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Category: Marketing

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Sales is a Philosophy

Every business that fails to acquire new customers at some point will fail in business. The acquisition of new customers is essential to be the lifeblood or the pulse of any business growth, and there will always be natural wastage. So bringing new customers on board is incredibly important. In this article, I want to talk to you about a mindset focus, rather than a process focus, as normal. A simple shift in the way you currently see things or believe things may well have a dramatic increase or an impact upon you and your business. Lets look at sales–the acquisition of new customers, the winning of new business and understand whose job it is to do so. Who’s really responsible for the acquisition of new customers?

In every business that I’ve been involved in, before I got involved, there was a huge divide between the sales side of the business and the operational side of the business. Sales is the sales team’s job, and the operational team is there to deliver the activities and the actions that result in the product or service being created. For me, sales is a philosophy, not a department. Everybody sells. I want you to look at it quite simply–that there are two departments. One department is selling and the other department is selling support. Those are the two critical roles. People will fall into one of those two camps. So, the responsibility of everybody outside of the sales team is to support the sales team, be it delivering on the promises that are made, ensuring that the products and services are delivered in a way that is fitting with the explanation, and ensuring that the administrative processes that follow allow sales people to sell more effectively. Where you can get the two working coherently, you get massive uplifts in results. This has been crucial in the success of every turnaround project that I’ve been involved in. Turning around retail operations in major department stores, furniture retailers, or football retailers, have all come from creating this coherent response where everybody understands that they all contribute towards the sales process. If you’re building a business that looks to connect with its customers, where it has long-term relationships with these customers, everybody who is involved in any customer-facing role needs to be aware of how they impact upon the sales process.

Let’s look at this in a number of ways and see where people make an impact, so you can really understand and illustrate the point that I’m making to you. Number one is identifying new prospects. You have sales people on a regular basis looking to identify the next person they can speak to. In simplistic form, if you have a dream customer, a most wanted list or a prospect list, sharing that list with everybody within your organisation may well create an opening or an opportunity that doesn’t yet exist. You don’t know who knows who, but when you share stuff, stuff happens. The more people that know what it is that you’re looking for, the more chances you’ve got in finding it.

Let’s look again at another area that is usually impacted upon by other people in your business. The first impression on a customer or potential customer is incredibly important. When the phone rings, the way in which that phone is answered will set the tone and the expectation for how your customer believes your business to be run and what results they can expect from it. There’s a sales responsibility there for the people that answer your telephones.

The uplifts that I’ve enjoyed purely by looking at all of the areas where sales and sales support teams cross over are huge. Where we’ve made it work, we’ve seen an increase in revenue, in profits. We’ve seen no late payments from our customers because we’ve impacted sales skills upon our cash collection teams. We have no bad debts. We get preferential treatment from our suppliers because we stand out. We understand the impact and importance of managing great relationships with our suppliers. When favours need to be called upon that allow us to win new business, fulfill challenges and stand out from the crowd, our suppliers look upon us favorably because of the way they’ve been treated up until that point in time. We can increase operational efficiency, because our selling support teams are fully aware of the part that they have to play in supporting the sales team. So paperwork moves quickly, jobs get fulfilled quickly, stuff gets ordered quickly. Those are things that we’ve seen with clients in the past. We’ve seen improved staff product productivity when everybody is chasing the same rabbit. You can’t chase more than one rabbit. It’s remarkably difficult if you’re trying to chase too many different outcomes. Everybody pulling in the same direction will lead to far better results. You gain more free time when everybody pulls in the same direction and understands that they have a role towards the sales team.

Overall, what you really get is improved communication. In every area, people understand what their purpose is. Everybody is accountable for better sales results–not just one person. Look at everybody in your business and look at every process within your business. Does it support your sales process or does it hinder it right down to the delivery? One of the best examples I’ve got of the final touch with a customer is in furniture retail. We took time to train the delivery drivers on basic sales skills, how that delivery driver would act, what they would install, what packaging they would take away, and what lengths they would go to ensure that the customer was delighted. They knew what was expected of them so they could over deliver. We then helped them understand that they were the final part of the customer experience, so we said, “Let’s make it a good one.”

