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Month: April 2019

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5 Strategies for More Effective Meetings

As we approach the new fiscal year, you can bet there are a lot of meetings in your near future. But the question remains, “Are those meetings necessary and effective?” If the answer is “no,” you’re about to spend a lot of effort, money, and time taking people away from their work so they can socialize and entertain one another—on your dime!

Think we’re exaggerating? Add up every attendee’s hourly rate. Multiple that by the length of each meeting. Next, add in prep costs, and you get a very costly proposition. Yes, some meetings are necessary. They can be useful to ensure everyone’s on the same page. And many meetings are unavoidable, especially when stakeholder buy-ins are involved.

We’ve held and attended thousands of meetings over the years. We paid for most of them, so we were sincerely interested in keeping these meetings effective, short, and action-oriented. Watching meetings digress and degenerate taught us many different lessons. We learned meeting best practices firsthand from colleagues and our own hard knocks.

Here’s our simple list that’ll help you how to get the most out of the shortest and fewest meetings possible.

Agenda

If you’re running the meeting, make sure to create an agenda in advance. Make sure each talking point has a time limit. Be wary of attendees who try to discuss items that aren’t on your agenda. Kindly recommend a separate conversation about their issue and then get back on topic. Don’t forget that the point of your meeting is discussion, education, and making decisions. Keep the conversations on track.

Purpose

Make sure you establish ground rules right from the start of your meeting. Identify the meeting’s goals, what you expect to accomplish, the decisions you expect to make, which member(s) will head the meeting, and last but not least, how long the meeting will be. Your purpose needs to be communicated in all related correspondence, and it should be in the final statement of the actual meeting itself.

Calendar

The most effective meetings are action-focused. This action must be completed by a certain date. Make sure everyone at the meeting can see the same calendar, so all lead times and deadlines are visible. The best attendees take notes right on their own calendars because they know they’ll need to block out some time to make an appointment with themselves and assess their responsibility. Calendars are an excellent way to get meeting members to focus on your agenda—you can also ask them to commit to a date to talk about their off-agenda topics.

Scribe

Choose someone to take notes and keep track of time. Instruct them to interrupt the meeting to remind everyone how much time is left and how they’re doing so far. For example, in a one-hour meeting, we think it’s smart to let everyone know when there are 15 minutes left. This helps teammates think about decisions, deadlines, and action plans. Simply put—it’s time to wrap things up! Right after the meeting, the scribe organizes the notes, assignees, action items, and deadlines, and sends them to each attendee.

Action Items

During the final few minutes of a one-hour meeting, ask the scribe to go over the action items, their assignees, and deadlines. Once each assignee hears their corresponding action item being read aloud, they’ll be more likely to complete those items on time. Keep an eye on progress moving forward through an online platform that can be used to update status, educate others, and collect feedback and input from each attendee.

Another, simpler money and time-saving method is to simply have fewer meetings. Look for common culprits that occur throughout many of your meetings. Try to have a meeting only for the action-oriented tasks explained above. It’s too costly to have meetings out of habit. Keep your team focused on being productive. Don’t give them room to complain, “Oh no! Not another meeting!”

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

How to Use Stop-Loss Brackets When You Negotiate

“Knowing when to stop can be a life-saver. Using a stop-loss bracket helps to identify where you are in that process.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When you negotiate, do you use a stop-loss bracket to control your emotions and the flow of the negotiation? You should, because if exercised properly, it prevents your emotions from hijacking your decisions during the negotiation.

It’s important to have a stop-loss bracket in place because, if you’re not sure about the lowest offer you can accept, you may not maximize the negotiation’s potential. If you’re unsure of the top bracket, you run the risk of losing what you’ve gained and/or upsetting the other negotiator.

Setting Stop-Loss Brackets:

You create a stop-loss bracket in the planning stage of a negotiation. Below the bottom bracket are offerings you can’t accept. Above, is the upper bracket point that you should consider not exceeding – That’s due to the potential subjection of losing the gains you’ve acquired. If you exceed the upper bracket, you might appear as being greedy.

To set the brackets, assess your worse and best-case scenarios. Do this for the least and most you think you can obtain from the negotiation. Do the same per the thoughts you believe the other negotiator has about his brackets. You can assign a probability to each bracket to increase its potentiality (e.g. 40% chance of losing if I go above/below bracket). You’d make that appraisal based on the information you’ve gathered per the needs, reasons, and wants the other negotiator has for negotiating with you.

