C-Suite Network™

Search
Close this search box.

Category: Personal Development

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

How to Give Your Book Focus

Are you a C Suite executive with a desire to write a book? Do you have a legacy to share? Do you have a rags to riches story to share?

Before you write a book, you need to find a focus for it. This means you need to narrow down your subject.

Say you are a person who started a company against all odds. You took risks, you made enemies, you overcame challenges. You revolutionized an industry. That’s a huge subject. You could write a broad overview, but such a book may not have the impact you want. This raises the first question to ask yourself.

What Impact Do I Want This Book to Have?

 Do you want to provide useful information for people in your field? You may have learned or developed specific techniques that help people with the kinds of challenges you overcame. Your experience may be that these techniques work for a range of startups. Whether the reader has little or lots of business experience, he or she can benefit from the use of these methods. That’s your focus, reinforced with stories.

Do you want to write a call to action? Do you want to run a mastermind or offer to coach other executives? You want this information to inspire them to action. To facilitate this, you may include examples of how you achieved success in your business.

Who Is Your Audience?

 In a book where you share what you’ve learned about business, you have a potential audience of those who could benefit from using it. Describe your ideal reader.

She is an entrepreneur seeking solutions to common challenges of running a business. Open to learning, she wants to take a successful path. She cares deeply about her clients and is always on the lookout for new techniques.

Place a picture of a person who represents your ideal reader next to your computer, and glance at this picture when you are creating your content. The photo will help you stay focused on your reader. (I heard this technique from John Maxwell, a successful entrepreneur who spoke to the 2019 National Speakers Association annual meeting.  Staying focused on his reader helped him write over 60 books.)

This focusing technique is used by writers of both fiction and non-fiction. Stephen King is exceptionally focused. He writes for his wife. You don’t need that kind of laser focus, but if you write for a specific—though imaginary— individual, you will find your writing becomes equally focused.

Once you complete your book, seek a professional editor to polish your work, find the holes in your manuscript and help you present your expertise in the best light.

Pat Iyer is a professional editor and ghostwriter and one of the original 100 C Suite Network Advisors. Connect with her at patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Management Personal Development Technology

Positive Disruption using Hard Trends and Soft Trends

Strategies based on uncertainty come with high levels of risk, but strategies based on certainty dramatically reduce risk and produce superior results. This is the difference between Soft Trends and Hard Trends.

If you don’t like a Hard Trend, there isn’t a way for you to change it. However, if you don’t like a Soft Trend, you can easily change it to your advantage. I’ve discussed the three digital accelerators responsible for today’s rate of exponential change, transforming every business process in a short amount of time. This is a Hard Trend, while a Soft Trend would be whether you will transform your business processes.

The Anticipatory Leader by Daniel Burrus

Knowing where to find certainty makes the future more visible. For example, let’s say you want to start a smartwatch company. The smartwatch business is already filled with competition; however, by using Hard Trends, you can stack the deck in your favor.

Using the certainty provided by demographics, you can create a successful watch business based on the demographic Hard Trend of aging baby boomers and their parents. Simply design a watch for people who are 70 and older — and keep in mind the fact that it will likely be their children who buy it in an effort to keep their parents healthy and safe.

You could design the watch with sensors to detect blood oxygen levels, blood pressure, pulse, temperature and much more. If the wearer falls, the accelerometer in the watch will activate an alarm and send a text message to his or her caregivers. The watch’s GPS and digital assistant will help a wearer with Alzheimer’s get home — and, more importantly, make it possible for caregivers to find him or her from anywhere.

By using the certainty of Hard Trends, you can see new opportunities to create winning products in industries that may already seem saturated.

Next, let’s look at an example of a technological Hard Trend using speed and bandwidth to grow sales. Domino’s Pizza is using a voice-activated personal assistant to increase the speed and efficiency of ordering pizzas. The app even has a “pizza tracker” that allows you to follow the process of your pizza, from creation to delivery. They’ve taken this technological Hard Trend a step further and have created a partnership with Ford Motor Company, making it possible for you to order your pizzas directly from your Ford! With these simple steps, Domino’s has gone from being just a food company to a technology company.