Let’s make sure they thank the customer for their business, are courteous and shake hands”. We even went one step further. We trained delivery drivers to ask for referrals and some of them got them.

You can get everybody pulling in the same direction. You can get everybody sales-focused, everybody focused on the task at hand of acquiring more new business. Your sales results will go up because everybody is pulling in the same direction and everybody is selling.

Categories
Leadership Marketing Operations Personal Development

The Surprising Secret to Sales Growth

Every company has ups and downs, but what if yours has had a few quarters of disappointing revenue? You might be thinking it’s time for a big marketing investment, but where would you focus your energy?

  1. On rewarding regular customers with promotions to keep them coming back.
  2. On improving the customer’s experience at the time of purchase.
  3. On providing comparison shoppers with rational reasons to choose your product over another one.
  4. On customers who are only starting to consider making a purchase.

Most people would choose (A), and in fact that’s been the trend with brands over the past few years. But according to a recent article by global management consulting firm McKinsey&Company, (D) may actually be a better answer.

Customers aren’t as loyal as you think they are.

Traditional sales advice says that it’s easier to keep a past customer than to get a new one, and so there’s been a proliferation of customer loyalty programs over the past few years. However, McKinsey reports that fewer people are actively engaged in these programs today than in the past. And 58 percent of loyalty members don’t even use the programs they signed up for.

McKinsey researched a database of 125,000 consumers across over 350 brands and found that only three out of 30 categories of purchases were driven by loyalty: mobile carriers, auto insurance and investments. In every other category, from breakfast cereals to personal care items to laptops, at least two thirds of people shopped around. For cosmetics and shoes, almost everyone did.

The researchers then looked at whether these shoppers ultimately stuck with their tried and true brand or switched. In the 27 categories where people were likely to shop around, 13 percent of people never considered another brand and another 29 percent shopped around but stuck with the brand they’d bought before. The real news is that a whopping 58 percent ultimately decided to buy from someone else. And shoppers were twice as likely to buy a brand that they’d considered at the beginning of their buying journey, as opposed to a brand they became aware of later on.

One of our team members at Beyond Philosophy offered this example that I think explains these changing trends in customer behavior. She says that for the past 30 years, her mother has bought all of her cosmetics at the local department store’s Clinique counter. She is the ultimate loyal customer who never even considers buying another brand, and she might buy more if there’s a special promotion. My colleague’s 19-year-old daughter, on the other hand, hops from one makeup brand to another based on reviews, blogs and what her friends are buying. She already knows what she’s interested in when she steps into a store, though she’s likely to look around before making a decision.

Loyalty programs might work for the mother, but for the daughter, it’s more important to get on her radar before she goes shopping.

Getting in on the Initial Consideration Phase

As a customer experience consultant, I of course have some ideas about how companies can more effectively become part of buyers’ initial consideration phase.

  1. Understand what the customer is experiencing as he or she first begins interacting with your brand, whether that’s on a website, through social media, or in person. Before you begin to design a better experience, you must understand the rational, emotional and subconscious factors that make up your current experience, and how it can be improved. We use a process called  Customer Mirrors to make these assessments and provide practical recommendations.
  2. Appeal to your customers’ emotions. When we talk about “shopping around,” it’s easy to think that customers are comparing features and prices, but that’s only a small part of the story. Our research has consistently shown that customers’ decision making is more influenced by emotional and subconscious factors than rational ones. That includes the way your brand or product is perceived by your customers and their friends.
  3. Make it easy for people to buy from you. In my recent book, The Intuitive Customer: 7 imperatives for moving your Customer Experience to the Next Level, Professor Ryan Hamilton and I talk about the role of behavioral economics in the buyer’s journey. When people are tired, stressed or simply overloaded with choices, they revert to an intuitive form of decision making. They go with their gut and choose something that’s easy. You can take advantage of this by setting your product or company up as the easy choice.

