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Month: December 2019

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Marketing Personal Development

What Every Business Author Needs to Know

For most business authors, the days of making a living on writing business books are long gone.

But a new era is here, and it still pays to keep publishing them.

Let me explain.

Over 70% of books don’t turn a profit on book sales alone anymore.

Just like selling music, the margins in individual book sales have become so low and finite that it isn’t a lucrative revenue model. Business books have become a marketing model.

The real ROI

The going rate for ghostwriting is around $7,000 per 50 pages, at 250 words a page. For a standard 250 page book, that’s $35,000.

$140 per page or $.56 per word! And That doesn’t cover the cost of marketing and inventory.

So, If you don’t have a marketing plan that will sell enough books to off-set those costs, you better be using them to promote the service that will.

Most authors and publishers are still marketing books like it’s the golden era of publishing in the 1980s. Business authors should use books as marketing tools and not rely on them for revenue only.

Every business author makes the lion share of their total revenue on their services:  consulting, speaking, training, etc. Yet, most authors promote their books as a separate sales and marketing process.

Separate marketing plan, separate sales funnel, separate audience. Instead, Business authors should use their books to promote their subject matter expertise in tandem with the service they make their living on.

The Reality:

Books are an increasingly low margin product.

Just think, you would have to sell 20,000 books to bring in the same revenue of a $20,000-month consulting retainer.

HERE IS THE SECRET that nobody wants to talk about.

YOU DON’T HAVE to make a killing on book sales to make a killing off of your book.

Mass marketing is over. Ultimately, you’re selling a niche service, not a book.

Don’t believe me?

Only 62 out of 1000 book titles sell more than 5,000 copies, so you can’t publish thinking book sales are the pot of gold.

Books are the rainbow that leads interested people to the pot of gold by ultimately purchasing the service you provide after proving you’re the leader in your domain of expertise.

For example;

REAL LIFE CASE STUDIES

Russel Brunson. ClickFunnels

I met Russel Brunson in 2008 at a mastermind event teaching internet marketing. Then around 2015, Brunson launched a book called DOTCOM Secrets to teach people how to be effective at digital marketing.

But he wasn’t selling his book!  He gave it away at cost. He still is (get it here). Why? Because he isn’t in the business of selling books. He is playing a bigger game.

So what is he really selling?

He’s the founder of a SaaS software for internet marketers called ClickFunnels.

He gives away his book at cost as a marketing strategy attracting as many people as possible who are interested in digital marketing to upsell them on his digital marketing software to implement what they want. Results.

By using his book as a marketing tool, he attracted a social media tribe of over 1 million entrepreneurs who do their own digital marketing.

He then upsold no less than 55,000 current active users to his SaaS software. His ClickFunnels Software company is now valued at over $360 million in top-line revenue.

Brunson’s personal net worth is $37 million today. By not worrying about making money on book sales but using his books to attract and teach an audience how to effectively use his software!

Grant Cardone. 10x

Cardone deployed the same model using his book to attract people searching for personal development and sales mastery.

When you sign up to get his free book, he upsells them into his Grant Cardone Sales Training University at a price tag of $10k per student.

His personal net worth is $300 million. While historically he made his money through real estate investing, today he is using his books to attract people into his business sales funnel.

John Lee Dumas:

Dumas promotes content to people searching for how to start a podcast.

He then offers them a $3.99 book to teach people how to launch and grow a podcast that comes with 15 video tutorials. That’s a lot of upfront value for next to nothing.

Why? To upsells his podcast training program. By using his book as a lead magnet, he netted $2 million for his sales training business in his second year in operations.

SUMMARY

If you’re in the services business. Writing and publishing a book can be the perfect way to attract the customers interested in your field and expertise.

By teaching them what you know, they gain your trust, and you become the person they refer others to for help when they need your services.

While there is little chance you will retire on book royalties any more, there is a very big incentive to launch one for your business.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Visual Language of a Leader

The Elements of Leadership

There is no doubt that communication is a strong pillar of leadership. Leaders are entrusted with communicating the vision and goals of the organization. Everything communicates. Everything a person does, says, and wears has consequences. These either strengthen the brand and message, or they diminish it.

In my book, I.C.U., The Comprehensive Guide to Breathing Life Back Into Your Personal Brand, I talk about my concept of how all elements of each language – visual, body, spoken, and written – act together as a single unit to create what I call The Image Language™. The visual language of a leader is just as important as their body language and their verbal and written skills.

How You Communicate Your Inner Persona

Have you thought about how you are communicating your inner persona through your outward appearance? Have considered the message that is sent by your visual language, meaning how you look and what you wear?

As humans, we are wired to interpret things visually first. When we look at others, our brains start to gather data into who you are from a visual aspect. Think of your appearance as your logo. Just as the design and color of a logo send a message about the company, your clothing choices and grooming habits do the same. They are the first filter into who you are and give clues to what you believe. Think of clothing in terms of visual data. They help others make sense of who a person is and what they stand for.

Your Style as a Leader

When you are in a highly visible role, how you present yourself becomes vital. Leaders need to present themselves in a way that is cohesive to their roles and goals. Those in leadership positions are looked up to by their team. They are trusted colleagues to their peers, and they are often the face of the company to its customers.