Today, it seems I hear more and more people complaining about government regulations. But what these individuals are missing is that these same governmental regulations are actually Hard Trends that offer visible opportunities. Take the case of the state of California’s requiring nonfiction reading for first through third graders, with a two-year window to comply. I recently met a savvy entrepreneur who capitalized on this new law. She contacted the largest school districts in the state to see if they were interested in getting help meeting this reading requirement. The districts were very interested, which made it easy for her to secure outside funding to develop and supply the online reading products schools need to comply with the new state law.

This entrepreneur took the Hard Trend of a seemingly impossible-to-navigate governmental regulation burdening teachers and administrators and created a new business opportunity out of it. In part thanks to having guaranteed sales by partnering with the large school districts, she cornered the market and successfully developed and supplied the online reading products by the required deadline.

Remember, strategy based on certainty has low risk and high reward. Base your strategies on certainty, on the known future ( the Hard Trends), as well as on the Soft Trends you can manipulate, and you will build something that will not only survive but even thrive in the years ahead.

Merely hoping that disruption is not on your horizon is not a strategy; it is avoidance. Paying attention to a certainty is a strategy. If you don’t make this perspective shift today, it will be far more difficult to lead from behind tomorrow. As dizzying as the pace of change has been these past few years, that pace will only increase.

It’s not uncommon to limit yourself by focusing on all the things you don’t know and all the things you can’t do.

Instead, create the habit of starting with a list of all the things you do know and all the things you can do! Every time you run into something you aren’t certain about, focus harder on the certainties involved.

Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage with my latest book The Anticipatory Organization. 

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Ego of Your Leadership

Is Your Ego Helping or Hurting Your Leadership?

Your ego is a powerful tool and if used right will help you have the level of confidence you need. Ego is a Latin word that means “I myself. All mindsets feed the ego. recognizes how to play to their strengths and identify the gaps to help you close them for greater effectiveness & confidence. Ego refers to a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. For the small business owner, a certain amount of ego is good. It’s when the ego gets overinflated that problems occur.

You don’t always have to be right on everything you do and or say. In reality, you need a certain amount of ego as a leader to achieve, to innovate, and to have the courage to try something new. Ego-driven leaders are toxic to the organization you lead. The ego a leader has can bring down business just like when there is a lack of customers. The difference is when the reputation of the business an ego-driven leader leads can have many or most people not applying for a job there. Nothing can be more debilitating in an organization than a leader with an ego. They are entitled and important simply because they want to be. Egotists regard themselves as superior, set apart from everyone else.

Don’t Let Your Ego Hijack Your Leadership Effectiveness

“Always remember: Too much ego will kill your talent.” – Unknown Author

Ego is one of the biggest problems that humanity faces. Being egoless is impossible.

Overactive ego gives people a distorted image of your importance. When this happens, you see yourself as the center of the world around you. You begin to put your own agenda, status, and gratification ahead of anyone else around you.

Characteristics of Ego-Driven Leaders

Ego-driven leaders tend to…

  • Measure success by how much others notice your success.
  • Often feel better about yourself when others around you don’t achieve their goals.
  • Undermine others so you can appear smarter, more competent and more knowledgeable than they.
  • Drive others away over time.
  • Destroy trust and attempt to control others through any way possible.
  • Are always looking for praise to be in the spotlight
  • Does not reflect on personal shortcomings because it would interfere with their need to feel superior. Their blind spots go unaddressed, and eventually people stop bringing them up.
  • Not listen to other points of view.
  • Takes on daunting tasks without preparation or the ability to solve them, because they see them as less threatening than they really are.
  • Be motivated by status, not service (leadership)
  • Have a desire to always be right every single time.
  • Be easily offended and quick to defend yourself sometimes using any excuse you think works for you.
  • Rarely, if at all, admit your fault without rationalizing or blaming others. Using such statements as “It’s my way or the highway”, “I don’t need to adjust to people, they need to adjust to me”, or “No one else can fix this but me”, and or “I know more than anyone else in how to solve the situation.”