This of course doesn’t mean that you need to abandon loyalty efforts altogether. But the more you begin recognizing that the customer’s journey begins earlier than you might have thought, the better you’ll be positioned for the challenges of the future.

How likely are you to switch brands, and why? Let’s talk about it in the comments box below.

If you enjoyed reading this blog, you might also like these:

The Happiest Way to Spend Your Money in 2017

Not Meeting Your Targets? Here’s Why

Ignore this at your Peril: How Customers Decide

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of six bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

 

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

David, Goliath, and the Investor Pitch

I had the distinct honor and pleasure of coaching five Hero Club entrepreneurs in preparation for their pitch at the C-Suite Network Investors Summit in San Jose on September 11-12th. It was an exciting event and helping people with great ideas, products, and services tell their stories in a compelling way is one of my favorite parts of the job.

All five CEOs were terrific, poised and articulate with a solid pitch and great visuals, and they all reported being approached afterward by interested parties; what more could we ask for? But in retrospect, one pitch stood out uniquely, and offers a lesson about overcoming the odds and expectations, and why you should never underestimate anyone – including yourself.

David Williams is the CEO and superintendent of Village Tech Charter Schools in Cedar Hill, Texas, just outside of Dallas. Various people I spoke to after the fact confirmed that, before his presentation, there had been a general wondering about why a non-profit, specifically a Pre-K – 12 school, was pitching in Silicon Valley. At best, most admitted preliminary assumptions of it being something of a charity case, like when the older kids let the little one play with them, even though they know he’s not in the same league. There seemed to have been minimal expectations for his performance. Perhaps not so surprising was the fact that David himself later confessed to having similar concerns leading up to the event.

David may not be alone. How many times have you anticipated an event or opportunity with trepidation, based on feelings or concerns of inadequacy, of not belonging? Sometimes there’s a bit of the “Imposter Syndrome” that creeps in when surrounded by other highly expert, highly experienced, and/or highly reputed people. It might also occur if you’re just generally not comfortable presenting to large groups, if the event is particularly high-stakes, or if it’s your first time in the spotlight in a new context such as a conference presentation, in the media, or in this case, an investor pitch. The enormity of the pressure to perform and succeed in the public eye is enough to make most people’s hands shake – even if only a little.

But to David’s credit, he rose to the occasion and proved that he was not going to let this Goliath of an event get the best of him. He knew what was at stake, and he knew how much he wanted it for his company, his school, his teachers and his students, and that was the motivation he used to prepare for it.

The biggest challenge was the need to shift from “teacher” mode to “business executive” mode. Knowing your audience and figuring out how to angle your point so that it speaks to their unique perspectives and interests is a critical factor in the art of persuasion, and one of the most common areas where people fall short.

When speaking to an audience of teachers and school district members – his comfort zone – stories of children’s experiences and anecdotes of their funny and heartwarming comments will successfully convey all sorts of implicit information about the success of a program. But to a room of business executives and investors, those stories are just the sprinkles on the sundae: added for a little color and sweetness, but of minimal substance. We had to shift the focus to problems and solutions, to data and dollars – a philosophical shift that makes most teachers’ stomachs churn with disdain. And the whole thing had to be done in eight minutes.

To me, the key to his success was the fact that he was able to adapt his content to meet the needs and expectations of his audience, while still remaining completely authentic, and true to himself, both in preparation and on stage. This is often one of the greatest challenges we face when we find ourselves in new contexts with unfamiliar audiences.

I know inside he didn’t like having to cut out some of his favorite stories, but we found a way to use a couple of them in ways that made statistics personal, and humanized the call to action. And David was already a confident and competent public speaker, so it was really a matter of applying those skills with a different focus, and convincing himself and others that he was a much of a leader in the business world as in the academic sphere.

