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Month: October 2017

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Management Marketing Skills

Magic Words: Increase Your Average Transaction Value

If you sell a number of anything, then there are magic words to increase the number of items, objects, or hours upwards. You’ll typically get people stuck in indecision between two options based on size, and we want them to pick the top one, the bigger number, as this is the one that rewards us most.

Let’s imagine it was numbers of people in a training course. You were speaking to the training department and they were unsure whether to send three or four people. They need help making their mind up, and they’re almost about to say we need time to think about it. Ever heard that before? Knowing you’ve heard that before we want you to try and bring them to a decision, and we want them to choose four.

The magic word that I’m going to share with you is the magic word, ‘enough’. It might sound simple; it’s a tiny little word with only a few characters in it, but if you say to people at the very right time ‘Would the four places be enough for you?’ Provided you’re reasonable, people will take the higher option, because the brain asks itself the direct question that you’ve asked it: “Is four enough? Yeah four’s enough so let’s move forward with four”.

So what about if you sold on quantity and maybe you were selling print? You typically sold 500 letterheads, but you’d like to sell 1000, and they couldn’t choose between the two. Imagine what a difference it could make if you said, ‘Would 1000 be enough for you?’ Imagine you were selling consultancy services and you were selling days of your time over a month and they weren’t sure to have you for one day a month or two days a month. ‘Would two days a month be enough for you?

The beauty of ‘enough’ is it’s difficult to go backwards from, provided you’re reasonable. So try this today, tomorrow, or the day after. The next time you’re speaking to somebody, ask how many they’re looking for, and using the higher number, ask them ‘is it enough for you?’ You might be amazed at the response.

I do hope that’s been enough for you, and until next time, keep moving forward, keep picking up pace and let your momentum carry you as far as your ambition guides you.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Customers are Always Right… Not Anymore

Customers are Always Right….Not Anymore

(You’ve created this monster. Now, what are you going to do!)

You have to admit, things are different in our world these days. We are faced with dangers we didn’t worry about a few years ago. Every day we hear about mass shootings, road rage, physical and verbal attacks or disrespecting authority. Right as we get used to these horrid occurrences, something more appalling happens, like the shooting in Las Vegas. Crimes will continue to intensify and the more they occur, we will become desensitized to them.

The behavior of our society has altered from what it was even ten years ago. People make judgments on others without knowing anything about them. Verbal attackers interpret what they think the speaker means. They translate what is spoken by their own definitions without even knowing the person, and the problem is escalating.

This judgmental behavior carries over to your business. No longer is Sally Shopper coming in for a pleasant experience looking for her treasure. Now customers are rude, demanding what they want. It doesn’t matter what you offer them, they think they deserve better. This attitude and expectation of the shopper has changed the concept: the customer is always right.

Your goal as a business owner is to serve your consumer. You want to take care of them so they will return. To make that happen, you give them special services or pricing.  The idea is to turn the customer into a repeat buyer instead of a one-time shopper.

This mentality doesn’t work today. The consumer is not the person you have catered to in the past. You are now a supplier to purchasers who have a “me” attitude, wanting to tell you what the deal will be. Although you give away the farm it won’t be good enough.

Nevertheless, you can turn this around provided you change your philosophy. It takes time and sacrifice, but in the end, your company’s sales will benefit. You have to stop the bleed by teaching your patrons how to be good customers.

Think about what has been occurring. The purchaser comes in, you show them what they need, they bicker, you give in, and when they come back they quarrel more. They know you will give in so why not. You have trained the customer what to do, consequently, they will continue. The result is a negative impact on your bottom line.

This cycle has to stop. It’s okay to give special service or pricing to a consumer the first time. Through that deal, they see they are appreciated. Make it a big deal so they understand it is exclusive to them and a one-time occurrence. Here’s the hard part. Then it’s back to business.

Whoa, whoa you say. I don’t want to lose their business. This is where we separate the men from the boys. It’s time to go into training mode. You are looking for long term. Making the first transaction an unrepeatable, good deal is a start. What’s next?

It isn’t necessary to keep selling below what you list. If you are constantly being asked for discounts then reduce your price and uphold it. You won’t need to lower the amount because it is priced right. You believe in what you sell; now teach the customer the value of your products or services.

What will happen is the client will get used to how you do business. You don’t see doctors and dentists being asked to lower their price because we know the price is fixed. We can have that too. For example, when your customer wants to purchase an item listed at $500 don’t change your $800 price any lower. If they are only willing to pay $500 then show them what they get for $500. They set their budget; we teach them what’s available at that price.

We can’t do business the way we used to; consequently, we have to change with the times. Educate your customers. The consumer has forgotten that you are there to help them find the product or service they are looking for. You are the expert of your business. Train them how to work with you. Stand by your price. Stick with your policies. If you are not willing to do that then rethink what you are doing. If you don’t believe in what you are offering how will your customers.