You are Losing Business Clients and Customers and Not Knowing Why

“When your ego may be in charge, everything becomes a little bit more about “you” and a little bit less about others.” – Christopher Pinckley

Can you admit to making a bad decision? You make decisions every day about everything you do, yet you have to live with them. You can change them. Typically, people do not like people with huge egos. Knowing that ego-driven people won’t listen to them and thinking you are always right. Clients and customers believe ego-driven people are not customer-focused especially on their needs but on the needs of the ego-driven person.

Blaming others for your decisions does not bode well with your employees. Admitting to making a bad decision is not in the nature of an ego-driven person. Business owners or leaders usually don’t think you need help. The problem is that you may know your business well, yet the way specific things work within your business you may not be totally aware of. This is when asking employees how they see things working help you in generating thoughts and ideas that can re-work the business for up-to-date trends.

You Have a Lot of Employee Turnover

You think you just need to hire the right talent instead of throwing more money at your employees to motivate them or to hire people who question things you do. Employees and prospective employees stay away from your organization because they want to work in an open-culture environment.

You are Never Satisfied with the Work of Others

You have difficulty praising employees or other executives. Putting people down as in blaming them for things you created does not sit well for most people, so they leave. Instead of looking for mistake’s employees make you place blame on them as specific ideas were not yours.

Practice Humility

Recalibrate your ego since humility means recognizing that the work is not all about you. Recognizing how well your employees complete a project can be praised. Few ego-driven leaders will do this as you expect employees to be doing their work and nothing more.

The leader that is acting out of self-doubt looks for reassurance from others in a more powerful position. They rarely make decisions on their own. They are not helpful to turn to in times of need and will generally avoid conflict of any kind.

The leader that is acting out of false pride is afraid to lose control. They tend to micromanage everything and everyone and their ideas are always the right ones. When they are wrong, they are usually the first to lay the blame on others.

Recognize Your Own Strengths and Limitations.

“When you allow your ego to control your thoughts, everything you believe becomes an illusion.” – Rusty Eric

Your leadership effectiveness is primarily based on how you see yourself. Having high self-esteem or self-confidence is great. Going beyond this to think of yourself as always winning and never seeing yourself failing or losing under any circumstance needs you to come back to earth. Being so high and mighty when things around you are in a crisis, your ego will be in control Lashing out at people and blaming them for things they did not cause can suddenly leave in in the lurch to fill their vacant positions.

Dana Ardi, Ph.D., -“If you ask most people to describe how a great leader looks and acts, you’ll often get answers that refer to generals and military commanders, or presidents and heads of state. In other words, we tend to think of leaders as those who rise to the top of the hierarchical pyramid — those who display charisma, a “take charge” attitude, and the self-confidence to issue commands from above.”

Egotism in Leadership Can Be Countered

It takes a deliberate effort on the part of leaders to refocus and see things from a wider view. A key practice is to recognize the viewpoints of others.  Many time’s one’s weaknesses are just the flip-side of your strengths.

Find a conscious balance between:

  • Strengths and weaknesses
  • Ambition and caution
  • Confidence and doubt
  • Foresight and hindsight
  • Boldness and accountability
  • Inspiration and being grounded
  • Personal needs and the needs of others

“Don’t let your ego get too close to your position so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.” – Colin Powell

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Technology

It’s Official: Spending Time Surrounded by Nature Reduces Stress

We’ve done this for all our lives—when we feel too stressed, we take a break in nature. We even spent our own money, time, and energy on restoring a creek near our home by eliminating waste and invasive species. We invite our clients, students, friends, and neighbors to take a stroll on our “Nature Trail”. Why? Because we know it’s centering, calming, and just plain beneficial for your outlook on life.

But we never had real evidence that nature reduces stress—till now! A study published in Frontiers in Psychology by the University of Michigan has confirmed that a “Nature Pill”, AKA time spent in nature, actually encourages our brains to reduce cortisol, a stress-inducing hormone.

In the study, a group of adults was asked to spend at least 10 minutes surrounded by nature three times a week for eight months. Every other week, the scientists observed cortisol levels in saliva samples to determine how nature experiences affected them.