Once you’ve made your evaluation, test it in a mock negotiation with a counterpart that understands the needs of the party you’ll be negotiating with. That process may uncover thoughts you’d not considered. If they do, consider altering your brackets to reflect the new insights you’ve gained. You may flirt with adjusting your percentage probabilities, too.

Controlling Negotiation Flow:

As you engage in the give-and-take of the negotiation, test the other negotiator’s bottom bracket by making a ridiculously low offer – this will also help set his expectations for what he can achieve. Be careful not to insult him. To avoid that, prior to making the offer, you might consider saying, “Please understand that I’m under tight guidelines per what I can offer in this situation.” Having stated that, you’ve prepared him for what’s to come. Once you make the offer, observe his reaction.

If he accepts your low offer, consider lowering what you thought his lower bracket would be. If he immediately rejects your offer without giving it real consideration, you may have to test him again or think about slightly upgrading his lower bracket. Throughout the process, he’ll be assessing your brackets, too. So, consider how you’ll respond to his offers. The exchanges that both of you have with one another will control the negotiation flow.

Conclusion:

Stop-loss brackets are excellent to control yourself and a negotiation. Since you know what you can accept before you sit at the table, you don’t have to involve your emotions.

To make the process work better, know when you’re near your lower and upper brackets and those of the other negotiator. Once you reach your upper bracket, test it by asking for something slightly above what you’ve acquired – do it gently. As an example, you might say, “I really appreciate the effort that you’ve put into nearing the agreement that we’re about to make. I’d like to ask you for ‘x’ if you can do it.” If he grants it without making a counter-request, you’ve just received something in addition to what you had. If he requests something in return, you know you’ve reached your stopping point. Either way, you’ll be in a better position … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Persuasion #StopLoss #Bracket #Negotiate #Process #Power #Powerful #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Accounting Best Practices Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Leadership Personal Development Sales Technology

Embracing the Power of Blockchain Technology

During the digital transformation, we have witnessed traditional forms of physical media fall out of favor as users abandoned their treasure trove of CDs, DVDs, books, magazines, and even photo albums to partake in an entirely clutter-free life. Digitally optimizing our lives has enabled us to remove shelves, cabinets and dust magnets while we get our entertainment fix from the likes of Netflix, Spotify and the endless list of streaming alternatives.

We often forget just how much technology has changed our lives in the last few years. Therefore, it should be no surprise that our love of cold hard cash could be the next twentieth-century casualty to fall by the wayside.

Over in Europe, Denmark and its Scandinavian neighbors Norway and Sweden are leading a charge toward a cashless society that will see the end of tooth fairy payments for children but will equally wave goodbye to a world of money laundering, fraud, and tax evasion. The bonus of replacing scrambling around for loose change for a purchase, or riding public transportation with contactless payment by swiping a card or smartphone, is incredibly appealing for most users.

The concept of handing over a handful of silver coins in exchange for any product or service can feel quite primitive in our modern world dominated by technology. However, contactless and smartphone payments are not the end-all, be-all payment options, as there is another game changer in the form of cyber currency. But does this technology disruptor have the power to transform our traditional banking system?

Blockchain is the digital ledger software code that powers Bitcoin. As this system has grown in popularity, the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, Blythe Masters, has her sights set on changing the way banks trade loans and bonds in a way that could dramatically change the way we look at both business and banking. Blythe delivered a massive wake-up call to finance leaders when she compared the influx of changes to the arrival of the internet when she advised, “You should be taking this technology as seriously as you should have been taking the development of the internet in the 1990s. It’s analogous to email for money.” The speed in which technology trends can go viral illustrates how an internet of finance could become a reality sooner rather than later.

The interesting aspect of Bitcoin is the ability to buy and sell without the need for an intermediary. This represents a paradigm shift in the management and structure of the financial services industry. However, adopting innovation and changing entire ecosystems is not something that the notoriously cautious financial industry and affiliated regulation committees are famed for.

Because this technology has the potential to reduce the role banks play in the lives of individuals, it is understandable why financial institutions are skeptical. However, these developments cannot be written off just yet. They could save consumers and the financial industry billions of dollars while also removing their reliance on middlemen to offer a speedier, modern and more efficient banking experience.