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

3 Employee Engagement Killers You Will See At An Airport

I originally thought about entitling this blog, “How to avoid behaving like an airport.”  When I think about airport customer experience and employee engagement I remember how much I dislike traveling now.  The thought of it gives me a stomach ache and heartache.

Whenever I travel my wife always asks, “How was the trip?”  At best my answer is usually, “OK.  Nothing really happened.”  Occasionally I am lucky and the center seat is open.  Then I might exclaim, “Great, I had no one next to me and it was a pleasure.”  But, about 20% of the time I end up sitting in the center seat which more than offsets any excitement about the center seat being open.  Notice I am not mentioning the screaming baby.

I digress.  These issues are mostly the “luck (or un-luck) of the draw” and so it is difficult to hold airport leadership accountable for these random annoying events.  The next time you are traveling look for these issues.  It’s an opportunity to remind yourself to avoid certain behaviors that can damage employee engagement and customer experience every time.

Furthermore, these are behaviors (and habits) and behaviors can change.  Leaders who have these behaviors can change them immediately if they are convinced employee engagement needs to be managed and if they are convinced they damage employee engagement.  Habits are difficult to change but Viktor Frankl once said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”   If leaders appreciate a big enough “why” to change their behavior, I am saying that they can and they must!

If we truly appreciate the importance of employee engagement and how it impacts customer experience, we can change our habits.  Let’s not be like an airport.  Let’s not be:

  • Uncommunicative on essential information
  • Weak on personal accountability
  • Indifferent to feelings

Uncommunicative on essential information

Imagine you are at an airport.  Have you ever experienced an unexpected delay on a flight?  Imagine you are sitting at the gate and the expected boarding time passes and you neither see nor hear any communication about the change.  You walk to the customer service desk and you ask for an update.  You are then told there is a delay.  The communication was not proactive.  It was reactive.  The airline was either unaware or purposefully delayed communicating the status of the flight departure.

Imagine being in that situation.  How are you feeling?  Is there more trust or less?  Is there more credibility or less?  Is there more stress or less?  Leaders need to anticipate the feelings and reactions of employees if important information changes.  Poor communication at a time like this is either misleading and/or incompetent.  It damages trust and damaged trust will damage engagement.

On a recent trip the gate agent made an announcement. I couldn’t understand her in part because of the quality of the PA system and in part because she made the announcement at the same time another adjacent gate agent was making an announcement.   Although I could not understand her words, her body language told me it was serious and not good news.

I asked the people around me what she said.  They didn’t know either.  I walked up to her and told her she could not be heard and asked her to repeat it. She told me it was a delay due to maintenance.  She did not repeat her announcement.  My guess is she was worried about the negative reaction.

Effective leaders can anticipate reactions to changed information by putting themselves in the “shoes” of the employees.  Any change that could have been communicated and is not done in a proactive method will create a reaction that feels disrespectful.    Any reaction that feels disrespectful will damage trust which will damage engagement.

Weak on personal accountability

Who do you call at an airport when you are upset about an issue?  You can talk to (or yell) at a customer service agent.  Does it help?  They rarely have the authority to act for correction.  When your flight requires a change perhaps an argument with the customer service person will work.  For that issue they are empowered.  They can and will also act on your behalf when the airline is at fault. Other than that, you might be very frustrated at the answer you get to correct when you attempt to correct an issue. For example, to whom do you complain when the TSA line is too long and you are about to miss your flight?  Will TSA respond?

An organization with high employee engagement has clarified roles and responsibilities and has empowered the employees to act.   This allows freedom to act. Freedom to act on behalf of the customer will create an impression that the employees are trusted to do the right thing for both customers and for the company.  This improves engagement.  Any time you can demonstrate trust you have improved engagement.

Leaders can take time to help employees to know their roles and responsibilities.  They can take time to ask questions about issues employees encounter which require quick decisions and good judgement.  Leaders can take time to give employees the tools to act on behalf of the company to do their jobs properly and to serve customers with grace and respect.  It is rare to see this at an airport.

Indifferent to feelings

Do people get upset at airports?  YES!  Pretty much every day.  What can we do when people get upset?  We can provide empathy.  We don’t always have the answers to the issues and we don’t always know the root causes of problems.  What we always have is the ability to express empathy.

Empathy is the sincere expression that we understand the importance of an issue and we appreciate how the person must feel about the situation.  We can always do this. Leaders always can do this. Why not do it?

In my experience, there is a shortage of empathy in the workplace.  Empathy helps people to move past the negative emotions and move toward positive action. Leaders are in the best position to both demonstrate empathy and to show others how important the expression of empathy is for mental health and problem solving.

