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Category: Personal Development

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Growth Management Personal Development

The Step Executive Leaders CAN’T Skip Before the New Year

Year after year, the holidays coincide with the end of the year and all that entails. I feel your pain, truly I do. Back in the day, I would get caught up with the holidays and all that they entail, (which I still do, of course), and then jump into planning, goal setting, and resolution making for the New Year.

But I’d skipped a valuable step. I’d neglected to reflect on the past year. While it’s easy to fast forward to future visioning, I’ve come to realize that it’s important to take the time to take inventory on the past 12 months.

Reflecting on the year past is not some soft, fluffy, airy, fairy activity, but rather, can have hard-core, bottom-line business impact. Whether you’re a leader, manager, supervisor, a wannabe, or a dog or a cat person, trust me, this stuff works. Whatever your current role or your aspirations, if you want to advance your career and certainly if you want to become a better executive leader, you have got to commit to learning and growing. And that’s precisely why you need to make sure you thoroughly process and digest your experiences.

Socrates said,

“An unexamined life is not worth living.”

Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I do think there is value in taking time to pause and reflect.  One way to do this is to celebrate the wins and digest the lessons. Incorporate the best and eliminate the worst.

Think in terms of MOLO – More Of, Less Of.

What do you want to create more of in your life and what do you want to have less of in your life?

I aim to take time during the last week of the year to conduct my own year-end review. This has actually become a ritual that I look forward to and plan for. You can conduct your own review any way you like. My suggestion is to set aside some time (anywhere from an hour to a full day or more), grab a notebook and pen, disconnect from all, uh, distractions, (namely your texts, email, etc.), and go to a place where you won’t be disturbed.

Ponder these executive leadership questions as you sip your beverage of choice:

1. What gave you the feeling of great accomplishment? Think in terms of what you did really well and how you might replicate that. What do you want more of in 2019?

2. What, or who, are you most grateful for? Feel free to go crazy on this one.

3. What would you do differently if you’d known then what you know now? What do you want less of in 2019?

4. What did you learn? What skills, knowledge, or awareness did you develop?  How are you different this year from last year?

5. What relationships did you nurture or develop?

6. Jim Rohn said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Who did you spend time with?

7. Who did you look to as a mentor? Who did you mentor/teach/coach?

8. How did you increase your value to your organization? To your direct reports? To your clients or customers?

So before popping the 2019 New Year’s champagne and jumping right into goal setting and resolution making, take time to reflect. I hope these six questions have sparked your thinking and prompted you to take stock of the past year.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?:

  • What reflective questions would you add to this list?
  • How do you conduct your year-end review?
  • Pop a comment below and share your practices, ideas, and suggestions with our community.

For more resources on leadership and employee engagement, be sure to sign up for our monthly Ezine and you will receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved.”

You might also like:

8 of the Best Kept Leadership Communication Secrets

Serve as the Work Culture Thermostat, Not a Thermometer

Ten Tactics for Leading Through Tough Times

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

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

How Will You Know When It’s Time to Leave?

“Staying too long in any environment depletes your resolution for change.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When was the last time you found yourself wondering, why am I still here? What purpose is being here serving me? Sometimes, those questions beckon to the beginning of a new journey. They serve as an indicator of change in your life. Those feelings usually manifest themselves in some subliminal emotion you sense. They nudge at your consciousness. They do so in an attempt to move you. They’re saying, it’s time to move on. Pay attention to those emotional signals because they’re calls from the future. They’re summoning you to move from where you are to where you’ll be. In paying attention, take note of the direction you move in. Those same emotions will gently speak to your consciousness along your journey’s path. They’ll indicate to what degree you’re moving in the right direction.

If you think about it, you’ve been moved by silent thoughts and stimuli that have gently moved you out of one environment and into another throughout your whole life. More than likely, when you were younger, you were not aware when those silent thoughts provoked you. At some point, you acquired that recognition. When you did, that was the awakening of a higher sense of awareness that you’d invoked within yourself.