The study’s lead author, Mary Carol Hunter, said, “[The] participants were free to choose the time of day, duration, and the place of the nature experience, which was defined as anywhere outside that, in the opinion of the participant, made them feel like they’ve interacted with nature.” The participants were also asked to avoid social media, conversations, reading, and phone calls while taking their “nature pill”—any factor that could possibly influence stress. To put it simply, just be present in nature for only 10 minutes!

Our business cards refer to us as “Advisors, Speakers, and Hikers”. We spend as much time as we possibly can in nature. As we hike, we see other people on the trails, but not really being present in nature. They’re texting, talking, or completely engrossed in their smartphones instead of appreciating the beautiful surroundings. We really appreciated that the Michigan team eliminated this clear source of stress from their research.

Hunter also said, “Our study shows that for the greatest payoff, in terms of efficiently lowering levels of the stress hormone, you should spend 20 to 30 minutes sitting or walking in a place that provides you with a sense of nature.” She further adds, “This will allow customized nature pill prescriptions, as well as a deeper insight on how to design cities and wellbeing programs for the public.”

We love the concept of “taking a nature pill”. Think about how many stress-reducing pharmaceutical prescriptions could be eliminated. Maybe we should put our smartphones down for a little bit each day, let Mother Nature do her magic, and reacquaint ourselves with our natural roots on our wonderful planet.

This is only one (scientifically-proven) reason to preserve our environment and make nature a part of our daily lives once again. We’ll see you on the trail—without your smartphone!

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

 

Categories
Growth Health and Wellness Management

Interview by the Game Changer and Tina Greenbaum

 

In this interview, you will discover a five-step system world-class athletes, performers & politicians use to have ultimate confidence, achieve superhuman results and breakthrough their own limiting mindset. At the end of the day do you feel overwhelmed and stressed? Do you keep running into the same old patterns you know hold you back, but you just don’t know how to fix them?

You will learn:

  • What to focus on when you want to be efficient and productive
  • How to initiate the relaxation response in an instant so you can be in control of your stress level
  • What mindfulness is and how to use it to improve your life
  • How to change negative self-talk into Productive Thinking so you can achieve positive results
  • How to use fear as a teacher, so you can overcome them and reach your goals
  • How to create powerful visualizations to elevate your performance
Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Building Personal Persistence

Persistence can be a leader’s most invaluable asset

It happens to us all, everything is all set, our plans are laid out, and we set out on a new project. Then, something comes out of the blue, blindsides us, and for a reason that is entirely out of our control, we fall short of our goals.
This situation is where our persistence comes into play. There are several steps for us to take to make sure that we can effectively move onwards from such a shortfall.

We have to remember that our accomplishments do not define us. We are defined by the challenges we overcame to get there.

First, we have to remember that everything is relative, especially when we fall short of our own (or other’s) expectations. Right away, we are our own worst enemies, and once we start doing down that downward spiral of self-defeat, it continually becomes harder to get out of it. Keeping things in perspective allows us to see our missteps as just that, missteps. Everyone makes mistakes, and this one happens to be one of ours.

Second, we take ownership. Passing the buck, or playing the blame game gets us nowhere but hurt feelings. Moreover, misery loves company, but miserable people rarely get things done. By taking ownership, we retain control over the situation and give ourselves the change to make things right. Ownership is a powerful force. By reining in it, we help ourselves to ensure that the effects of our mistakes go no further than they have to and that we can immediately begin working on a solution.

Lastly, we have to get back to work. Proactively finding a solution helps us do two things: solve the problems we’ve created, and learn how not to make a mistake again. Sweeping things under the carpet, and trying to move on as nothing happened only allows for the error to happen again, often with more severe consequences. Proactively finding a solution by getting to the root cause of the problem helps us analyze how it happened and creates an iterative solution that helps to make sure that the same mistake is not made twice.

We all make mistakes, it is a natural part of being human. In making mistakes, we often become our own worst enemy, either by trying to ignore them or passing the blame onto someone else. In doing this, the attitude we display matter most. We have to keep our heads up and not allow our missteps to back us up more than they have to. We have to remember that this project is our responsibility, and we will see it through to success. Our determination, perseverance, and positivity help this like nothing else. No-one likes a complainer; no-one wants to hear what a problem is because it forces them to think that it is becoming their responsibly to fix. By keeping a proactive, solutions-orientated, mindset, we can ask for advice and assistance, without coming across as trying to rope someone into a lost cause. It comes down to HOW we face our challenges. When we adopt the right mindset, we’re good to go. Failing to do so is a chief cause of further failures.