Sure, there were investors there who weren’t interested in adding a brick-and-mortar enterprise to their portfolios. But it was clear by the end that he was the crowd favorite and had earned the personal and professional respect of everyone there. The little non-profit venture had set the bar for what everyone else believed an investor pitch should look and sound like. As I heard several people say with genuine admiration that day: “He killed it.”

The moral of the story is that even when you feel like you’re out of your element – or even out of your league – do not let yourself be intimidated by the Goliath. Seek whatever guidance you need to put the pieces together, and play to win.

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Are you preparing a pitch, or do you have questions about another critical presentation? If so, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally!

 

Categories
Marketing Personal Development Technology

Are You Using the Right Content Marketing Metrics?

Years ago, I took my three year-old to her second dentist appointment. I wasn’t expecting any problems because she had dealt with her first appointment like a champ and I had assumed that the first one would be scarier than the second one. And the second appointment went swimmingly–in fact, she seemed uncommonly cheerful when I told her where we were going. Then. when we got home, she asked, “When do we go to the party?”

She hadn’t been invited to any party, so I had no idea why she was asking that. After some back and forth and some head-scratching conversation with her mom, we realized that she had indeed attended a friend’s birthday party following her first dental appointment, so she had put those events together into one firm (and happy) memory and now was expecting the other shoe to drop after seeing the tooth doctor again.

We were able to explain to her that there was no party for her today, and she understood, but it caused me to recognize something all of us human beings do–and not just when we are three years old. We tend to impute meaning to coincidences. This is deadly when making data-driven marketing decisions.

I heard a story–don’t know if it is true–that back in the summer of 2012, the Sprint social media team was happy when their positive mentions starting increasing dramatically. At least at first. A little digging showed them that the mentions were about the Olympics and that the happy conversations around the word “sprint” in that context was not something they should take personally.

Another time, I showed a set of results to a client and told them we had tested them and that they were 90% accurate. The client took a quick look at the first 10 results on the screen and insisted, “That can’t be true–look, the first one is wrong!” The other nine were correct, which is what 90% means, but he distrusted the system anyway.

These examples probably seem silly to you–because they are mistakes you didn’t make. But I see clients performing unnatural acts with numbers all the time just because no one is really thinking about what they mean.

One former client told me that they use their web analytics to see the conversions related to every piece of content in their system so they know what the best content is. Unfailingly, the “best” content was for their best-selling products. Maybe you think that products are best sellers due to marketing content alone, but I have my doubts.

Instead of using simple correlations of which pages lead to conversions, perhaps they need to dig deeper, as the Sprint team did, to really understand their numbers. If you are ready to dig deeper–to think in a new way–you can use AI analysis to remove a lot of spurious correlations to get to the underlying causes of what is going on. Once you do that, you can really work on improving the right things.

But if you keep thinking the same old way, someone might have to tell you that there is no party for you today.

 

 

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Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

5 Body Language Questions That Make You A More Awesome Negotiator

Click here to buy “Body Language Secrets”

When considering how you’ll engage in a negotiation, the questions you ask of yourself and the opposing negotiator will determine how successful you’ll be in the negotiation. The following are thought-provoking questions that will allow you to be a more awesome negotiator and enhance your thought process and abilities to win more negotiations.

1)    How difficult will it be to read the other negotiator’s body language?

In assessing the other negotiator’s body language, understand what she does in a ‘normal’ environment; this can be obtained by observing her when she’s in situations that are not stressful. Then, during the negotiation look for body language signals that are different from what you observed when she was in her ‘normal’ environment. The different displays will give you insight into how comfortable or uncomfortable she is based on what you’ve asked that puts her in that state.

2)    How will you control subliminal messaging?

Subliminal messages are thoughts or actions that you convey that move the other negotiator to adopt and action or thought that you want him to consider or engage in. To the degree you want to bond with him, you can speak at the same pace, invoke thoughts of happy times that he’s experienced in the past into the negotiation, and mirror his actions. Since people like people that are like themselves, your subliminal acts will remind him of himself, which will state to him that you’re just like he is.