The ultimate goal is to move payments globally much faster while simultaneously becoming more transparent and lowering costs. We will likely begin to witness early adopters making waves in the private market before the ever-cautious big players speak of standardization and implementation. However, there are already a few of them dipping their toes into the water.

According to the PwC, there are already over three hundred technology startups developing ideas that will allow blockchain to revolutionize the financial industry. Big players like Visa and Nasdaq are already investing heavily into a blockchain startup, and there are also plans to modernize the London Market. Lloyds is looking to blockchain technology to improve its data access and reduce costs associated with administrative paperwork.

There are daily stories of heavyweights within the financial industry becoming increasingly eager to capture the tamper-proof benefits offered by a future web-based cryptocurrency. Technology leaders such as Microsoft also have thrown their hats into the ring to demonstrate the possibilities that blockchain technology can offer.

There is exciting potential to completely revolutionize the way in which the finance industry works. But in its infancy, many will continue to exercise great caution before rushing into a shiny electronic cash system that is fully peer-to-peer. The future of cash and pockets full of loose change is indeed looking numbered, as many wonder if in just a few years we will be looking back at our quaint primitive payment methods in the same way many do with physical media now.

Cryptocurrencies that thrive in a transparent environment might seem like a foreign concept today, but the rise of blockchain technology is one Hard Trend that will quickly prove to be impossible to ignore.

Finance trends can be anticipated – when you know how to look. The Anticipatory Organization Model has the power to shift an organization’s operating mindset from the default of reacting and responding to changes coming from the outside in, to a place of empowerment by anticipating and shaping the future from the inside out.

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Best Practices Culture Growth Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Women In Business

You Never See it Coming

I woke up in a reflective mood this morning as I’m preparing for BOTH Easter and Passover this year and thinking about the challenges faced by our ancestors.  For some reason I was reminded of a woman I met on a long plane ride several years after 9/11,  Anna was a portly woman, probably in her early sixties, possibly older.  We were coming back from Los Angeles, so it was going to be a long flight and I welcomed the diversion of some light conversation.  Also, being a writer, I’m always looking for opportunities to hear a good story.

After the usual introductions, I asked about her work. She replied that it had changed significantly over the past several years. Previously, she was a project manager with an office in the World Trade Center.  Now she was in a different building closer to where she lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  I couldn’t help but ask where she had been when the planes hit.

She said she was at her computer when the announcement came to drop everything and move to the stairwell.  No one told her why she had to leave her office. Confused, she joined the rush of people making their way down the forty flights of stairs.  Rumors spread.  She began to realize something terrible had happened, but exactly what wasn’t clear. Her mind started to race, even if her feet could not.  She decided that she had to get to safety.

Suddenly, the exodus came to a halt.  Although the group had arrived at the lobby level, the guards in charge were instructing people to stay in the stairwell.  This did not make sense.  She squeezed her way through the crush of bodies and out the stairwell door.  People yelled for her to get back into the shaft.  Instead, she sprinted across the lobby while the guards shouted after her.

Most of the exits to the outside were locked, but one of the doors remained open.  Without hesitation, this overweight, out-of-shape, sedentary woman began running — all the way from the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan to her apartment on the Upper West Side of the city.  She never looked back, never stopped running until she was home on 79th Street and Broadway – more than 6 ½ miles from where she’d started.  When I asked what was going through her mind, she said she couldn’t believe she had left her favorite red heels under her desk.  Not her laptop, not her phone, not any files, but her sexy, red-spiked heels.

I was impressed.  This matronly woman — without any information and acting on only gut instinct — saved her own life.  The others in her group who obediently stayed put were crushed when the Towers came down.

The Takeaway?   Just when everything appears to be going well, a plane will suddenly appear in the sky and slam head-on into either your life or career or something else you value. You won’t see it coming but be assured; it happens to us all.  Marriages end. Careers derail.  Fortunes are lost. The people you counted on suddenly disappear.

When the calamity arrives, what will be your response? Will you sit there stunned, unable to move, and scream at the moon that it’s all unfair?  Or will you refuse to be crushed and instead take action to regain your life, as Anna did?