We all want to be successful after all our successes give us a much higher feeling of satisfaction than the frustration of coming up short. We have to remember that our accomplishments do not define us. We are defined by the challenges we overcame to get there.

Categories
Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Management News and Politics Skills Technology

Apollo 11 Moon Landing – Doing the Impossible

As I travel around the world as a strategic advisor and keynote speaker, I have the privilege of meeting many amazing people, including presidents, prime ministers, and Fortune 500 CEOs, just to name a few.

Several years ago, I was speaking in Jordan at a leadership summit when I had the pleasure of meeting Neil Armstrong. Of all the people I’ve met, I must admit that this meeting was the one I was most looking forward to. Given that fact and Mr. Armstrong’s incredible legacy, myself and millions, if not billions, of others around the world were saddened by his passing. In his memory, and in lieu of the 50th anniversary of the successful Apollo 11 moon landing, I wanted to share a story he shared that I believe has a profound message for our time.

Impossible Roadblocks

He said that in the years of research, innovation, and testing that led up to his first footsteps on the moon, there were many times that NASA engineers and scientists would reach an impossible roadblock. During these times, they would say, “We will have to halt the mission. There is no scientific solution to this problem.” Or, “We have tried everything imaginable to solve this problem, and we can’t solve it.”

He went on to say that every time NASA’s best thinkers and scientists reached an impossible roadblock, they were told, “We are going to the moon.” And every time, they would look at each other and say, “OK, got it,” and then they would try again and again. Soon, they would have a solution that worked. He said this happened many times, and each time, the impossible turned out to be possible once they were reminded of the impossible mission they were on.

Your Biggest Problem

This concept is a variation of my strategy of taking a problem and skipping it. Take into consideration your organization’s biggest problem, and you will come to realize that it is likely not the real problem; it is merely a roadblock, much like NASA’s several roadblocks on its way to the moon.

In your organization, “going to the moon” is likely a metaphor for accomplishing something that no other organization has accomplished before. Perhaps your organization is implementing my Hard Trend Methodology, through which you pay close attention to the Hard Trends shaping your industry and pre-solve your customers’ problems with a new product or service they never knew they needed. From an outsider’s perspective, that new product or service initially sounds outlandish; however, the organization acted in an anticipatory manner in realizing what a customer needed before it existed.

NASA going to the moon, solving problems to get to the moon, and piloting our country far ahead in the space race was NASA anticipating. Having a compelling vision for where you want to go or what you want to do—something that is bigger than any one person, something that might even seem impossible—is the kind of vision that can cause people to want to do more, want to reach higher, and want to keep trying.

Remember, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not stand up in front of all those people in Washington, DC, and say, “I have a plan.” Rather, he said, “I have a dream.” And his dream was not to get elected or make vast sums of money. His dream was to better mankind. Putting a man on the moon was similar. It was a dream we could all share—a vision that would not have us question the cost—so we did it.

When Neil Armstrong was about to take that first step off the ladder and onto the moon’s surface, he did not say, “One small step for a NASA astronaut, one giant leap for the United States.” He knew that going to the moon was a human achievement for all of humankind.

Whether you are the leader of a country, a company, a business, or a school, when you find yourself faced with something that seems impossible, remember how we put a man on the moon—by keeping a dream, an articulated vision of what we want to do, as a picture in our mind’s eye. You can take your organization’s biggest problem and simply skip it, propelling the organization to new heights and accomplishing things for the greater good of humankind. Human history has taught us that nothing is impossible when we have a big dream that can be converted into a shared vision.

Learn more with my latest book The Anticipatory Organization– get your copy here.

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Many Benefits of Welcoming Younger Employees to Your Business

In today’s article, I would like to direct your attention to the many benefits and assets that younger employees will bring to your enterprise.

Let’s consider them, one at a time.