There are three simple behaviors leaders can do to avoid damaging employee engagement.  Why not anticipate communication on important issues?  Why not demonstrate accountability and why not help others to demonstrate it as well?  Why not demonstrate empathy when there is emotion?  Simple actions that are doable can make a big difference to both employees and customers.  Why not?  Why not avoid behaving like the typical airport?

Categories
Management Marketing Skills Technology

The Social Devolution of Business

Since the mainstream takeover of the social networks in 2008, every small business owner has been nudged, persuaded and cajoled into adopting a presence on all major platforms, and for many the results are perhaps not what you may expect.

We all hear and read of the massive success achieved from the small independent business that blew up from their inspiring Instagram account or the personality-led business that became an overnight success with their viral YouTube channel. These meteoric results create a desire that you must heavily invest in your presence on social media to have any success in a modern business landscape. The reality is, many small businesses are performing mass self-sabotage from their current efforts and their involvement in social media marketing is causing their business to go backwards.

Before I get into the dangers I want to make a very clear and simple point. I am a HUGE supporter of how digital marketing and social networking can have a MASSIVE positive impact. It is just the practices that I see adopted by the masses are quite frankly embarrassing.

The primary problem is that the “dark-arts” and “ninja tactics” orchestrated by some of the world’s most creative marketers have delivered results beyond expectation and suggested to the masses that these tools provide the answer, missing ingredients or short cut to success. So much so that they now have forgotten many of the core principles of building a business.

In all of my experience to date, the one thing that has been the single driver of every single successful venture, project or campaign has been the following of my personal mantra for success.

“Do the basics, to a high standard, consistently.” 

What is happening in thousands of businesses right now is that the core principles of sales are being forgotten in favor of rolling the dice with the next magic campaign, social post or viral video attempt looking for short-term success.

In the real world, there are no short cuts and developing a sustainable customer base is created over time and built on trust.

Business developers know that questions lead to conversations, conversations create relationships, relationships create opportunities and opportunities result in sales.

Slowing the process down often speeds the outcome up. I often draw comparison here as looking for a partner for life as opposed to sex on the first date.

Back to the self-sabotaging behaviours that are costing businesses a fortune.

1. Pissing in the Wind

I do not understand why thousands of independent business owners rush to build their social platforms, invite a handful of friends to like or follow their page and then never plan anything else to build their audience. Worse than this they spend fortunes on creating graphics and then invest bucket loads of time into collating and creating content to post regularly and nobody is listening! They are just pouring productive time and effort down the drain and could have gained more success by opening their front door and shouting their offers into the street!

2. SPAM

We are all in the “people” business and to gain true influence it is important that both visibility and credibility are established before any opportunity to do business ever exists. Yet daily the prior trend of spamming people’s email inbox has been replaced with sending 500 word messages with links to videos or squeeze pages via Facebook messenger, direct messages or as an auto-response to a new follower. Please, please pretty please can people put a stop to this blindly unsophisticated intrusion of privacy and if you have something that may benefit me – please get to know me a little first.

3. IDGAF

I am pretty certain that most people do not want to read some of the mindless drivel that people are sharing on their social streams. Ask yourself before you hit the “post” button, will this represent me and my brand well? Can people engage with it? Does it serve others? Everybody now has the ability to be a full media production unit – great that you can be the journalist, please do not forget that you need to hold the role of editor too! In this age of information we are awash with content to consume – if you want yours to stand out then please make it good enough.

4. Egocentric Results

Yes, you are the most important person in your life – I get it! Unless you are Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump or Selena Gomez then the likelihood of people being that concerned about what is happening in your world is slim to none. Make your contact about your audience, understand them and provide them with things that serve their life, make their day easier, and things they love to talk about.

5. Aimless Distraction

Whether it is the thumb on your iPhone, the index finger on your mouse wheel or two fingers on the trackpad, the action of mindlessly scrolling through the sea of nonsense on your social walls is causing a tragedy in lost productivity. For many a homebased worker, high pay off activity such as prospecting, serving customers and planning marketing campaigns has been replaced with the vacant distraction of the soap opera of social media.

This article is delivered with the purpose of holding up a huge STOP sign and helping you to re-evaluate your activity and ask yourself if it is really working and genuinely driving results or is it simply draining from your limited resource and standing in your way of building a solid business foundation.

Perhaps the shift could move back to understanding the biggest value in these tools is how they can increase productivity, reduce geographic constraints and accelerate the building of new relationships.

Build your audience, serve your audience, engage with your audience and be prepared to bring the conversation “offline” and work the old fashioned way if you would like to see some true returns.