As a society, we expect leaders to look a certain way, such as wearing conservative clothing and often in the color blue. There is tension between being overdressed, causing you to appear stuffy or rigid, and that of being underdressed that can send a message that you are not taking your position seriously.

Your style as a leader is dependent on an array of factors, such as industry. For example, a leader in the tech industry may lean more towards a casual style than someone in the financial sector. The other factors that come into play are geographic location, customer base, and generational views.

Creating Your Signature Look

The first place to start is to create a signature look, similar to how Steve Jobs did with the black turtleneck, Hillary Clinton has done by selecting pantsuits, and Mark Zuckerberg with the hoodie. Being consistent in your appearance reduces stress, saves brainpower to be used for more important decisions later in the day, and creates trust with those you come in contact.

Here are my three power plays for anyone in a leadership role:

  1. Select quality over quantity. Always buy the very best you can afford. A few examples, it is better to invest in a Craig Shelly timepiece versus buying five lower-end watches. Shoes are one of the main ways a person makes judgments about another’s status. So owning a pair of Prada shoes versus several low-quality ones will serve you well, and likely last longer.
  2. Incorporate the third piece. Adding a third piece to your outfits, such as a blazer or cardigan, always elevates your look.
  3. Invest in a tailor. Your best friend should be your tailor. The more you can tailor clothing to fit all aspects of your body, the higher end your outfit will appear, and you will look more powerful and confident. If you can invest in made-to-measure or bespoke, opt for that.

Being well dressed in your signature style brings trust and clarity to your message as a leader.

Are you ready to look and feel confident wherever you are? If so, contact me at sheila@imagepowerplay.com to schedule a 20-minute call to discuss how we can work together to grow your visibility and influence through my return on image® services.

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Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Management Skills Technology

Becoming an Anticipatory Leader™: The Missing Competency

We are all good at reacting and responding – a knee-jerk reaction, so to speak. Even organizations large and small have learned how to be lean and agile while executing a strategy at a high level. But despite these skills, General Motors still declared bankruptcy, Blockbuster closed its last store, and the record industry succumbed to Spotify, all despite their leaders and workers being responsive and agile and executing well. To thrive in this new age of hyper-technological disruption and change, it is imperative to learn a new competency: Becoming Anticipatory.

That may sound impossible, but it’s not. It is actually quite simple when you know where and how to look, and when you and your employees master this skill, you’ll be able to create what I call an Anticipatory Organization™.

A Proven Methodology

Based on three decades of research and applying the principles I’ve developed to organizations worldwide, I have a proven methodology for separating what I call Hard Trends from Soft Trends. Over the years, I’ve written about this extensively in several best-selling books, including my latest New York Times bestseller, The Anticipatory Organization, and hundreds of articles and blogs.

A Hard Trend is a projection based on measurable, tangible, and fully predictable facts, events, or objects. It’s something that will happen: a future fact that cannot be changed. In contrast, a Soft Trend is a projection based on statistics that have the appearance of being tangible, fully predictable facts. It’s something that might happen: a future maybe. Note that Hard Trends can be identified before they impact you, your business, and your customers. Soft Trends can be changed, which means they provide a powerful vehicle to capitalize on and influence the future with.

This distinction completely changes how individuals and organizations view and plan for the future. Understanding the difference between Hard and Soft Trends allows us to know which parts of the future we can be right about. When you learn how to analyze trends in this way, you can accurately predict future disruptions, identify and solve problems before they happen, and practice what I call “everyday innovation.” This enables you to solve challenges and problems faster and see the opportunities that were impossible just a few years before. In other words, you become anticipatory rather than reactionary.

Employees of an Anticipatory Organization understand that those who can see the future most accurately will have the biggest advantage. They know that you cannot change the past, but you can shape the future based on the actions you take in the present. As such, they actively embrace the fact that many future disruptions, problems, and game-changing opportunities are predictable and represent unprecedented ways to gain an advantage. They know that it’s better to solve predictable problems before they happen, and that future problems often represent the biggest opportunities. Above all else, they are confident and empowered by having a shared view of the future based on Hard Trends and what I call the “Science of Certainty.”

What is the “Science of Certainty”?

Once you can separate Hard Trends from Soft Trends and differentiate between the things that will happen from the things that might happen, you can accurately define the certainties going forward. We know that the newest iPhone will always have faster processing chips than its predecessor, we know that after 3G and 4G will come 5G and so on, and we know that we are putting more and more in the cloud with no end in sight.

Outside of technological examples, we know that Baby Boomers are not going to get younger, we know that governments worldwide are going to continue to issue future regulations, and we know the cycles of nature, like summer following winter.

There is so much we can see that it’s absolutely possible to create certainties using the Hard Trend/Soft Trend model I’ve developed. But why is this so important to business? Strategy based on certainty (on Hard Trends) has low risk, while strategy based on uncertainty (on Soft Trends) has high risk. With certainty, you have the confidence to say “yes” and move forward. But with uncertainty, you tend to get stuck in neutral.  