A few years ago, when I was staying at the Westin in Philadelphia, the fire alarms went off in every room and all the hallways with instructions to head to the stairwells.  My heart raced as I remembered Anna.  Hotel guests were standing in the stairwells waiting.  I couldn’t.  I pushed my way through the throngs and sprinted down the stairs and out onto the street and safety.

I found out later it was a bomb scare.  The bomb squad found it and dismantled it.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  But I assessed the risk as well as I could and acted on my own behalf, the way Anna did.

When life challenges confront me I remember Anna and take action rather than allowing circumstances to control my fate.  And I always make sure to have my red stilettos somewhere safe. 😉

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Best Practices Growth News and Politics Personal Development

 What Boeing Can Learn From Oncologists and Hackers

Boeing is dealing with the aftermath of two 737 MAX8 crashes in less than six months, causing over 300 deaths. All MAX8 aircraft have been grounded worldwide, the stock has taken a huge hit, and customers are now canceling upcoming orders.

How did the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial and military aircraft, with an outstanding safety record for decades, get themselves into this mess? Air travel is still the safest form of transportation. It’s just that when an airplane falls out of the sky, hundreds of people die. When it happens twice in a short time for the same reason, people panic.

One theory is that Boeing over-automated the aircraft. By taking control out of the hands of pilots to prevent stalls, they may have inadvertently created a situation that resulted in an automated system that may be causing more crashes than it prevents. Boeing also tried to simplify training—with some pilots only getting minimal training on the new aircraft via iPads. Did their efforts to get the plane to market with as little upgrade cost to airlines as possible backfire?

Perhaps the real answer is about mindset. If a new aircraft passed the prescribed tests, Boeing (and the FAA) deemed it to be airworthy…except it wasn’t.

Both oncologists and hackers will tell you betting that things are OK because you don’t immediately see a problem can often lead to disaster. There was a time when a doctor who ordered a mammogram or CT scan presumed that if no lumps or growths were seen, the patient was healthy. Now good radiologists and oncologists presume that there’s cancer lurking in every corner—until they can prove otherwise. They know that what they see is the full picture. The consequences of missing a few rogue cancer cells hiding somewhere may be the difference between life and death.

Top financial institutions take the same approach. They hire groups of hackers to break into their systems—to expose flaws no one knew were there. They know that just because no one has broken in so far that doesn’t mean the flaw isn’t there. It just means it hasn’t been discovered—yet. And finding out through a huge data breach can have severe consequences.

What Boeing should have done was hired the aviation equivalent of smart oncologists or hackers. Turn lose the most highly experienced pilots you can find and let them have at it in a simulator. Put the aircraft through its paces in the worst conditions they can imagine. Then go to younger, less experienced flight crews and see how they handle the same scenarios—do they take the correct actions, or do new issues arise?

Good user experience testing makes a critical difference. How are these systems actually being used? Are there learning issues for flight crews who are not native English speakers? Do experienced pilots expect the aircraft to behave in a way that may not reflect what actually happens? What are the unintended consequences of taking decisions like this away from the flight crew?

We can shake our heads at what Boeing didn’t do, but let’s not forget that it’s all too easy for organizations in almost any industry to make these same kinds of mistakes. We need to take these lessons to heart for our own businesses, rather than gloating at Boeing’s predicament.

Where are the potential gotchas in your systems, your products, your services, your delivery methods? Have you done a comprehensive scan from top to bottom to ensure no fatal flaws are hiding just under the surface? Are you hacking your own systems to find the weakest links?

When the first hint of a potential problem arrives, take it seriously. Don’t wait for the same issue to occur twice or more before taking appropriate action. Presuming a fatal flaw won’t occur is a strategy that just doesn’t fly.

Linda J. Popky, Founder of Leverage2Market Associates, is an award-winning Silicon Valley-based strategic marketing expert who is the author of the book Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters and the Executive Director of the Society for the Advancement of Consulting (SAC). Follow her on Twitter at @popky #mktgabove.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

What Moves You the Most Fear: Reward or Pain?

“The difference between fear, reward, or pain, is the emotional state that either creates in you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Do you know what moves you to action the quickest? I know it depends on the circumstance you’re in. But sometimes, we’re moved more by fear than reward or pain.

You should always be aware of what moves you to action in any situation. Doing so allows you to be more aligned with your decision-making process. And that allows you to understand why you choose to engage in certain actions.