And if you can’t wrap your head around it to make it pay for you, stop it and get back to delivering the basics, to a high standard consistently.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing News and Politics Personal Development Women In Business

How to Read Body Language to Negotiate Effectively

“The better you read body language, the better you’ll be at understanding someone’s mind.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert.

 

“How To Read Body Language To Negotiate More Effectively”

When you negotiate do you know how to read body language? When you read body language, do you know what to observe?

The following are some examples of body language signs you can observe to negotiate more effectively.

  1. Forehead Wrinkles – When someone displays a wrinkled forehead (unnatural wrinkles) it’s a sign of stress. Thus, the absence of wrinkles is a sign of calm and easygoingness.
  2. Eyes (wide opened versus closed and narrow) – Wide-eyes indicate someone’s attentiveness, interest, and open-mindedness. A narrowing of the eyes signals a higher degree of focus on the subject, which is usually accompanied with a furled brow/forehead.
  3. Smile – A genuine smile is denoted by turned up corners of the lips.
  4. Hand movements – Hand movements give insight into the mental thoughts you’re experiencing at the moment the hand gestures are made. Thus, open hand gestures are usually displayed when someone is not fearful. When hand gestures become closed (i.e. kept close to the body, rubbing each other, rubbing other parts of the body), that’s more of a mental display of being guarded, anxious, and/or cautious. When you see such actions in others, take note of what might have brought about a change from open to close. In situations in which you seek to impress others, keep hand gestures more in an open mode and don’t make gestures that might be perceived as manic, indecisive, and/or not in rhythm with the words you speak. Doing so will detract subliminally from your likeability and persuasiveness.
  5. Feet – When the feet of two people engaged in a conversation are facing one another, the individuals are mentally engaged in their conversation. When one person turns a foot away, that’s usually the point at which that individual has mentally begun to disengage in the conversation and soon they’ll exit it in that direction.
  6. Touching – The degree you touch someone and where you touch them conveys a sense of familiarity. Thus, you should be mindful of what someone might perceive as too much familiarity per you touching them too much. To gain insight as to whether you’re touching too much, take note to what degree the person you’re touching flinches and/or slightly pulls away/back when you touch them. That’s a nonverbal sign that you may have overstepped a boundary. Pay very close attention to such feedback. It will be the gauge from which you’ll gain insight per how well you’re being received.
  7. Voice Inflection – Since 80% and more of your message is conveyed nonverbally, take note of how your words can possess different meanings based on the way you announce them. Thus, note the inflection and tonality you convey with them. Ending a sentence on a high note can turn a statement into a question, which could make you appear less authoritative than what you intended.

 All of the above body language and nonverbal gestures impact the perception of the words you use to represent your thoughts. Thus, the meaning of your words can be altered by the body language signals that accompany them. As such, you should be very mindful of the signals you send to make your body language work for you and not against you … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Does Changing Your Speech Style Sacrifice Your Identity?

This morning a client made a comment that echoed the misguided frustrations of many people I encounter, when concerns about authenticity come up. After we had identified a vocal habit that was sabotaging her ability to project authority, and worked on skills to improve it, she said:

“Well, but I guess our bad habits are a part of our identity, right?”

The answer is a very simple yes… and no.

Your bad habits are a part of your current identity, but certainly don’t have to limit or otherwise dictate the identity you can grow into if you choose to do so.

Let’s look at it another way. Your current knowledge, experience, and education make up a part of who you are today, right? But if your boss told you that you weren’t eligible for a promotion that you really wanted because you lacked Six Sigma certification, it wouldn’t occur to you to say, “Well, but that certification isn’t part of my identity. To learn those skills and employ them when needed to succeed at the job I have or want would be inauthentic.” It sounds ridiculous in that context. You’d be scanning the internet for the next time a course was available to get that line item on your resume, wouldn’t you?

Similarly, while nobody wants to have to change their eating habits, if your doctor told you that your blood pressure, sugar and cholesterol levels were off the charts and caused a serious risk to your health, you wouldn’t argue that you can’t change your eating habits because they were part of your identity. Sure, some food preferences are foods we grew up on and are linked to our family culture. But if you want your identity to be someone who plays an active role in your children’s and grandchildren’s lives, instead of someone who might not be around to play any role, active or inactive, you’ll find ways to make small lifestyle changes that don’t require you to live on salad.

In case a “Yeah, but…” is creeping its way to your lips, let me reassure you: there is no difference between getting certified in Six-Sigma, adopting healthier eating habits, and learning to speak with greater breath support or tonality, regarding the impact the change will have on your degree of choice, authenticity or identity.

Sure, you are partially a product of your environment, upbringing, etc., but identity is equally a very personal choice.