To succeed in business now and in the future, being lean and agile and executing well are no longer enough. You must anticipate the future. I see this as being the most important missing competency that we’ve seen in decades.

Ask yourself: 

How much time do I spend trying to keep up while putting out fires, managing crises, and reacting to change? Are these activities helping me to get ahead? Learning to be anticipatory will change that and allow you to successfully shape your future.

Join me live on December 17th at 10am PST / 1pm EST

Categories
Best Practices Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

How’s Your Customer Focus Journey Going?

 

Woman holiday journey travel relaxation

If you don’t know what “being customer-focused” means or can’t measure it, you can’t know if you’re doing it.  Many company leaders desire customer focus. Fewer know exactly what that term means. Fewer still can describe specific behaviors to know how far they’ve progressed on a journey toward customer focus. Let’s fix that in this article.

The term “customer focus” is too vague to measure accurately.  Let’s correct our target term to customer-perceived value.  Perceived value is what drives customer decisions. Perceived isn’t just a throwaway word: value only exists in the customer’s mind, and elite organizations don’t take chances with what is/isn’t perceived by a prospect.  Thus, customer-perceived value (I often shorten it to just “value” because there isn’t any other kind) is the core idea — the essence — within the cruder “customer focus”.  Value is the axis around which everything in your organization should move.

Your first task in grading your company’s “customer focus” is to use a measurable target.

Refine your focus to “customer value”.

Value is the desirability of customer outcomes. Customers buy outcomes, not our products and services. What they are willing to pay – value — depends on the desirability of those outcomes. Desirability can be measured in dollars.

As you focus on value, your journey takes place in three domains, described below.

For starters, let’s grade your performance using three levels beyond “average”: Good, Great, and Elite. I’ll be detailing what Good, Great, and Elite look like in three upcoming articles, one for each domain.  If you can’t wait, contact me, because those articles are already (mostly) written.  I’m also developing an assessment tool, which will be on my new website (a shameless tease for coming attractions).

Below, I want to describe the three domains:

1. How well is your organization aligned around Value

Alignment between departments amounts to de-siloing your organization.  I’m all for developing robust expertise in many specialties, but it is an established anthropological fact that silos also create gaps for important stuff to fall through. There is a constant push-pull between specialization and holistic/systems thinking in any organization.  Alignment is the process of purposeful coordination between silos.

Companies usually start by aligning islands of functions…say, sales and marketing…then maybe customer service.  In elite value focus (aka Radical Value focus, the title of my upcoming book) everyone wants to uncover new/better customer outcomes to increase value.

Customer experience (aka CX) management follows a similar track.  Radical not only means everyone delivers value but is constantly seeking additional customer’s -mind insights

2. How Well Do Your People Build, Sell and Price customer value?

This is the domain of customer engagement.  As you progress from “good at sales” to “elite value-based seller”, the skills deepen, and the number of people in the organization participating widens.  I use three key components of the selling process to describe value-based selling:

  • Build: Uncovering and discovering value gaps, expanding them, and causing the customer to envision outcomes of having those gaps resolved.
  • Sell: Aligning the seller’s solution with desired customer outcomes.
  • Price: Facilitating the customer process of monetarily measuring the desirability of outcomes, then conducting a win-win pricing dialogue.

Elite performers, those who have radical focus, are able to execute sales at more profitable value-based pricing.

How Well Do You Enable Everyone in the Organization to Perform at an Elite Level?

Enablement consists of hiring, training, coaching, and content services.  Maturity level increases with the number of services, who is included, and breadth/depth of service. More importantly, maturity increases with transitioning from event focus, to process-focused, to closed-loop process.

  1. Event might mean train and coast, or coaching “burst”, then coast.
  2. Process looks like ongoing training; developing a coaching cadence.
  3. Loops close when coaching drives changed training when sales insights are captured for improved content and product innovation.  The more loops closed, the more elite.

One way the journey starts is when a company realizes that front line sales managers performing as “super salespeople” or “deal saviors” doesn’t scale — or build bench strength — nearly as well as coaching everyone to save their own deals. Another key indicator of maturity is the organization’s discounting process and behavior, from subjective/”squeaky wheel” management to objective, value-focused and tracked/analyzed

Research Backs This Up.

CSO Insights (CSOi) has defined 12 behaviors of great companies (their term: “world-class”). “Great” organizations practice all 12.   I’ve organized the 12 behaviors into these three domains.   (Source: CSO Insights’ 2019 Sales Best Practices Study)

The difference between CSOi’s results and the elite behaviors I’ll be sharing in coming articles: CSOi never even asked about elite behaviors, and thus never correlated elite behaviors to results.  The CSOi 12 behaviors figure prominently in the good and great levels of value focus, but are largely absent from the elite level.

  • Do you want to win more opportunities than most? CSOi’s results show that practicing these 12 behaviors correlates strongly to that type of outcome.
  • Do you want to win with higher customer preference?  CSOi didn’t ask; their results are silent here. It neither corroborates nor refutes that higher perceived value correlates with higher preference.  Other research (and common sense) will back this up, though.
  • How about winning with higher value, driving deeper customer relationships? CSOi didn’t ask.  Other research declares this a worthy pursuit, however.
  • Selling at higher win-win prices?  CSOi didn’t ask. There’s a sad story, here. Ask me about it sometime.