The following are thoughts to consider when assessing how to decide about an action you’ll take. Being aware of those observations will also help you identify the source of motivation that’s controlling your thoughts.

Fear: Most people are motivated more by the fear of loss versus the reward of gain. You can test yourself by examining something that’s of value to you. Assess to what degree you’d feel pain if you no longer had it. Now compare that to other items (i.e. people, things) that you value. Now how do you feel? Through that quick simulation, you’ve prioritized what is of value to you. And, you’ve assessed the emotional state you’d be in if you no longer had it. You can make the same calculations when weighing the benefits of possibly acquiring something new versus not doing so because of where that process might lead. Also remember, something new carries intrinsic risks – it’s unknown – it has no history and thus no track record. It might look good in the beginning and be fraught with hidden dangers to come.

Reward: This can be a great motivator. But you should also note why you’re driven by a reward. If the driving force is to escape what you’re moving from, you should consider that fear might be the predominant source that’s motivating you. That’s important because you don’t want to think you’re driven by reward when the source is fear. The two motivators are directed by different mindsets within you.

The true motivation of reward might appear as you being happy and seeking more to enhance that feeling. As a result, you’re willing to take a risk to obtain what you seek. Always question when seeking a reward what the hidden risk is. Question to what degree it’s the loss of something that you’re familiar with. Thus, make your calculations appropriately to determine if you’re propelled by moving towards or away from something.

Pain: Pain can be a feisty motivator. On the one hand, most people attempt to avoid pain. Then, there are those that embrace it as a source to grow from. Either psyche may be the motivator that moves you to action.

Like the association that fear and reward have to one another, the avoidance of pain can be the conductor that divides one direction from another. That’s to say, if you’re predominately attempting to avoid pain, you may forgo the risk of reward. If you’re immune to pain, you may be more daring. Again, there’s a thin mental line that separates the mindset that’ll move you in one direction versus another. Know what that mindset is.

Always attempt to understand the sources that motivate you. They’re the lifeblood of your being. Thus, the more you know the process that controls its flow, the better you’ll be able to direct it … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

In a negotiation, you’ll be motivated to take action based on fear, reward, or pain. If you’re aware of the driving force that motivates you to action, you should be better positioned to control those actions. By being in greater control of yourself, you’ll be in greater control of the negotiation and the other negotiator. That means that he won’t be able to easily ‘push your buttons’ … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Fear #Reward #Pain #Negative #Stop #Thoughts #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Best Practices Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

The Secret of Selling … and Business: Mind the Value Gaps

Selling — and business — isn’t about what your customer says they want as much as it’s about what they value. Sure, translating from the first to the second takes skill, but that’s the reality. Customer value is at the heart of sales, marketing, customer experience, innovation, operations…everything in your business.

Value is the energy – the unseen force behind all business. Without value received in each direction, no transaction would take place. More profoundly, it drives every part of a customer’s buying process, like reading an advertisement, clicking on a web link, or agreeing to take a sales call. Nothing happens unless a prospect considers each next step worth his/her time. That is, they perceive a value gap: the expectation of a desirable outcome.

For most of the past decade, I’ve taken a deep dive into the craft of selling. However, I’ve always viewed selling not as a siloed corporate function but as a part of a bigger whole, combining my general management, value and pricing expertise with knowledge in sales and marketing. When you treat sales as its own silo, you leave a lot of potential growth and profits on the table.

Customers Buy…to Fill Value Gaps 

Selling skills and methodology training all takes different paths to the same goal: uncovering value gaps, then showing the customer to fill them. These could be gaps the customer understands and describes…or those they don’t know to ask for. The sellers that confine themselves to customer-described value gaps are the ones that look –and sell — like everyone else…and compete on price.

Your expertise in your product or solution means nothing if you aren’t also an expert in your customer’s business. Only then can you help your customer achieve creative, differentiated outcomes.

The Way We Sell Today Leaves Value Gaps Ignored.

Companies silo themselves into functions. This is both good and bad. Silos are centers of specialized expertise, but they are also fertile ground for tribal dysfunction (according to anthropologists who study organizations). Think of all of the functions in your own company who regularly contact your customer. Now think about how many value gaps those “non-sales” roles uncover on a daily basis, but don’t do anything with. Finally, ask yourself what value-creation opportunities you are wasting.