When you sense that it’s time to move on, know what’s motivating you and name it. Assess if you’re attempting to escape an environment or moving towards a greater goal. It’s important to recognize the main source of motivation because, once you identify it, you’ll have greater insight into what caused you to move. There’s a difference between moving away from and moving towards something. The difference resides in the motivation.

To determine the degree you’ve improved, set goals. As you progress towards the achievement of a goal, have mile-markers that indicate the progress you’ve made. By noting that, you’ll know when you need to make a course correction. That will also be the signal that indicates whether it’s time to leave the path you’re on to seek another.

Never be afraid to realign your actions to achieve greater goals. You were not meant to stop striving forward. That only occurs when you die. So, no matter the turmoil you experience, no matter the perceived setbacks you encounter, never be fearful of leaving an environment that no longer serves you. The longer you stay in a debilitating environment, the more debilitated you’ll become. You’ll have less time to revel in the success you seek. If you note the progress you’re making along the path of life’s journey and you’re willing to leave a path that’s going nowhere, you’ll find a better path for your life … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Many negotiators have found themselves stuck in a negotiation long after they should have departed. When it comes to negotiations, the longer you stay engaged, the more likely you are to make unnecessary concessions.

If you find that things aren’t going to your satisfaction, consider points that you might use to exit. In such a case, knowing when it’s time to leave can save you a lot of time, anxiety, and stress. And, as a negotiator, that’s something you don’t want or need.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

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

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

#Time, #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Personal Development Sales

3 Necessary Business Functions That Cannot Be Outsourced

It always hurts to hear a brand-new “wantrepreneur” discussing their first steps when going into business. They typically say, “Well, if I’m going to go into business, I’m going to need to get an office, a production facility, and a warehouse. I’m also going to need a new car, a new truck, new furniture, and new machinery. Oh, and I’m going to need a full staff.”

For some reason, they think their success is based on acquiring those items. They love to hear about how similar startups get funded. Presumably, the main reason for all that funding is to support the massive overhead, instead of using income from sales. This is known as a “burn rate”. The goal here is to get the business started with enough money to pay your bills until sales “take off”, also known as a “runway”.

We can’t help but cringe when we hear this. Yes, businesses will eventually need these things, but until the buildup phase is complete, they will rack up monthly costs and are a giant millstone around their necks, weighing them down while they’re trying to push upward and achieve positive cash flow. As if it isn’t hard enough already! Putting precious time, energy, and money into building out a business before we even have positive cash flow? NO!

A few startups might know that sales will be the hardest part. They fear it takes too much energy for too little return, especially at first. They can put that to the side and do something that “shows”, like spending the cash on overhead and assets. Some other startups could simply underestimate the focus, energy, and time it actually takes to make a sale happen.

What’s plain crazy to us is how easy it is to borrow money when hard assets are involved. This lax lending policy tempts businesses to wear that millstone. It’s almost like investors and lenders believe they can take the assets back if you default. Even if they can, they’re difficult to move and won’t be able to return the cost in full.

Investing your time, energy, and money in staff and bricks and mortar could distract you from your main objective—sales! The majority of this stuff can be outsourced anyway. Once you get rid of your monthly millstone, you may realize you don’t want to drown yourself with overhead and assets, and instead put more energy into sales. We think that sales earn these assets—not the other way around.

When Barefoot Wine started, people asked us, “Oh, the wine business! Where are your vineyards and how many acres do you have?” We simply responded, “None! But we have sales – lots of sales!”

We couldn’t secure financing when we started, so we had to make sales early and often just to keep our heads above water. We couldn’t afford a millstone around our necks. We had no runway. So, to compensate, we outsourced everything we could. Now, we recommend this “beyond lean” startup approach to our clients.

We think you can outsource just about everything except accounting, sales, and quality control. When you do the sales yourself, especially to get your business going, you develop a deep respect for the customer and how your goods and services fit into the market. As you grow your company and train your own salespeople, this will be a priceless experience.