I Want More for You.  Radically Elite Value Focus.

These are the three domains for a journey to elite value focus.  In follow-on articles, I describe what makes up good, great, and elite performers.

Comment below, like, and/or share. As I said, reach out if you have more in-depth questions, or read the next three articles.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Culture Growth News and Politics Personal Development

Will Your Employees’ Prejudices and Penchants Hurt Your Company? Subtitle: NEVER BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU!

The Case of Starbucks

Starbucks learned the hard way that their own people can act based on fear, marginalizing an entire group of the human population. Starbucks found out that these actions can reflect negatively on an entire company that relies on everyone, not only a single group of people, for its image, reputation, and ultimately its profit!

Starbucks can’t survive a boycott by those offended. There’s a huge business message to be learned here—People vote with their money. And when a business marginalizes someone, that person will no longer vote in support. We admire Starbucks’s effort to take responsibility by starting a sensitivity program that addresses the issue at hand. But it’s still in their own best interest to do so.

These days, events of this nature can quickly go viral, and dramatically affect business. This startling reality has businesses thinking about their employees’ mindsets and how they represent the company. Hiring based on skills is no longer enough—someone’s mindset can turn business away!

Prejudice in Politics and Business

We’ve made a lot of progress since the Civil Rights Movement’s early days, but the behavior of our top elected officials has led many people to act on their deep-seated prejudices. These people feel that their actions are justified—that they have permission to marginalize others. They see powerful politicians ridiculing, dehumanizing, name-calling, and disrespecting entire groups of the population solely based on religion, race, or national origin—and some people follow this example.

ABC learned this lesson the hard way. After Roseanne Barr’s degrading tweet about Valerie Jarrett went far from unnoticed, ABC was forced to either cancel her program or face protest from advertisers who depend on sales to the whole market, not just one group.

This brings us to the double standard that exists in society today. Unfortunately, it’s “okay” for a politician to make remarks that marginalize people, but not businesses. Businesses are held to a much higher standard of respect, as far as the general public is concerned. It’ll take years for elected officials to be voted out. But Starbucks or ABC? You can vote them out tomorrow!

There’s Good News and Bad News

The bad news is—despite how far we’ve come, fear, prejudice, and stereotyping are all prevalent in our society, with some people going as far as to take action on their prejudices. Maybe they choose to follow news feeds that support their opinions. Maybe they want to take steps backward. Or maybe they truly believe that society is becoming more and more intolerant.

But, the good news is that most businesses have to serve the entire population. Unlike political figures, businesses can’t cater to a small base. Their advertisers, suppliers, and customers hold them accountable for each of their employees’ behavior. Now that we think about it, businesses that want to see everyone as a potential customer have become unintended defenders of civil liberties.

We say, “If you really want to change something, put a buck on it!” Oppressed groups, like LGBTQ+, Latinos, and African Americans, among many others, have become influential economic forces to be reckoned with. Employee sensitivity training may begin by addressing why we depend on one another, how our very existence stems from people of all backgrounds, and why our paychecks rely on each person’s patronage.

If we started thinking of everyone as a customer, maybe we would treat them with more respect. There’s no denying that minorities have financial clout. If one group is marginalized, another group may be next. Simply put—it’s bad business to allow prejudice into the market, period. Don’t ever bite the hand that feeds you!

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

 

 

Categories
Accounting Best Practices Culture Economics Growth Industries Investing Management Personal Development Technology

The Cybersecurity of Banking and Finance

I’ve discussed the importance of cybersecurity in healthcare due to the extremely sensitive personal data and the loss of trust if hacked. If healthcare data and a patient’s trust is as sensitive as research shows, then it’s no surprise that the banking and financial industry is in serious need for anticipatory cybersecurity and digital data protection.

Banking Evolution

Up until the early eighties, transactions at financial institutions were handwritten, calculated long-hand, and done without the aid of a computer or calculator. Fast forward many years and not only can we make deposits and automate our bills to be paid online, but many employees of financial institutions are starting to work remotely as well.

Additionally, cash-out technology is replacing physical cash and check exchange. PayPal, Venmo, Zelle Pay, Apple Pay and many more make the exchange of money a social network of sorts with minimal or no fees, depositing straight into your bank account digitally without the bank’s physical presence or involvement.

A Breach of Banking Security

Whether you drive to a bank to withdraw cash or log into your Venmo account and deposit cash digitally, banking is a personal and serious subject. Keep in mind, a financial institution has every last little detail about our financial situations.

Historically, a security breach in a bank was a takeover robbery. These now pale in comparison to cyber crimes committed against financial institutions, where they take sensitive information and even your identity. Much like the healthcare industry, financial institutions are faced with thousands of cyberattacks every single day, with ]the financial reward much greater than cash.

One example of a big bank that suffered a massive attack was Capital One. A single weak spot in cybersecurity allowed cybercriminals to capture the personal information of over 100 million people and leak it to the world.