Everyone who comes in contact with a customer should be considered a seller. Then, every seller in your company needs to be attuned to looking for value gaps. More important than closing such gaps when they can: carrying any/all value insights “back to the hive”. When your organization gathers a more holistic view of a customer – and all their value gaps – you put yourself in a better position to compete.

Customers Don’t Help.

Selling companies aren’t the only ones who silo themselves. Even more important, customers try to buy in silos. For example, a piece of hospital lab equipment might be sold to the lab silo, assisted by resources in purchasing, contracting, and perhaps facilities. However, if that piece of equipment fails – or even worse, starts giving incorrect results – think of all of the silos who are impacted. The list includes doctors, nurses, patient records, billing, legal, scheduling (for re-tests), loss prevention, finance, administration…and of course, purchasing, contracting, and the lab silo. Think about it this way: when that equipment is running properly, all those departments are still impacted and are potential areas for innovation and value creation.

Most B2B offers deliver value company-wide, but many sellers are oblivious to anything outside of the conventional selling box. Business acumen helps sellers analyze how an offer benefits to other areas of the company. When all of your sellers have business acumen, they’re equipped to sell outside of a customer’s compartmentalized buying mentality.

Even if you don’t buy into lofty goals like feeding customer-focused innovation, think narrowly and tactically. Silo-limited customers with narrow buying processes lock salespeople into poorly differentiated selling processes. The same organization scheme that focuses on expertise and drives efficiency restricts a broad exploration of solution impacts. If your offer delivers out-of-single-silo results (most do), limiting yourself to within-silo selling is an act of self-commoditization.

If You Invest in Differentiating Your Product/Service, You Gotta Pay for it

When a business generates value for a customer through a differentiated offer (product, service, or solution), a sale is made. Generate enough value and the seller can charge more than their costs. They can then reward their employees for building differentiated products, forge strong relationships with valued suppliers, invest in even more differentiation, and yes, share profits with investors.

As you can see, focusing on value gaps closes a lot of loops in an organization. Your sales silo can strengthen those loops or break them. Unfortunately, some metrics make a sales organization still look good while still delivering profit/value dysfunction. I regularly see scoring systems which focus inside-the-sales-silo only, instead of holistically.

It’s About Uncovering and Closing Value Gaps.

By “it”, I don’t just mean sales. I mean “a world-class business”. All sellers (everyone who touches a customer) should participate in uncovering gaps. Every function in your company participates in closing gaps. Don’t let how you’ve siloed your organization stands in the way. And don’t let your customer’s silos limit the value you bring.

If you want to talk about it some more, contact me. As always, share and/or like if you found this article worth your time.

To your success!

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Entrepreneurship Leadership Personal Development

The Secret of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs change the world, but not in the way that you think.

Entrepreneurship can be one of the single most impactful ideas in business today. Entrepreneurial thinking, intrapreneurship, and innovation are pervasive ideas throughout the industry today. Many entrepreneurs that call themselves creatives, they know that they’re creating and building something — giving them a singular vision of what they want to bring into the world.

  • For many, it is malleable, able to change and adapt as they grow and learn.
  • For some, it is a straight-forward single-minded idea.
  • For everyone, it is a problem that they are passionate about solving.

Entrepreneurship makes lives better because it brings new ideas into the fold. Some stick, smartphones, social media, others fade, pet rocks, Beta Max, but all leave an impact, even if it is merely an example of something whose time hasn’t yet come, i.e., Apple Newton.

The key to this is, whatever you want to do, it is entirely up to you to figure it out.
Entrepreneurs’ ideas don’t have to be game changing. In fact, among our communities the most impactful entrepreneurs often have some of the most mundane ideas; they merely do it better and bring a little extra to the table.

The one common element that every entrepreneur has is resilience.

Resilience merely is the ability to remove “I can’t” from your vocabulary. Period. This simple lesson is the most important and is what primes entrepreneurs for success. Because every venture with either will either fail, face hardship, or require grit and determination to move forward.

Never giving up is what separates the successful entrepreneurs from those who fall short.

Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be a world-changing idea. It has to be something that someone is passionate about and willing to see through to the end.
The smallest venture can have the most significant effect. Moreover, for many entrepreneurs, it is not about changing the world. It is merely having an impact on their lives, families, and neighborhoods — the idea of building a career for themselves that bring value into their communities in new ways.