If you know that your current speech style sounds about as energized as Ben Stein’s portrayal of the economics teacher in the movie Ferris Buller’s Day Off, putting people to sleep as you run the meeting or give your presentation, you have two choices: You can shrug it off and claim, “Well, that’s just the way I talk,” essentially blaming it on your identity, and resign yourself to the fact that nobody will ever want to hear you speak. Or, you can decide that you want people to pay attention to you, to be inspired by you, and choose to take control of the situation. If you want to do the latter, to have that positive, inspiring effect on people, you’ll choose to learn how to modify your delivery in a way that appropriately captures their interest, because you want that to be part of your identity.

Let me clarify: I’m not suggesting you take acting lessons to play the part of some character who is different from you. And a learning curve is to be expected, so any new skill or knowledge may feel awkward and clunky until you get used to using it, and it becomes second nature.

That’s the real goal: that the new speech habits (or eating habits, or management techniques) ultimately become second nature, and a new part of your chosen identity that makes you feel confident in yourself and your abilities, and gets the results you want.

************

Do you have trouble finding the balance between speaking in a way that feels authentic, and in a way that gets the results you want?  Or do you have other questions or feedback about this issue? If so, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally!

 

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

The Easy Way to Gain More Referrals

Since people of the world started trading with each other, the number one activity and action that would drive future success was gaining new business from the word of mouth of others.

Despite all the modern marketing methods and new lead generation strategies it is still the creation of referrals from your network that brings you the biggest, quickest and most authentic return on your marketing investment.

I know that you would LOVE to have an endless stream of referred clients and would do anything to make this happen. Yet for the majority of business owners and sales professionals there is just one HUGE reason why they fail to gain the referrals they deserve.

They simply do not ask their existing contacts to open the doors into their contacts.

What could be stopping you from asking?

For me it comes down to one of the following 3 things:

    1. You’re too LAZY, bone idle and cannot be bothered…
    2. You don’t know WHEN to ask …
    3. You don’t know HOW to ask…

My guess is that option 1 does not apply to you – because if it did then you would not be reading this article. Therefore – if you knew the answer to the other 2 questions then you could probably ask more often.

Timing is everything and for many, the fear of finding the exact right moment to introduce an idea is the primary reason that stops the idea being mentioned. In my work I am renowned for helping others to know exactly what to say, when to say it and how to make it count. Let’s see if today we can help you understand how this relates perfectly to referrals.

When is the right time to ask?

The short answer to this is at the point that your prospect or client is happy. The difficulty in this answer is that there are literally dozens of examples where this could be the case. At the point of sale, the delivery, at a success milestone or even at the point of resolving a complaint, to name but a few. This abundance of opportunity creates a chaos of confusion and typically results in an inability to ask the key question of the other person.

The better answer is to set the small antennae on the side of your head (AKA ears) to listen out for one simple phrase. This phrase is a coherent clue to the fact that the other person is not only happy with what you have done for them, but also in that precise moment feels indebted to your actions to a point they may even feel like they owe you. There is no better time to ask for something than when the other person feels indebted.

The words you must listen for are the words…

Thank you.

When you receive this sign of appreciation please do not pat yourself on the back and think “I’ve done a wonderful job”. Understand instead that this is your perfect moment to ask for more.

Now that you understand the precise timing for the request we should probably explore a structured and powerful way of asking…

How to ask for referrals

The subconscious brain is a powerful thing. Particularly in the sales process. Why? Because it works a little bit like a computer.  There is only “Yes” or “No”. There is no “Maybe”. Having the ability to trigger instant decision from your client or prospect delivers you a fair advantage in communication and can often allow you to get your own way more often.

The subconscious cannot stop itself from working. It’s like our human autopilot. When you drive to a familiar destination, you don’t always remember the journey between getting in the car and out of it again. That was the subconscious brain taking over.

To lead you into this precise set of word choices you must learn the power of a simple set of “Magic Words” that can be used to get people to agree to an action before they even know what the action is.

So they have said “Thank you”. And this provides your cue to ask your first question.

“You couldn’t do me a small favour could you?”

This simple question gains an almost certain agreeable response and gives you instant permission to continue with the rest of your request.

You can then go on to say:

“You wouldn’t happen to know…”

(This throws down a challenge, which makes people want to prove you wrong)

“…just one person…”

(Just one because it’s reasonable and seems a simple ask they’re more likely to think of someone by name)

“…someone who just like you…”

(Has the person narrowing down the options and gives you more of the right prospects plus pays a subtle compliment)

“…would benefit from…”

And then emphasize the specific benefit or positive experience they have just thanked you for.

Then…

Shut up!

When they have thought of somebody you need to know where to go next. You will probably see in their body language and movement when they have thought of somebody.

At this point you say:

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking for their details right now, but who was it that you’re thinking of?