In the past year, there have been over 3,000 known successful cyber attacks against financial institutions according to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In the case of the Capital One hack, their system flaw was described as a “configuration vulnerability” in its security software that compares to the tellers and security guards in past banking years all going to lunch with the vault wide open and a lobby full of people.

Time for a Change!

Anticipatory cybersecurity measures should be elevated at financial institutions much like the healthcare industry. Capital One’s hack is not the only large scale financial institution that succumb to hacking, as we saw with companies like Equifax and Morgan Stanley being attacked as well.

Banks and financial institutions implement cyber protection, but are they really safe? I know of several cyber companies that test for vulnerabilities in this industry and within 48 hours they gain access to everything the bank “assumed” was protected and safe. But cyber protection is ever-changing and in need of constant testing for new vulnerabilities, and unfortunately, the vast majority of current cybersecurity strategies is about reacting quickly after the problem occurs rather than an anticipatory one.

The Hard Trend that cybercriminals continuously find a way to outsmart the institutions should be used by banks to pre-solve hacking problems before they become a nationally reported disaster, and be anticipatory by using behavior analytics and other anticipatory tools to prevent a breach of security and the breach of trust.

Cyber Solutions

When hacking occurs repeatedly in an industry, trust breaks because the customer does not feel their personal information is truly valued by the institution.

Hackers love to take advantage of weak passwords or use emails loaded with malicious computer code that lets them get inside the network while others scan for out-of-date hardware and software missing the latest security fixes. Likewise, cybercriminals work around the clock, therefore the IT firm or internal IT department must be in place to do the same.

Anticipatory cyber strategies put the cyber education of employees as a priority, with an outside firm doing security scans on everything before the problem occurs, having all software scanned and updated regularly, and making sure spam filters are adequate in your company’s email system.

Free Perimeter Test

Because we see cybersecurity as a strategic imperative in protecting your future brand and reputation, we have identified best-in-class cyber testing companies that will provide a free perimeter test of your organization to check for vulnerabilities in your cybersecurity defense system, provide the results of their tests and recommend immediate actions that can be taken to stop any uncovered leaks in your system. If you would like a free perimeter test to check for vulnerabilities in your cybersecurity defense system, please contact us.

Ask for your free perimeter test at: https://www.burrus.com/perimteter-test-request/

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Negotiations Sales Women In Business

“Negotiation Crisis Intervention Behind The Scenes Trust Fear Factor” – Negotiation Tip of the Week

 

“A crisis is easily averted when you negotiate in a way that prevents it.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)

 

Click here to get the book

 

 

“Negotiation Crisis Intervention Behind The Scenes Trust Fear Factor”

 

The opening scenes in his mind were calm and serene. The next thing he knew, silent alarms were summoning his attention. Instantly, he experienced fear. He instinctively knew that would be a factor in what was to come. And he wasn’t sure if that stemmed from his perception of a crisis in the making or the intervention that would be required to squelch it. Regardless, he knew trust would play a factor in the outcome – a negotiated outcome that he’d engage in whose result he could not gauge.

When you’re involved in any activity, you’re negotiating. That’s especially important to remember when you’re confronting crises or events that might be leading towards one. You should adhere to the following factors to enhance your chances of addressing challenging situations successfully.

 

Influence Factors:

 

Fight for power

Crises usually occur when there’s an unequal balance of power. Thus, struggles arise between forces to bring power back to the point of equilibrium. Then, harmony resides. But it only does so for the time it takes one side to become dissatisfied with the power-sharing arrangement. And that leads to another round of fractions between those that share the balance of power. Therefore, always be mindful of where your involvement finds you in the struggle for power. Therein will lie your opportunity to avert or incite a crisis. The action you take depends on what side of the equation you’re on – seeking more power or not willing to relinquish it.

Trust

Question: To what degree does trust become a factor in the influencing process during a crisis intervention? Answer: An entity seeking to create an agreeable and bonding resolution must first establish that foundation on trust – stated more succinctly, it’s everything. And, if trust teeters on uncertainty or there’s mistrust, the pillar to maintain a good relationship between opposing parties will stay in jeopardy. And that will hamper the cohesiveness of long-term agreements. Suffice it to say, trust when possible, but be keenly aware when you’ve extended it past its expiration. Sometimes, influencing a situation means pushing back on those that are not trustworthy.

Fear

Fear can be a powerful tool in a pre-crisis environment and during crisis intervention. It can be used as leverage to manipulate an opponent’s action to move in a more positive direction. It can also be used to entice your members to stay aligned with your cause (e.g., if they win, all of you will be worse off). You should also be cautious as to how you wield the tool of fear. Do that by having a calculated expectation of the outcome it might produce on your target. If the target responds in unexpected manners, and you didn’t consider them, you run the risk of losing control of the situation. And that could leave you impotent to address other aspects of the engagement. Therefore, when considering the implication and implementation that fear’s usage will have on a situation, the word to exercise is caution.