I had a great lunch the other day with The Hero Club, another great organization within the C-Suite Network and had a chance to sit down with some fantastic entrepreneurs that have stared some significant and highly impactful ventures.

I asked them, what was the one thing that kept you going and truly helped you build your business. After some thinking, I received a multitude of answers, all along similar lines; persistence, determination, unwillingness to let go, plain old stubbornness. In short, it was the will to succeed that drove them to create something bigger, better, more profound. It is the will to carry on that creates successful entrepreneurs, not a fancy pitch deck.

It is looking at the world in slightly different ways, finding a problem, proposing a solution, then running with it. However, and more importantly, it is the ability to be able to bounce back from mistakes and missteps. Learn from them, grow, and continue to move forward. Be stubborn about what you’re passionate about. The never give up, never quit, learn, adapt, improvise, and overcome attitude is everything in this area of business.

We don’t have to change the world, but entrepreneurs everywhere are finding ways to improve their lives and their communities. If you look at the aggregate, incremental, impact of all their ventures, it does change the world.

You can find our podcast conversation on entrepreneurship and local impact on The Leadership Update Brief on C-Suite Radio.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across three combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

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Entrepreneurship Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Operations Sales Skills Women In Business

Persuasion – How to Use It in the Negotiation Process

“To become more persuasive, magnify your subject’s needs. Also, know how and when to give or take those needs away.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“I attempted to coddle him as a method of persuasion. It didn’t work! He told me to put my offer where the sun doesn’t shine. I was speechless!”

What forms of persuasion do you use in your negotiation process? Every negotiator attempts to motivate her opponent through persuasion.

When considering how you’ll persuade another negotiator, you must consider her personality type, the situation you’re in, and the negotiation environment. Those variables will have a large impact on your use of persuasion in the negotiation process.

The following are a few thoughts to consider when deciding how you’ll address those variables in your negotiations.

Personality Type:

In the opening scenario, it appears the negotiator used the wrong form of persuasion – and was harshly admonished. Here’s something to consider when attempting to persuade someone based on their personality type.

  • Takeaway – Most people are more motivated by a fear of loss. That means, they’ll protect what they’ve gained rather than risking its loss for greater gains.
  • You can assess someone’s risk adversity by extending an offer of something they want, making it conditional upon their immediate acceptance, and taking it off the table if they decline. Later in the negotiation, make reference to that offer and observe their reaction. If they give an inkling of wanting it, they’re displaying the effect that the takeaway had. Even if they do accept the offer, you will have gained insight into the degree of risk adversity that they’re willing to undergo. You can use that insight throughout the negotiation.

Negotiation Situation:

Every negotiation is shaped by the value sought. That means the degree of effort applied is based on the perceived value and expectations of the outcome. Thus, if there’s a low expectation of value, the need to persuade or dissuade will be in direct correlation to that expectation. Keep that in mind when utilizing the following thought.

  • What losses have the other negotiator incurred in the past and what effect did they have on him – Having this insight allows you to invoke the painful memories of what occurred in the past. Your subconscious suggestion is, you don’t want that to happen again, do you? You can also use that information as a lever to persuade him from not straying into dangerous negotiation waters.
  • Different situations will influence the need to project different behaviors. Understanding the conditional behavior that shapes that mindset will indicate whether to use coddling or disdaining tools of persuasion.

Negotiation Environment:

The negotiation environment plays a huge factor in your ability to persuade someone. You can use surroundings to summon past emotional experiences. To do so consider these questions …

  • Who else is in the environment and what influencing persuasion is their presence casting on the other negotiator?
  • What has been the experience in the past that the other negotiator has had in environments like this?

Subliminally, we’re moved to adopt certain actions based on the environment. Thus, some actions would not be adopted if the surroundings were different. Having control of these variables allows you to project a greater degree of persuasion.

Other Things to Consider:

There are other things to take into account when assessing how you’ll be more persuasive in your negotiation. Such as …

  • Ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Culture
  • Position (superior vs. subordinate)

I will address the above variables in a later article.

As you can see, there are many ways to use persuasion in a negotiation. Above are just a few of those ways. There’s one thing that’s irrefutable, if you misuse your efforts of persuasion, you’ll diminish your negotiation efforts. To lessen that probability and to enhance your chances of having a more successful negotiation outcome, consider implementing the thoughts above … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

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