Younger Generations Bring Beautiful Diversity and Varied Perspectives

Today’s millennial workforce is comprised of smart young professionals who come from every part of North America, and from other countries that are located just about everywhere. Taken in sum, Younger Generations are a wonderfully varied group.

You could hire a consulting firm to help you decode how all members of all those groups are thinking. But if you hire Younger Generations, you don’t have to. Their valuable perspectives are right there under the same roof as you.

Younger Generations Have Marketplace Knowledge You Need to Succeed

Whatever services or products you sell, most Younger Generations can provide you with the latest intelligence about what is taking place in your industry . . .

  • What do consumers think about your products and your brand?
  • How does your company compare to your competitors?
  • What are the biggest trends in your industry today?
  • What companies are the leaders in your sector, and why?
  • How do Younger Generations make buying decisions?
  • How and when do Younger Generations become loyal customers?
  • Do Younger Generations still want to purchase homes and cars, go to college, and engage in other activities that were “givens” among members of older generations? Or have they changed?
  • What lessons can you learn and apply from cutting-edge companies like Uber, Amazon.com, and Google? Many Younger Generations can give you critical insights that you need.

Viewed from those perspectives, it becomes obvious your Younger Generation workers are one of your company’s most valuable assets. Are you treating them that way? 

Younger Generations Create a Culture of Learning in Your Organization 

You probably think that Younger Generations are the “tech generation.” That might be true, but even more so, they are the generation that learns. One reason is that many of them were in college not that long ago, and learning is part of their DNA. Another is that they are part of a generation that has needed to adapt and adjust to major – and at times cataclysmic – change. Over just the last few decades, that change has included the arrival of dramatic new technologies like the Internet, new social outlooks, the changing demographics of the American population, as well as the time in office of America’s first African-American president.

That is a lot of change for one cohort to absorb. Doing so has uniquely prepared Younger Generations to adapt to change. Clearly, a workforce that learns in that way can equip any organization for success. Hopefully, that success will be yours.

Action Step: Step back and consider whether your organization is one that supports curiosity and learning. If not, what can you do about it?

Younger Generations Bring an Entrepreneurial Outlook to Your Company

Members of older generations generally waited before trying new things. In contrast, Younger Generations like to take risks, act independently, move ahead, take ownership of their work, and get things done. To unlock the benefits of those outlooks, try to lead them in these ways . . .

  • Have the courage to let them take risks.
  • Cut rules and restrictive red tape that cripple ingenuity and ambition.
  • Instead of using traditional reporting relationships. create multifunctional task forces of people from different parts of your organization – teams of energetic young Younger Generations.
  • Reward Younger Generations, thank them, and let them move right on to new challenges. In general, Younger Generations want to keep moving forward instead of looking back at what they have accomplished in the past.

Action Step: Consider whether your organization encourages entrepreneurial thinking. If you are stifling or discouraging it, what improvements can you make?

Younger Generations Encourage Good Succession Planning

Who is going to run your company in 10, 20 or 25 years? You could hire a management consulting firm to help you create a succession plan. But if you hire, retain and promote a superior younger workforce, you won’t need to.

A thriving workforce made up of Younger Generation employees can act like a living, growing succession plan – possibly one that you never need to write down.

Are you welcoming Younger Generations to your organization and embracing all the good they bring? Or are you letting flawed misconceptions and prejudices stand in your way?

Ultimately, the decision is up to you. But if you would like your organization to succeed, I hope you will make the right one.

Action Step: Take an objective look at your succession plan. What role could your Younger Generation employees play in strengthening it?

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Negotiations Skills Women In Business

“How Forgiving Is Your Mind – This Is What Matters” – Negotiation Insight

“To free your mind, release what’s captured it.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)

 


Click here to get the book!

“How Forgiving Is Your Mind – This Is What Matters”

 

How long do you allow negativity to grip you in the jaws of despair – hold you mind hostage to situations that make you cling to slights that others thrust upon you? If you hold negative thoughts for an extended time, it might be to your detriment?

Anytime you allow lingering negative thoughts to affect your mood, your mannerisms, or your actions, you allow others to control you. Thus, at times, you must exercise forgiveness to release such anxieties – at other times, you must take aggressive actions.