3)    How will colors influence the negotiation?

Colors have a profound impact on our psyche. To the degree we’re aware of it, we’re less influenced by colors. As an example, red denotes power, passion, danger, and strength. White, in the American society, denotes purity and innocence, while blue is associated with trust, stability, and loyalty. So, if a negotiator was attired in such colors and you were not aware of the impact the colors were having on you subliminally, you might be more prone to acquiesce to concessions, due to the perceived authority you had of them at a subliminal/subconscious level.

4)    How will you shift your strategy as you read the others negotiator’s body language signals?

Body language signals can give unfettered insight into the thought process that’s occurring in the opposing negotiator’s mind. To the degree you see a frown at a particular time, him pulling away from or towards the table, all such signals are indicators as to how pleased or displeased he is with your offer/counteroffers. By observing when such occurs, you can increase or decrease the value of your offers.

5)    How can you tell when the other negotiator is lying?

Rather than seeking to discern when the other negotiator is lying, seek signs that display to what degree he’s uncomfortable. Since the body always seeks to be in a state of comfort, when it’s uncomfortable, we do such things as rub the back of our necks, fold our arms across our chest, tighten our lips, or shift our weight from one foot/leg to the other. Those body language signals are indications that the body is in a state of discomfort. To understand the meaning that it’s seeking to be comfortable again, you need to assess what you did/said, or what the other negotiator did/said, to put the body in the state of discomfort. Therein will be disclosed to what degree some form of a lie may have been told.

As you can see, the more you understand what you may encounter in a negotiation, the better prepared you’ll be. In order to be better prepared, consider reflecting on the questions above and you’ll win more of your negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

“Questions form the foundation through which we gain greater insight into the unknown.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert.

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

 

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Accountability: 3 Steps to Holding Yourself Accountable to Grow Your Influence

Click here to watch Accountability: 3 Steps to Holding Yourself Accountable to Grow Your Influence 

It’s not the skills and techniques you and your team learn that make you more influential.  It’s what you do with what you learn.

Accountability is the most difficult aspect of having influence Monday to Monday®.

This video will share with you three steps you can take today to avoid slipping into your old habits.  These three steps will keep you focused and disciplined to do the work of communicating with influence Monday to Monday® until it becomes ingrained in you. 

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

The Hidden Value of Trust in Negotiations

“The Hidden Value of Trust In A Negotiation (DACA)”

When someone trusts you in a negotiation (you’re always negotiating), they’re more likely to believe what you tell them. Thus, there’s hidden value in trust when negotiating from a long-term perspective. Once trust is broken it’s difficult to regain it. Therefore, broken trust sets off negative ripples that can have unintended and unexpected consequences in the future.

Let’s look at the trust factor with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) as an example. The kids in the DACA program were brought to the US by their parents. In most cases, they had no input as to whether they would stay where they were, or travel to the US. They instinctively trusted their parents with that decision. Then, there’s the US government.

The US government basically said, if you register for the DACA program and abide by our requirements (i.e. check in every 2 years and make payment to stay in the program, go to college, serve in the military, stay employed, pay taxes), you’ll be OK in the US.

Some registered and some didn’t. Those in the DACA program trusted the government and abided by their mandate. Then, trust was thrust out the window. Those in the DACA program cried, ‘We did what you asked of us! Why are you going back on your word? We trusted you!’ Those that did not register for the program, if not stated out loud silently thought, ‘see, I told you so; you should not have trusted them. The government can’t be trusted. Now, the information you gave them will be used against you.’ The ripple that such a message sent to non-DACA members was, stay in the shadows and let the darkness protect you.