This automatically takes the pressure off and the “but” helps them to only recall the final part of the sentence.

Find out then when they’re next likely to see the person they are thinking of.

“You couldn’t do me a further favor could you? (I mean they said “Yes” the first time)  Next time you see Steve could you share with him a little bit about how it was doing business with me and see if he’s perhaps open minded to taking a phone call from me to see if I can help him in the same way I helped you?”

Your prospect will almost certainly agree.

“Would it be ok if I give you a call next week and find out how the chat went with Steve?”

They will most likely, again, be agreeable.

You then call him when you said you would and ask:

“I’m guessing you didn’t get around to speaking to Steve?”

As a person of their word they will either proudly say how they have spoken to Steve, or will be embarrassed and tell you how they will go on to complete the introduction.

The magic in this process is that if you slow the process down you can often speed the outcome up.

It provides you with qualified future customers who already have third party experience of your offerings and permission to make contact. I would take that over a name and a number any day of the week.

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Always Be Closing – Get a Decision, in Place of Leaving a Brochure

I thought I’d tackle one of those challenges that we’ve been faced with time and time again in our business career. When we receive the objection early on in our sales process, such as “Can you send me the details?” This prevents you from getting down to the detail where you’ve given them enough information to make a full decision. You’ve got a conceptual yes, they’re reasonably interested in what you do, but not specifically interested enough to give a decision. 

As the brochure is stereotypical, what happens when we send them out? At best it sits on a coffee table for a period of time. Does it really get digested or discussed or lead to a decision, picking up the phone and taking action? Sometimes it does, but typically no further action happens unless we make it happen.

When we had customers interested in an overseas investment property, I heard “would you leave me a brochure?” so often that I knew I had to find a way of tackling it. I had to get into the position where I could spec something in detail–the specs they would want if they did proceed. Now you know how much better we are at looking at things in hypothetical circumstances rather than in reality, and this is exactly what we do here when faced with this scenario. I’ve developed what I call the “Devil’s Advocate Close”, the opportunity where we spec something in a hypothetical circumstance.

What I decided to do was every time somebody said ‘Can you leave me a brochure?’ I’d say “Absolutely, but why don’t you play devil’s advocate with me for a second, so you know what it is that you’re saying ‘no’ to. I know you’re not going for one of these right now, but if you were to invest in one of these properties, just hypothetically speaking, would it be for–lifestyle or investment?’

Let’s say I get the answer “investment”…

“If it is investment, you’re looking at maybe something that’s going to bring you the best possible returns for the smallest amount of outlay?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“Let’s say you were going to go with it and use that property anyway, how many of you would be using the property?”

“Well it’d be me, the wife, and the kids.”

“So you’d be looking for at least two bedrooms?”

“Yeah that’s right Phil.”

“So if it were a two bedroom apartment and investment was in mind, I guess you’d be looking at a two bedroom, first floor apartment, because those are the cheaper properties and they rent for the same as a ground floor, hence your yield is slightly higher. It makes sense to go for a two bedroom first floor.”

“Yeah that’s right.”

“Assuming, with investment in mind, that you may want to sell this on one day and be able to get some use out of it, so you’re probably going to be wanting something with a nice outlook or pool-facing view.”

Yeah that would make sense Phil.”

“Then let’s have look at what’s still left on the development – two bedroom, first floor, pool-facing. Well I’ve got this apartment here, it’s apartment A202 and it’s 74sqm and here are the two bedrooms and the two bathrooms. Here’s the en-suite and the large open plan kitchen and here’s the balcony, and on the balcony you can see you’ll be overlooking the beautiful pool area. Now I know you’re not in the position to move forward with one of these today, but again just playing devil’s advocate and so you know what it is that you say no to, would you be open-minded to take a look at what the figures look like so that you would know what a yes would look like if you were ever in that position?”

“Yeah absolutely Phil.”

So I would walk them through the payments, I’d walk them through exactly what their investment for apartment A202 would look like, and funnily enough, their final decision in order to secure that property was just a small reservation fee. At the end of that presentation, I would say to the customer, “Well in terms of what we’ve gone through, obviously we’re showing you the best of our available stock. I’ve got a number of appointments later today, as have the rest of the team, and two bedroom apartments are the most popular because they’re the best rental option. No doubt the next person who reserves a two bedroom first floor apartment will probably come to the same conclusion that you have that A202 is the best apartment. So if you were to look to reserve, then all we need is a $1200 reservation, and we take cash, cheque, and credit or debit card.”

Where people have previously said, ‘Leave me a brochure’, we’ve now prompted a discussion between decision makers. Now let’s say we did that ten times in a week…most people would continue with the “Can you leave me a brochure” along with the numbers and the floor plans for the specific apartment in question–but two or three people out of the ten would genuinely move forward with a transaction that they would have previously have asked you to leave on.