Accounting in-house is essential. Your numbers must be available now! You can’t wait weeks to see what’s happening in your business today. It’ll be far too late! The business plan you spent so much time creating is now replaced by a cash flow report. And cash flow management is a critical startup skill.

Yes, you can outsource production, but it isn’t possible to outsource quality control. Someone in your facilities needs to ensure quality. In your production contracts, you must specify all the necessary requirements before you pay for these goods and service. And you must specify in great detail.

But mostly everything else can be done by somebody else. In a lot of cases, maybe even better than you could do it yourself. Don’t crush your business with overhead, with bills hungry for your precious cash. Get the hardest job done first—sales! You’ll be shocked by how many vendors come out of the woodwork to help keep those sales going. After all, your sales pay their bills.

The next time a “wantrepreneur” shares their startup plans with us, we’d love to hear, “To get started, I’m outsourcing everything except for sales, accounting, and quality control!”

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

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Best Practices Economics Entrepreneurship Industries Marketing Personal Development Sales Technology

How Technology Changed the Billion-Dollar Ad Game

The advertising industry has had a long and successful history. It has been a very big business, especially for brands like Procter & Gamble, which topped AdAge.com’s list of the world’s five largest advertisers with $10.5 billion in advertising spending.

For decades, the personal care company kept its products front and center in the minds of consumers – on TV, in print and eventually online. The formula was simple: P&G would spend a huge amount on advertising and loyal customers would respond by buying its products.

That is no longer the case. Technology has changed the ad game for P&G – and not in a good way.

Brief Timeline of Advertising Game-Changers

So if your company is like P&G, what should you do? Start with a fresh look at how much technology and advertising have changed over the last 30 years.

As you look at this timeline, pay attention to how technology worked for – or against – advertisers throughout recent history. Then, use my Hard Trends Methodology to predict what’s next.

1990s – Hundreds of cable channels and the Internet launched, and advertisers jumped to buy space wherever their audiences would be.

Early 2000s – TiVo was one of the first disruptors to these seemingly endless advertising avenues. For the first time, consumers had power over when they got their content and began to skip the ads.

2001 – Next came iPods, which could play downloaded media while consumers were on the go.

2004 – Amazon.com launched as a virtual bookstore and began laying the groundwork for online retailers

2006 – Social media pioneer Facebook opened the News Feed, in which anybody – and any brand – could self-publish content. Facebook ads, for which advertisers once again had to “pay to play,” wouldn’t come until later.

2007 – Netflix went from DVD to streaming and never looked back. Consumers could now also choose what to watch, whenever they wanted to.

Also in 2007 – Smartphones came on the scene, allowing consumers to carry all types of media in their hands. The ad industry had to go mobile – often in addition to going traditional. Though it wasn’t easy to navigate at first, by 2015 mobile ad spending would top $28 billion.

2008 – Spotify started running on advertising dollars initially, but also offered premium, ad-free packages to consumers at nominal prices.

2009 – In the late 2000s, YouTube began allowing pre-roll ads; advertisers were once again able to recapture a very captive audience.

2012 – Facebook purchased Instagram. It would be five years before the $1 billion gamble would pay off, but in the meantime, real people became the faces of brands. The newest media-buying currency was the influence of the crafty, hip or carpool moms who had become spokespeople.

2015 – Amazon.com hit a milestone as it accounted for at least half of all e-commerce growth. Many experts attributed sales success to the debut of the company’s one-click ordering.

2018 and beyond – Not only is data-driven advertising becoming more popular, it’s expected in today’s “show me you know me” consumer culture.

If you use my Hard Trends Methodology to look ahead to the future of advertising, you’ll be able to anticipate that the next decade will move even faster. Even more devices are likely to be developed, and they will ultimately be connected to each other as an integral part of our lives.

Now is the time to learn to anticipate the next wave of technology. Start with my book, The Anticipatory Organization, which is fittingly available with one-click ordering on Amazon.com right now.