The following are thoughts to help you assess when to engage in forgiveness and when not to.

 

Let it go:

Everything that’s perceived as being negative, isn’t. Thus, you must assess what is real versus perceived negativity – that perception will, in part, be based on your current state of mind. That’s why it’s important to mend your mind by not allowing too much of the past to cloud your current judgment – it matters to your wellbeing.

Release thoughts that debilitate your mind (e.g. they’ll never let me move into a higher position – they don’t like people like me – I remember the outcome the last time something like this occurred). Some thoughts don’t serve you. Even if such things bring past indiscretions to mind, don’t conflate them with your current situation – that was then and this is now.

By separating the past and present, you insulate your current thoughts from the past – that disallows your past thoughts from afflicting your current thinking. It also frees you to release thoughts that don’t serve you and replace them with those that are more uplifting. In turn, that will take you to a higher mental sanctuary, which will allow you to have a more positive perspective.

 

When not to let it go:

If someone or something is preventing you from achieving your desired goal, challenge them! Fear not for fear’s sake. If you subscribe to attaining an objective, you must do what’s necessary to advance forward. To the degree that it’s important, when others block your path out of spite or unrighteousness, don’t be forgiving – be persistent in moving them aside. There is a time for forgiveness – this is not it!

When it comes to your success and security if you let threats go unabated, you’ll only be postponing future dread. By not addressing situations that outright pose potential harm, you emboldened the source of that threat. If left unaddressed, it may swell to become the cause of your demise.

When something was too threatening, something that caused you to summon more courage, you did so. In so doing you realized, without struggle, you had no advancement. Don’t stop now when confronted by a daunting roadblock – that’s nothing more than a test to encourage you to display more courage – move on, go higher!

By controlling your mind, you control your thoughts, which allows you to control your actions. Control will keep you in a better mental place. You’re the master-of-your-fate. Knowing when to forgive and when not to will help you maintain that domain … and everything will be right with the world.

 

What does this have to do with negotiations?

 

During a negotiation, you can become overwhelmed by emotions – emotions that lead to thoughts of retribution. Unless there’s a sincere need for such, don’t let negative thoughts lead to emotions that cloud your judgment. They’ll saddle you with unneeded consternation as you go deeper into the negotiation.

Being able to forgive perceived slights can be a gift in a negotiation – it can free your mind to think more freely. Knowing when to move against such slights can also be beneficial. Thus, knowing when to adopt the right action is paramount. Therefore, when weighing a conflicting negative thought that might debilitate your mind ask yourself, does this matter? If it doesn’t, be forgiving – let it go.

 

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 really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

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

 

# Mind #Matters #Negotiate #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

 

 

Categories
Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales

Is Discounting That Deal Suicidal? Five Ways to Tell

It’s often tempting to discount your way out of a stressful situation, but sometimes you’re doing more harm than good.  Discounting is sometimes necessary…but often, it’s the biggest mistake you can make.  How do you know when you’re in that situation?

Full disclosure here:  I’m highly biased against discounting. My regular readers have gathered that I’m a pricing hawk, and my clients engage me because of it.  Within the Miller Heiman Group network, value-based pricing was my differentiation.  I’ve managed too many P&Ls to be comfortable with knee-jerk discounting behaviors I often see.

Just because discounting throws away profit dollars, is that any reason to call it suicidal?  Maybe. Maybe not. There are good reasons to discount.  We can go through those in another article if you want, but many times, dropping your price hurts more than this month’s/quarter’s/year’s financials. The pain of discount-trained customers lasts far beyond today’s closed deal celebration.  Or, as mom used to say: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.

So, what are the signals that discounting is simply a crutch for poor selling/marketing?  Here’s a checklist:

The Value is Already High Enough

Many customers think it’s good business practice to push back on price, no matter how satisfactory.  For instance, sales professionals operating in Latin America tell me that aggressive price negotiation is standard business culture there. These negotiators aren’t looking for any particular number, they’re looking for capitulation. Convince them that there’s no money left on the table for them to win, and they’re done.