In the eyes of those in the program, the US government went back on its word and broke the trust it had conveyed. Suffice it to say, the ripples set forth from this situation will cause the government not to be trusted in future matters by different entities. They’ll mentally relate their situation to the resemblance of the DACA plight. That means those submitting information requested by the government will be skeptical at best and cynical at worse when contemplating a course of action that they should adopt. In essence, through the loss of trust, the government has made it more difficult for others to trust it.

If I tell you the truth, will you believe what I say and trust me? If my perception of the truth is altered in the future, will I be declared a liar? If so, what will become of our future negotiation efforts? Those are questions every negotiator needs to consider before and during a negotiation. That’s the hidden force that trust has on a negotiation.

When trust is the foundation upon which a negotiation is built, the truth becomes a happier companion in the negotiation. Therefore, when the truth as one knows it shifts, the shifting of the truth can still have believability.

Change allows you to embrace new experiences, and everything changes. Thus, what’s true today may be proven not to be valid tomorrow. Nevertheless, once trust has been established and nurtured by consistency, over a period of time change can withstand the onslaught of doubt and suspension. In so doing, even when your negotiations become difficult, you’ll have less of a challenge finding a path to success, simply because you had trust adding hidden value to your negotiation … and everything will be right with the world.

What are your takeaways? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

 “Without trust, failure awaits you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator and Body Language Expert

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Know When to STOP Talking

Know When to STOP Talking

Usually I work with people to find the best way for them to talk to their audience and get to “Yes.” Today I want to focus on the exact opposite skill set: knowing when and how to stop talking.

If you’re like me, at some point or other you’ve had the “out-of-body experience” where you catch yourself rambling on, and your brain starts screaming, “for heaven’s sake, just stop talking already!” But you’re on a roll and can’t seem to stop the momentum.

Part of the reason this happens is because Americans are notoriously uncomfortable with silence, which quickly slides becomes “awkward silence,” is something to be avoided. That’s why there’s often a compulsion to fill silence at all costs.

In most of these occurrences, self-doubt is a major factor. Even if you were confident up to that point, something triggers a sudden insecurity, which you telegraph through your rambling.

With that in mind, let’s look at three contexts in which this situation is likely to emerge, why, and how to get yourself back under control.

Waiting for a response

The most common scenario is when you’ve asked a question or made a comment, and the other person doesn’t respond right away. You subconsciously fear that they didn’t understand what you’ve said, or didn’t like it and don’t want to answer it. So you rephrase, or qualify, or suggest possible answers to your own question, until someone finally jumps in.

In reality, sometimes people just need a moment to digest what you’ve said, especially if it is technical or an important decision. Be generous in allowing them time to think, uninterrupted, before they respond.

Over-explaining

The second context is when you think you need to keep explaining something. Maybe your topic is complicated and you are speaking to non-experts or you might be speaking to people who are experts, which can be intimidating, so you feel compelled to share more to demonstrate your expertise. Or you might interpret their silence as disapproval, at which point you keep talking in attempt to qualify or justify your argument and persuade them to agree with you.

Ironically, however, in these situations, the more you ramble, the more it will likely dissuade your audience because you sound nervous rather than confident. In these cases, make your point, then just hold your ground – and your tongue. This indicates that you’re okay with waiting for them to break the silence. If necessary, you can always ask them if they are confused by something, or would like clarification. Knowing when to stop demonstrates confidence.

Scrambling for answers

Finally, rambling often occurs when you need to answer a question or offer a response, and don’t feel like you have time to think it through before you are expected to speak. The pressure is on, and the silence seems interminable as all eyes are on you. But rather than thinking aloud you as you try to figure out what you really want to say, try starting with something like, “That’s a great question; let me think about the best way to answer it concisely.” Who would deny that request, especially if the alternative is a rambling mess?

Here’s a final tip: Write a note to remind yourself to avoid these pitfalls, and look at it before you go into the next high stakes meeting. If you wait until you catch yourself rambling, it’s too late. Priming yourself with these reminders before you start is one of the best ways to project persuasive confidence and leadership.