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Best Practices Body Language Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

‘Body Language Hands’ – How to Immediately Win More Negotiations

“People use their hands to add meaning to their words. To capture more of their meaning, listen to their hands.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Do you observe the body language of someone’s hands when you’re negotiating? To win more negotiations, you should listen to their hands! Hands convey a lot of hidden information in a negotiation.

There’s so much information conveyed by the way someone uses their hands. People use them to show appreciation by clapping. They display their hands to exhibit displeasure in other ways (i.e. sitting on their hands).  They also use their hands when speaking? Hands give insight into the thought process that someone has. As someone is speaking, their hands add or detract from the message they’re delivering; you do the same when you’re conveying information, too.

When there’s a difference between someone’s words and their body language, pay more attention to their body language. It will disclose someone’s intent more than their words. Consider the following lightly when conversing with someone. Consider it more strongly when you’re negotiating.

Hands close to the body:

The closer someone has their hands to their body, the more guarded are their thoughts. You’ll see this display when someone senses perceived threats to their well-being. Their hands are in that position to protect themselves from perceived indifference.

If you see this in a negotiation, it may behoove you to put the other negotiator at ease. Based on what caused him to display his guarded gesture, you may have to address that point before you can induce the comfort you seek to invoke in him.

Hands with interlocking fingers :

When you observe a negotiator in this position, he could be displaying a demeanor that states that he’s not open to your offer, suggestion, or counteroffer. To confirm your observance, consider questioning him about the meaning of his display (e.g. I noticed you have your hands closed and your fingers locked. That usually means that someone (use ‘someone’ to avoid ‘you’ – the latter may make him defensive) is not open to something that has occurred. Is anything wrong?). Then, note his response. If he unlaces his fingers and opens his hands, while saying everything is okay, ask him to proceed. Two things will have happened. One, you will have altered his body language, which will entice him to become more mentally receptive to you and your offers. Two, you will have given him the lead in the negotiation. Based on what he does with it, he’ll give insight about what caused the initial display that you brought into question. And, he’ll give vision to what he’d like to discuss. That will highlight what’s important to him.

Hands pushed away palms out:

Take special note of this gesture because it indicates that the originator wants no part of what caused him to display the gesture. You can note future discernment by the degree that he forces this gesture outward. Also, be aware of this gesture when the other negotiator voices his assertion that he’s in agreement with you. In this case, his body language belies his true feelings. Believe that more than his words.

There are other hand gestures that give insight into a negotiator’s thought process. We’ll leave those to discuss at another time. For now, note the signals mentioned above. In so doing, you’ll be more perceptive. That will assist you in winning more negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating! 

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

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

#Negotiator #Business #Management #SmallBusiness #Money #Negotiating #combat #negotiatingwithabully #bully #bullies #bullying #Negotiations #PersonalDevelopment #HandlingObjections #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology #NegotiationPsychology

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development Sales

An Insight from the Queen of the Customer Visit

A respected friend gave me a great insight a few days ago about her role in organizing customer visits…you know, when a large prospective customer comes to the factory/headquarters to perform detailed investigation of one or more critical issues.  She was renowned for arranging high-impact presentations…when she got the right inputs.

My friend was in charge of scheduling and all local arrangements once a visit request came in.  She described one of her major challenges:  when a salesperson requested a visit without a plan.  A visit is a significant investment for both buyer and seller, and needs to create maximum impact.   Frustratingly, my friend was hamstrung without understanding what issues were significant – especially any key issues being weighed by that customer.

Then she dropped the Insight Bombshell.

Key insight:  it was only low-performing salespeople who said “just wow them” or words to that effect. By contrast, high performers consistently articulated what had to happen during the visit, what issues to emphasize, and what “success” would look like with each attendee. Sadly, the low performers put the company in the position of trying to arrange an impactful meeting without any charter.

Typically, sales at this company involved a variety of technical issues (mechanical and electrical), aesthetic/design considerations, flexibility, durability, and more.  Capabilities available exceeded time to cover them.  Great salespeople knew what value they needed to show, and made it a point to focus everyone’s attention on impactful, leverageable differentiation.  They set aside any differentiation not relevant to the selling situation at hand.