We know how hard it is to create opportunities to sit in front of people and then create a genuine opportunity for them to make a buying decision with us. Just ask yourself this, is it easier to hang in there for another five, ten, fifteen minutes to give them enough information to make a decision and help them see what they could buy from you, or easier to start again with somebody new? Because purely by playing devil’s advocate you can get some great information out of people – valuable information that puts them in a position where they can make a decision.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development Women In Business

The Other, Other ‘B’ Word

As an advocate for gender parity and diversity, I strive to broadcast a message about the immense economic potential of advancing women in the modern workplace. Often, my content is couched as a rallying cry for more men to become allies on the journey toward gender equality. Aside from the obvious egalitarian reasons for having more women in leadership, it also makes sense from a purely business standpoint. If organizations had gender-balanced leadership teams and equally valued the contributions of both sexes, they would be better suited to adapt and thrive in a complex, volatile global economy. The advantages of diversity in business have been studied for years and are well-documented: There would be higher employee engagement, less turnover, and greater profitability.

Considering the clear benefits of diverse leadership, why are there still so few women in C-level roles today? Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, founded the Lean In non-profit organization to address this issue, and one of their campaigns is to ban the ‘B word’. No, not the one that rhymes with pitch. The other ‘B word’, bossy, is a term applied to young girls and women who are decisive, confident, and direct in the way they relate to others. It’s a pejorative used to discourage females from acting contrary to societal norms; i.e. that they should be agreeable and docile. Of course the male-driven business model encourages cutthroat competition and a commanding leadership presence, creating a Catch 22 for women who hope to be successful. If they try to fit in as one of the boys, they are perceived as aggressive and difficult. But if they are simply authentic, their kindness and cooperative nature work against them. The Ban Bossy project aims to empower women of all ages so they embrace their innate leadership qualities and are recognized as leaders in their own right. While this is an important effort in the push for gender parity, I worry that the message can be misinterpreted by some women who take it as free license to be the other, other ‘B word’: bully.

I stumbled across a YouTube video secretly recorded by a Georgia middle school janitor as he was being reprimanded by the principal for leaving work 8 minutes early. (You can watch for yourself here.) Throughout the meeting, the principal was rude, condescending, dismissive, belittling, and downright cruel. She repeatedly asked the janitor what his hours were, interrupted him as he attempted to explain the situation, and spoke to him in a manner unfit for conversation between grown adults. It was obvious from her smug demeanor that she was accustomed to using fear and menace to bend employees and students to her will. I’ve worked for and with women like this throughout my career. They either adopt this ‘dragon lady’ persona as a means of survival in a company or industry dominated by men, or it’s just their personality. This management style is unacceptable regardless of a person’s gender, but, as I mentioned before, there’s a double standard for women. They’re damned if they do act like men, and damned if they don’t.

How, then, can we ensure equal representation of women in leadership while discouraging bully behavior? Well, there are plenty of excellent books on the former, so I’ll tackle the latter because I believe bullying is an employee engagement issue, not merely a gender issue.

In my employee engagement practice, I teach managers to embrace a mindset of empathy, curiosity, and humility. Without these virtues, you are a just boss, not a leader. And you certainly won’t earn the respect or engagement of your employees if you forgo true leadership in favor of being a bully.

Empathy is our ability to relate to and feel for others. It’s what makes us human. When we empathize with people and “put ourselves in their shoes”, it causes us to think more carefully about how we behave and speak toward the the individuals in our lives. When meeting with an employee to have a potentially difficult conversation, empathy can make the difference between a mutually acceptable outcome and a result that leaves one party — invariably the lower-ranking person — feeling unheard, disrespected, mistreated, or cheated. Had the principal in the video practiced empathy by asking herself how she would want to be treated if she were the janitor, things would have gone much differently (and saved the school quite a bit of embarrassment).

While empathy means having an open heart, curiosity is keeping an open mind. Being a curious leader requires a willingness, even a desire, to hear positions other than your own. Doing so gives you an opportunity to build stronger relationships with employees. By asking them for their views, their feedback, their stories, and then listening without judgement or interruption, you are positioning yourself as a leader who wants to collaborate on solutions, instead of just bark orders. When leaders curiously listen, they are sending a message that they wish to co-create a positive and engaging employee experience. Woodrow Wilson once said, “The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” The principal made it clear during her meeting with the janitor that the only voice she cared to hear was her own.

