It revolves around asking a simple question: What do you have to believe? (This is similar to the technique we described in a post on “Getting to YES.”)

Pop on over to Influence PEOPLE to learn more about this time-saving technique. While you’re there, be sure to spin through Brian’s posts as well – there’s some great content and ideas there.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

3 Reasons No One Listens to You

August 31, 2009/13 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Have you ever had the feeling that you were moving your mouth but no one could hear the sounds coming out of it? They go about their day as if you’re not there. There’s a reason this is happening: they’re really not listening to you.

There. I said it. People are tuning you out.

What are the warning signs of this dynamic? When you speak with people, they nod politely but are looking for the exits while they do. They check their Blackberry and have “urgent” calls come in every time you’re talking to them. Your emails never get replied to. Most importantly, the things you want to get done never seem to generate traction.

Don’t worry – the problem is not you personally per se. It’s the information you’re putting out there (or not putting out there for that matter). What I’ve found is there are three major reasons people aren’t listening to you. I’ve personally been guilty of all of these at one point or another. You probably have too.

The good news is there are some simple things you can do to solve those problems.

Customer Service Isn’t Hard – Just Be a Mind Reader

August 24, 2009/2 Comments/in Customer Service, Sales, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

How many times have you had a customer service interaction where you walked away in disbelief over how clueless the person “helping” you was? You’ve sat there at least once saying “I cannot believe they just don’t understand my problem.”

Now think about how many times your customers have said this about you or your organization. Scary, isn’t it?

I’m not only talking about customer service reps in call centers – I’m talking about anyone who interacts with a customer (salespeople, relationship managers, marketers, executives, etc.). Any one of those individuals can completely destroy a customer interaction by not connecting to the customer’s need. This disconnect occurs because the person providing the service comes at it from their own perspective rather than the customer’s.

Why does this happen? Probably because your metrics are screwed up and you create incentives for bad behavior. Remember – Hobbes pointed out that man is inherently selfish. Your people will behave in a manner that maximizes their own well-being (cash, advancement, free time, etc.). But don’t despair. There’s a simple thing you can do to generate the behaviors that will have your customers rave about you: become a mind reader just like Karnak.

Stop Isolating Your Business: Two Ways You’re Ruining Opportunities

July 6, 2009/3 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

This post is dedicated to all the paranoid businesspeople out there who are terrified of their competitors. You know, the people who run businesses centered around “consulting” who view any other “consulting” firm as a competitor. You can insert whatever industry you like in the quotes and this perspective will apply.

Knock it off – you’re limiting your business and isolating yourself from opportunities to grow. You’re effectively placing yourself on a deserted island in the ocean of business opportunities.

Not only are you limiting opportunities, you’re building a brand of naivete, immaturity and narrow thinking. The following also applies whether you’re a one-person shop or a multimillion dollar firm. Unless you’re Coke & Pepsi or some other similar truly competitive pairing of companies, you need to pay attention.

Those of you who know me know I network. A lot. That networking gets me in front of many other business owners and executives who play in a space similar to my firm.

I run a leadership development training firm. We have a specific business model. We focus on a few key knowledge areas where we have deep expertise. We deliver that knowledge through one-day training sessions with some focused coaching support afterward.

Networking gets “interesting” when I meet others who work in the leadership development coaching and training arena. During those meetings I’ve seen two destructive dynamics play out on occasion.