 

Scenes

When considering the role influence will have when you’re negotiating in a crisis or intervention, think of the situation in stages. Break the interactions you’ll have with the opposing party into segments. Assess how you’ll act and react in a particular phase. And assess how the opposite side might respond to your positioning – determine what mannerisms they might adopt and how you might react to that, too. Your goal is to break the pieces of the engagement into manageable segments. That effort is geared to give you the most significant opportunity to move the talks in the direction that’s most favorable for the parties involved.

 

Bonding Questions

As most astute people are aware, trust and fear play a vital role in the bonding process. Thus, both of those factors are potent forces. To add to your powers, ponder how you’ll bond with other parties by considering the following questions.

  1. Should you bond with the other party?
  2. What ramifications might come about as the result of your bonding with some members that oppose you versus others in the opposition’s fold?
  3. Can the bonding process with certain sects further your goals faster than with others?
  4. When is the best time to engage in the bonding process?
  5. How will you measure the effectiveness of your relationships?
  6. Should someone of stature precede you to set the stage to enhance your bonding efforts?
  7. At what point might you break a bond to make a point?

Those questions, along with others you think of, are crucial queries to ask yourself. The answers will allow you to develop a cohesive strategy that can be used to further your activities, engagements, and goals.

 

Negotiation Strategies

Depending on the severity of the crisis you’re dealing with and the stage that it’s in, you might want to adopt the following negotiation strategies to improve your plight.

 

Block and Bridge

This is a tactic that allows you to promote your message and position while diluting the other party’s efforts to enhance his own. It’s accomplished by acknowledging the other party’s perspective but not allowing it to be fully heard or seen. Thus, if someone were to say, “we’ve been making these demands for the …”. You might cut them off after they said, ‘the,’ and say, “We understand time has passed. There have been mitigating circumstances that have prevented us from adopting a policy/plan, etc.”

By engaging in this manner, you will have stopped his efforts to project his position in the public domain. Instead, you would have promoted your point as the dominant thought that others should lend their attention. Block and bridge is an excellent way to steal the spotlight and allow it to shine brighter upon your plans for improvement.

 

Pincer Move

A pincer move, in a negotiation, is used to convey the message that you have the opposition surrounded by those possessing differing opinions than his. The implication being, succumb to the superior force – me/us that confronts you.

Marshall as many opinions and allies as you can that are aligned with your message, to refute those of the other side to implement the strategy. And be sure that none in your camp are shills posing as your supporters when, in reality, they’re inside your encampment as spies for the other side. You want the opposing party to feel isolated and devoid of hope in the quest for their plans. That will serve several purposes. One, it will sow doubt about how much longer they should continue down their current path. Two, it will create fractures within their ranks. And three, it will dilute their strength, which will make them a less potent foe.

Feigning

Many years ago, Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman. Foreman was known for his power, not his stamina. Ali realized that he could not go toe-to-toe with Foreman less he heightened the chance of being knocked out. So, Ali adopted the rope-a-dope, a strategy meant to allow Foreman to wear himself out by pounding away at Ali. Ali’s ploy was to draw Foreman into thinking Ali was ‘out of gas.’ And the deception worked for Ali, who went on to win the fight. Later, someone stated that underestimating Ali was the mistake of a lifetime.

In any negotiation, sometimes, your efforts can be enhanced if the opposition is unsure of your strategy – it’s even better if they think you have no plan. Thus, when dealing with a crisis, release information strategically about your position. To the degree you can, don’t place it in mediums that you can’t control. And when other sources attempt to reposition you, be quick to thwart their efforts. Adopt the persona that’s best per how you wish others to perceive you, your team, your efforts. And, like Ali, you can pretend acceptance of one position while holding in reserve the one you wish to implement.

Reflection

There are many factors that you should consider before, during, and after a crisis. The way you handle each phase will determine what occurs next. Thus, you must be aware of where your rhetoric and actions will take you per the procedures and posture you adopt in one stage and the impact it’ll have upon the next. By implementing the insights mentioned, you increase your odds of addressing crises better. That will place you in a more harmonious and prosperous environment. And everything will be right with the world.

 

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d 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 https://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

 

 

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Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Younger Generation Leadership Strategy: Create an Individual Career Plan for Each Long-Term Employee

Today’s article is an excerpt from my new book Ingaging Leadership Meets the Younger Generations, soon to be released by Authors Place Press. Details and ordering information will appear soon on the Ingage Consulting website. Please stay tuned!

 When I was starting out in my career, I was comfortable with the idea that I would get promoted after “learning the ropes,” making mistakes, and moving upward gradually. Most often, I would get feedback about my performance only when I went into a job review session with my boss.

In those sessions, I would get news that I was handling some aspects of my job well, and others less so. Some of my supervisors—the better ones—would outline a series of action steps and objectives for me to tackle, and then when it was time for me to have another review, I would get a little more feedback on how I was doing, and possibly some new goals to pursue.

It has been my experience that with that kind of hit-or-miss approach, giving feedback doesn’t work well with younger generations for some very specific reasons. Younger generations don’t like the idea of learning through trial and error; they like the sense that they are making a difference and contributing confidently to the success of your organization. Perhaps more importantly, they like to understand how they can move up and make a long-term contribution. It is best if you begin to talk about advancement and career planning with younger generation employees as soon as they arrive on the job. One good approach is to have career planning meetings with younger generations during their initial training period as new employees.