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Do you have questions or comments about the issues in today’s post? If so, contact me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to schedule a 20-minute focus call to discuss them with me personally!

 

 

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Do You Trust Your Marketing Metrics or Your Gut?

I have spent some quality time with a new client who is struggling with getting the C-Suite to recognize the value of marketing. Yes, it’s an old-line B2B company–how did you guess? They have a lot of data describing the success of marketing, but the C-Suite at their company would rather ascribe that to superior product or their go-getter sales team.

So, they asked us to do a competitive assessment of how much companies like them are spending on marketing. We found various studies and gleaned data from annual reports and we believe that the average is about eight percent of revenue spent on marketing. This client was spending less than a tenth of that. And we found many studies showing that higher marketing spending is correlated to higher revenue. Does that mean that it causes higher revenue? We can’t prove that, but maybe it is the way to bet.

Still, they weren’t sure that the C-Suite was going to accept the number. Did we compare apples to apples? Couldn’t their situation be different? Were some of those companies a lot bigger? We tried to explain that these were reasonable questions that might explain a 35% or 30% difference, but not a 90% difference.

But they know those are the questions they are going to get, so they are trying to prepare for them. The reason that they will get those questions is that their C-Suite has a history of going with their gut rather than the numbers–at least when it comes to marketing. (That’s the only way that you end up here, frankly.) Now, a new day might be coming, because they did decide to do this study, which provides some hope.

But in the end, every C-Suite executive needs to ask themselves whether they are smarter than the data. Because no one can change your mind on something you are sure you already know. You have to at least be a bit curious. A bit doubting of your own opinion. A bit open to the possibility that the world has changed.

If you are, you can model being data driven for everyone else. You can model changing your mind in the face of new information. You can model getting it right instead of being right. Ask yourself if your team doesn’t think that mere data will change your mind, and then ask yourself if you want them to be right.

 

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Life’s Choices and The Roads to Which They Lead

“Sunday Negotiation Insight”

“The decisions you make in life will determine the roads you’ll travel. Manage your decisions better and you can travel better on life’s roads.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“Life’s Choices And The Roads To Which They Lead” 

Most people are very much aware that the choices they make in life determine what they’ll experience in life. That’s to say, some are aware of such at an intellectual level but are not mindful of such in their everyday practice. Such a lack of attentiveness to the choices we make and the impact they have on our life lead some people down a road upon which they had not planned to travel. Worse, such inattentiveness can lead to unintended consequences.

As you engage in your daily activities, be mindful of what you’re doing and the decisions you make. The impact they have on your future can be long-term. In lending your attentiveness to making such decisions consider:

  1. Is this the best decision I can make at this time?
  2. Do I have enough input/insight to make an intelligent decision?
  3. Where might such a decision lead and is that where I’d like to be?
  4. What cost or gain might I incur by not making a decision at this time?
  5. If I make the wrong decision, what procedure might I put in place to inform me of such? Then, how long might it take and at what cost to correct the decision?

The more you’re aware of the impact today’s decision may have on the long-term aspects of your life, the more you’ll be mindful of controlling such decisions. Doing so will relieve you of the potential angst that you might have otherwise experienced … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

When negotiating, one has to be highly aware of where a decision might lead. To haphazardly engage in a negotiation with a ‘go with the flow’ mindset is to engage in folly; you leave the outcome to chance and chance favors the person that’s more prepared and thoughtful.

To thwart folly, have a well thought out negotiation plan. Consider the possibilities of where one decision might lead versus another and what impact such might have on the negotiation outcome.

Negotiations are like a game of chess. The more thoughtful you are about your decisions and the more you can think of the moves you’ll make down the line, the better you’ll be able to control the flow and outcome of the negotiation. That’s how good negotiators win more negotiations. The question you should now consider is, how good do you wish to be in any of your negotiations? To enhance your negotiation win rate, make better decisions by considering the impact of those decisions.

 Remember, you’re always negotiating.