Another approach is to walk them through the value justification you’ve been building all through the discovery and proposal-building process. You know, the one you’ve validated with them and their co-workers.  Yeah, the one that builds a value case using the customer’s own monetary estimates.  This is the one your sales methodology helps you build in detail.  You have one of those, right?  If not, consider the value of adopting one.  How many discount dollars (remember, discount dollars = profit dollars) did you give up last year?  Compare that amount to the cost of implementing a methodology which would have captured those profit dollars.  How many more digits in the first number?  So…why are we not talking?

You Don’t Know Your Value

I once worked for a company whose culture practiced “if Sales can’t articulate value, Product can’t discuss pricing”.  This company had enshrined value-based pricing as a pillar of the company culture. Nothing moved for an opportunity until everyone knew what value the customer perceived from our offer.  Once value was known, nothing stood in our way when delivering that value.

In contrast, I recently worked with a company in the middle of a company-driven sales force turnover. The outgoing salesforce was known for building value and never discounting.  Clients would routinely recoup the entire investment in under two months (some as slow as six – still a 200% 1st year ROI). Once clients believed such results were achievable for them, price was unimportant.  The incoming salespeople and weren’t equipped to articulate and validate customer value.  As a result, neither buyer nor seller knew the value of the offer.  Discounting became rampant and steep, and EBIDTA shrank to “shameful”.

If your salespeople can’t validate value monetarily with a customer, they aren’t equipped to have a price discussion.  When they are thus disadvantaged, they’ll want to discount their way out of trouble. This outcome is only partially the sales person’s fault.  Leadership holds majority responsibility in providing tools to prevent it.

You’ve Sold Too Narrowly

Has your sales strategy engaged all affected personas? Chances are that they have not.  Even sales methodologies who teach engaging “all” personas, ignore out-of-normal-scope “optional” personas–who could yield additional value. We intuitively shun the decision complexity of adding personas, without strategically adding personas who are natural allies.  Sometimes adding people amounts to “packing the court in your favor”.

I regularly engage with clients who engage too narrowly.  Customers build a group buying decision dynamic around the organizational silo/department who has a budget.  Too often, salespeople follow this definition of “buying team”, ignoring all of the other silos who benefit from their offer.  Business acumen would guide sellers to expand the buying ecosystem advantageously.

If a sales strategy hasn’t built value broadly in a prospect organization, there may not be enough value to support desired pricing.  Look at it another way.  Your company invested resources in producing customer value, but your sales approach failed to leverage all available value into pricing.  If you can’t charge for the value you produce, how sustainable is your business?

You’ve Sold Too Shallowly

Building some value with a buying persona is good. Building more value is better.  I have yet to encounter a methodology that doesn’t allow sellers to add more value drivers into the mix.  I have also yet to encounter a methodology that equip salespeople all of the value drivers to add.

Your sellers are probably able to sell more value to existing personas. They often don’t have the business acumen, product training, or selling tools to sell full value.  If your customer hasn’t built full value in their own mind, the internal math doesn’t check out.  They might think “the value is too low”, but say “your price is too high”. Those two are the same thing.

You’ve Crippled Your Offer

I once had a client who loved to pare down first opportunities into net-new clients.  The idea was to win a low-risk first engagement, then grow from proven results. This is the familiar “land and expand” strategy. Unfortunately, these first engagements were so narrowed that compelling results were almost impossible to achieve.

Designing the value out of an offer to make it easier to swallow traps the seller into discounting a low-value offer. Worse, it establishes low value for all future “expand” opportunities.  This could easily be “suicide by discounting”.

If your business involves follow-on sales, discounting the entry offer is extremely dangerous; you need a convincing “trial basis, then full price” story.  You also need the initial offer to prove “full price value”; think “full value delivery at small scale”, not “low sticker price”.  Predefined criteria for success should also be part of the equation; force a customer to measure value.

The Road to Failure is Paved with Discounted Sales

I love building profitable businesses. Not opportunistic gouging profits, but real, win-win, value-based profits.  I love helping clients do the same thing.

Please share if you liked this article…or comment…or like.  Contact me if you’d like to discuss in more detail.

To your success!