The most effective approach is to create an individual career plan for each of your younger generation employees. (Note that I am writing about employees who you can expect to remain with your organization for the long term, not temporary or seasonal employees who are in positions that will be short-lived. If you employ younger students who are only going to work for you for a short time, for example, you will not need to create individual career plans for each of them.)

Here are some steps to follow:

  • Ask younger generations about their personal ambitions and interests, and work with them to create a plan that lets them live out those dreams as they work for you.
  • Explain the behaviors and activities that are most valued in your organization. You can say, for example, “If you can grow repeat sales in your department, we will make every effort to reward and value your contribution.”
  • Explain how advancement works in your company, and how it could work for your younger generation workers. If they are starting out as a salesperson in one territory, for example, they can work toward taking over a new territory after a year of hitting sales quotas and bringing in a certain number of new accounts.
  • Talk about your company’s values and mission and invite younger generations to tell you how they can be part of them.
  • Explain management training and other development programs and layout specifics about how younger generations can take part.
  • Establish specific benchmarks and expectations for your younger generation employees to attain. Build-in timelines and due dates to keep the process specific.
  • Schedule future check-in meetings at regular intervals to assess how the career plan is working. Members of younger generations, like plenty of other employees, do not like to work in a vacuum. So, every month or three months, meet with them to assess how well the employee is doing with his or her career plan. At those sessions, keep the tone encouraging, and ask whether you or the company can help or provide resources.
Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

Using Value Networks to Grow Your Business

 

The craft of sales is one of increasing the overlap between what outcomes a customer desires for themselves, and what outcomes the seller’s offer can deliver.

Increasing that overlap requires the seller to:

  1. Conduct insightful discovery into the customer’s business and personal situation to increase the range of desired outcomes.
  2. Identifying an exhaustive list of seller’s capabilities, then translating those into customer business outcomes.
  3. Articulate unmet value gaps to product/service innovators, who develop high-impact differentiation.

Most commercially available sales training addresses the first item. Almost all leave the second item up to an internal product training function. By “leaving it to the product trainer”, I mean ignore completely. No good framework to fill this gap has been introduced.

Introducing the Value Network.

The Value Network is a great tool.  It:

  • Captures deal-winning gold from top sellers for use by the whole team
  • Helps everyone in B2B sales teams sell more widely and deeply
  • Ramps new sellers up more rapidly
  • Guides more impactful executive conversations
  • Shapes more impactful marketing
  • Informs superior new product idea generation
  • Helps non-sales, but still customer-facing roles uncover new value.
  • Serves as a central point of truth for competitive positioning.
  • It is easy to learn and intuitive to use.

…so why don’t you know what a Value Network is?

A value network diagrams all of the possible customer outcomes your differentiation can drive for a customer. The diagram at the top of this article is a partial value network: it illustrates the client outcomes from adopting the kind of value-focused culture I propose in my upcoming book, Radical Value.

Building A Value Network

Start by describing an area of differentiation. In the example above, I promote building a company culture focused on value to the customer (yes this is different from many organizations, surprisingly.  Companies focus their cultures on lots of other things when value is what they should use as the hub around which everything else rotates).

From that differentiation (drawn above in a rectangle), describe all of the customer outcomes that result…and the outcomes those outcomes deliver, and so on. Draw those customer outcomes in ovals with arrows representing cause/effect (you’ll notice a few bidirectional arrows on this diagram, which shows mutual reinforcement loops) The resulting network represents all of the potential value your differentiation could deliver to a customer.

In the current vernacular, these might be called themes for value messages.  That is, they could be likely hypotheses that one could deliver to a prospect (or use as a justification for a meeting) – but then validate through dialogue.

For this article, I’ve outlined in blue where the use of a value network fits in a value-focused culture.  It enables or drives more insightful business discussions: by not just salespeople, but every person who comes in contact with your customer.  It clarifies innovation in business cases. It

Next Step:  Make Each Outcome Personal.

To keep the diagram above clean, I didn’t perform this step, but here’s what to do next.  Next to each oval, list the customer personas most likely to desire that outcome.  Here’s an example in closeup from a different value network:

Notice that Facilities is likely to find value in both of these outcomes, but affected department managers are only likely to care about one of the two.  This targeting analysis guides meeting plans, sales conversations, account-based marketing content, product innovation, and more. It also helps guide executive selling efforts by identifying executive-worthy conversations.

Making the Complex Simple

Building customer-perceived value is the selling behavior that most affects customer buying decisions.  Value is defined as the desirability of customer outcomes and is built off of differentiation. A Value Network is a tool that articulates all of the possible business outcomes your offer could produce for a customer.

Depending on what it is your company sells (product, service or solution), being able to efficiently identify all customer impacts is where the great sales conversation training (the one you’ve probably already invested in) begins. In my work with hundreds of B2B companies, I can confidently tell you that there is room for improvement in refining your “product” (which includes service) training. Value Networks can help everyone involved craft a simple set of training, content, and other materials guaranteed to improve the quality of your customer conversations, supporting higher win rates at more mutually-beneficial prices.