Curiosity also means questioning your motives and behaviors. This takes a high degree of emotional intelligence that comes from being humble. Humility allows us to challenge the ego and make decisions that are more effective in the long run, as opposed to satisfying our own immediate need to feel important. Many people, when given power over others, tend to let it go to their heads at the expense of the relationships with those in their charge. They haughtily believe their management title grants infallibility and deity; that it somehow elevates them to a higher stratum than the peons being managed. But we are all flesh and blood. None of us is any better than the rest. What makes a leader is not her status, nor her ability to control and punish. The measure of a great leader is seen through the eyes of people whose lives are better for having followed her.

In order for us to have an impactful conversation about developing more women into leaders, we need to agree that bullying is the antithesis of effective leadership. We need to hold everyone in management positions, gender notwithstanding, to the highest standards of conduct and preserve the integrity of what it really means to be a leader. It will take a dramatic shift in the business world, one that champions the merits of empathy, curiosity, and humility. To start, those with the power to make this change will have to be another ‘B word’: brave. Courageous leaders — both men and women — must shape the modern workplace into an environment where bullies aren’t welcome, one where success doesn’t come without kindness.

About the author:

Jonathan D. Villaire is a bridge-builder, truth-teller, and advocate for empathy who helps leaders understand how to effectively engage their employees and, more importantly, how to stop disengaging them. He founded Cognize Consulting with the aim of giving supervisors, managers, and executives a new perspective on employee engagement: See employees as human beings, not as human capital. Understand how to create an employee experience that increases retention and attracts top talent. Engage employees with a leadership mindset of empathy, curiosity, and humility. He is a speaker, coach, and author of the upcoming book The Stepford Employee Fallacy: The Truth about Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Right of Boom – Planning for Post Breach

At this year’s (2017), International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) Security Congress, we heard a keynote from Juliette Kayyem. She is the former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security under the Obama administration. She not only talked about the importance of being prepared in order to stop attacks, but also being prepared for what she called “Right of Boom.”

Right of Boom is what you do after an event (attack or mistake) has occurred, whether it be a bombing like the Boston Marathon, a mass casualty event caused by system malfunction like the BP oil spill, or a cyber incident. The event is the Boom and what comes next is Right of Boom (picture a timeline).

This article is focused on Right of Boom planning for cyber security and whether you are an executive responsible for security and/or IT or an executive outside of this area (CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, etc.) this matters to you because at the end of the day it could mean the survival of your business.

You can plan all day long to stop a cyber attack or incident through vulnerability and risk management, good secure coding practices, and security awareness training, but you can’t stop it all. There will always be an attacker one step ahead at some point in your journey, whether because they just have more resources and time than you do, or one of your employees simply makes a really big mistake.

Since you can’t stop it all, you must plan for Right of Boom, what you do after the attack, which will be the difference between staying in business and maintaining a good business reputation, or going out of business. Even if you don’t go out of business, the way you handle Right of Boom could be the difference between a few million dollars spent in recovery and notifications and a few billion dollars spent.

Planning for Right of Boom means that you don’t just focus on a defensive approach to stopping attacks, misuse, and errors, all of which can have a catastrophic effect. You also ensure that there is proactive planning, testing, and more planning on what you do after something goes wrong. It’s not a matter of if something goes wrong; it is a matter of when.

Too many organizations are notified of a breach by a third party and oftentimes months after the breach happened. That means months have gone by with an attacker in your network doing what they want, collecting the data, and using it for their own benefit. It’s never good news when you are told by a third party that you have been hacked and that you have been leaking company and customer data for months. And with the average cost per stolen record of $141 based on the 2017 IBM Cost of Data Breach Study, imagine how much that can cost your organization not to mention the loss of customers and reputational trust.

The cost of that cleanup is much less for an organization that can detect a breach in near real time especially if they know what to do upon identification of the incident, i.e. if they have a  Right of Boom plan. It means less data loss (if any) and more time to properly clean up the incident, as in get the servers working again with the vulnerability fixed and bad guy out of the network with minimal disruption to the business.

The only way that proper Right of Boom planning and response is possible is if your organization takes it seriously. Do you have a security team that is empowered to create Right of Boom response scenarios and test them? Do you have a security team that has the resources to identify a suspicious event, whether it be malicious or accidental? Do you provide training for your IT and user community to understand their role in Right of Boom? Do you have third parties on retainer or whom you can call that are specifically trained to help you contain and investigate an incident?

These are just a few critical questions to ask your security team. If you have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or Chief Security Officer (CSO) they should be part of the C-Suite discussion on Right of Boom. They should have the resources they need and be tasked with and empowered to help ensure a Boom does not put your organization at great risk… or even worse, out of business.

If you do not have a CISO or CSO it’s time to either hire one or find a virtual resource that can help you on an as-needed basis with strategy planning around topics like Right of Boom. If you have questions about this or about finding a resource email sharon@c-suiteresults.com to discuss your specific situation and needs because security is what I do and I want to see your organization prepared.