Here’s An Exercise For You to Apply This Article

The diagram at the top of this article was purposely left incomplete. Extend it using the bullet point statements under the section titled “Introducing the Value Network” plus any others you can think of. Now, study the bigger Value Network and consider what each of these outcomes means to you in your role: both professionally and personally. What would developing a company-wide focus on customer value do for you and your organization?

Comment below, or contact me if you’d like to learn more about this simple, powerful tool.  Or get on the waiting list for my upcoming book, where I’ll go into even more detail on how-to and use of Value Networks.

To Your Success!

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

“How To Combat The Problem Of Blind Loyalty” – Negotiation Insight

“People demanding 100% loyalty want to blind you. Never be blinded by someone else’s light, less you taunt darkness.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click here to Tweet)

 

 

Click here to get the book!

“How To Combat The Problem Of Blind Loyalty”

Are you loyal? More importantly, will you be loyal to only me? Those questions were asked of someone with power by a person with more power. The response was, I’m devoted to the oath I took when I became a member of this organization. The implication was, I won’t be loyal to an individual – I’ll be dutiful to the institution. The person making that statement was fired shortly after that. The person asking the questions was the one that initiated the firing. And he would later demand that others be loyal to him too. He’d created a problem – one of perception. Later, it would ensnare several individuals under his charge. And his demand for loyalty would eventually be exposed as his means to deal in more nefarious behavior. Houston, we have a problem!

Loyalty is good in most cases. But, when those in power demand blind loyalty, people with power can stray from a righteous path. And problems can exist in any environment when there’s too much blind obedience. When that occurs, as someone in a position of authority or one challenged by those insisting that you have blind obedience to them, you must be prepared to combat unchecked loyalty. To allow it to roam free could be akin to walking blindly down a dangerous path that leads to misfortune. Don’t fall prey to the allure of blind loyalty. Here’s how to combat it.

 

Blind Loyalties:

Challenges

Unbridled allegiances can lead to unchecked power. And unlimited power can lead to unrealized potential. Because those with leadership abilities will never have the opportunity to rise to their full potential, less they pose threats to the leader. So, they become checked out of fear of the leader’s retribution. And that permeates the myth that adherence is better for those that submit to it.

 

Reckless Endowment

Power is an aphrodisiac. Another concern that institutions should have is what becomes of a leader’s power when he has too much of it. Best case scenario, he uses that power for the improvement of those that he represents – in most cases, that’s not been what history has proven. Instead, a leader with too much power has feathered his nest and those that remain most loyal to him. And that creates an infectious environment amongst those that continuously strive to be the leader’s favorite. That occurs, while the inner backstabbing slowly erodes and robs the life’s blood of the future from the institution. Be mindful of those with too much power and how they use it. It can be the source of good times or those that lead to destruction. The weight is the balance of when either occurs and the length of time it lasts.

 

Stifles Imagination

Concentrated power can stifle creativity. When a select few hold power, those with that power seek less input from outside sources. They know what the best thoughts are – because they believe their opinions are best for the masses. And when it comes to planning, they only consider their plans. Thus, they don’t seek out or welcome additional information from anyone outside of their circle. They don’t want any info competing against theirs that’s out of alignment with their strategy. There’s a high cost to pay for a lack of diverse input. And usually, those lower in the ranks of an organization are the ones to bear the burden of that cost.

 

Confronting Requesters of Blind Loyalty

Everything is a negotiation. And if you neglect that thought, you forego powers that you might otherwise realize. If you’re to maintain blind loyalty to anyone, it should be to yourself. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be loyal to a cause, a purpose, an institution, or even a person. It’s to say, before committing to someone’s behest for loyalty, understand what it means. Understand where your commitment might lead you and what it’ll mean for your future. If you follow anyone’s mandates without questioning, you could end up at a dead-end street with nowhere to go except backward. That means you and those that you should have been supporting will have lost valuable time and your sense of purpose. And wasted time is time never regained. Always think before you commit to anything or anyone’s request.

 

Reflection

The general that wisely chooses the field of battle wins before the fighting starts. Thus, always be aware of the mindset of those that demand complete loyalty. In so doing, they seek to consume concentrated power within a small container – themselves. And when it comes to absolute power, absolute power rules without leaving a void for dissension. Without discord, no organization can sustain itself. While chaos can reign inside of dissent, the delicate balance lies in getting benefits from disputes versus suppressing the growth that could otherwise blossom. Thus, curtail the chaos. It will lead to confusion, which will lead to disruption. And yes, the powers to be may check disorder for a while, but eventually, it will happen. It has done so throughout history’s rule in corporations, communities, and countries. And when it does so, it has been the beginning that’s lead to the unraveling of the entities that were once powerful.

Never trust blindly those that seek 100% loyalty. If you do, it could be to your jeopardy. Even when asked to do so, you may close one eye but don’t close both. Keep an eye open so you can see the light that might allow the perception of a more realistic reality … and everything will be right with the world.

 

 

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d 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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