Does this sound familiar in your business? How often do you demo without a differentiation plan?  Do you ever place trial systems without a definition of success or without a clear idea of what the trial customer is trying to learn?  Bottom line, do you know what knowledge and perception gaps you must try to fill?  If not, do you think you might be one of those “just wow them” sellers?

Don’t waste opportunities

Even ignoring the expense and time investment of the typical “plant visit”, you need to learn from this insight. Don’t waste scarce demo specialists, even on a virtual demo. Point subject matter experts at critical value gaps beforehand.  Perhaps most critically, your selling time is precious; spending it on non- or marginally impactful differentiators is two mistakes in one:

  1. You are wasting selling time on issues that don’t move a deal.
  2. You are distracting attention away from deal-moving differentiation when you dilute it in low-priority information.

The second point comes directly from consumer choice research:  If you dribble critical value into a stream of irrelevant product (or service) promotion, you’re asking your customer to play “Where’s Waldo” with your value.  Unfortunately, customers would rather just go somewhere else (a competitor?) to obtain a useful (to them) stream of key value points.

This is why “show up and throw up” sales calls are so harmful.  Discover specifically where you can show value to a customer via customer-focused interaction, then demonstrate those specific value creators that connect to the customer-perceived value gap.

Takeaways:

Here’s what high performing sales people do:

  1. Discover value gaps first – before sharing anything about your solution.
  2. Share your differentiated way(s) of addressing those value gaps. Use experts and customer visits to address gaps, not merely to spray them with features and benefits.
  3. “Yada yada” (de-emphasize) areas where you have parity with other solutions. Just make sure that those personas responsible for confirming basic functionality are satisfied– separately if at all possible.
  4. Make sure the customer has connected your differentiation to their value gaps.
  5. Walk your customer through a thought experiment that causes them to envision all primary and ancillary outcomes of closing the value gap….in as much detail as possible.

Discuss below, or reach out to me to discuss how you and/or your salesforce can have those kinds of highly impactful interactions.

To your success!

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Executive Leaders: Give a Different Kind of Gift this Holiday

As I considered what I wanted to write about this month, I read through the feedback cards from the leaders in a recent program I’ve been doing for an organization in Mississippi. What’s cool about this organization is that they really connect the dots between leadership development, employee engagement, customer engagement, and ultimately, the bottom line. Not to brag, but I’m happy to say that we received consistently positive, glowing feedback. Okay, I guess that was a bit braggy, I digress. The comments that I received over and over from this and from many of my programs, is that I helped leaders to see what they may not have seen or struggled to see about themselves, and this will help them to be better leaders.

As I was walking through the airport recently I saw a service dog walking with a gentleman who was blind. As I walked along, lost in my own thoughts, I realized that we are all a bit blind in one way or another.

Before you can lead others, you must be able to lead yourself. So self-awareness, or intra-personal info is necessary before you can build inter-personal relationships. We always work on self-awareness first in my coaching and leadership development programs, and we do this by having everyone complete a self-assessment. Heck, this is our starting point regardless of what kind of program I’m facilitating, and regardless of the participants’ roles within the organization.

And we don’t stop there. We pay it forward. We give the gift of this self-awareness to team members, so that everyone in the organization is speaking the same language.

But, back to my guide dog analogy. As a leader, your job most often involves serving as a coach for your team members. Your role is to help them to see what they can’t see about themselves. You guide them around potholes and missteps, and help them to learn from every experience.

If you would like reveal the blind spots in your leadership and your team members and give the gift of self-awareness this Christmas, here are a few quick tips:

Understand that every team member has a preferred way of doing things and accept that your preferred way isn’t the only way. Have everyone on your team take a self-assessment. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t stop there. Get some good coaching to help everyone interpret and understand their results. Just handing someone a report and expecting them to read and interpret it on their own is a complete waste of time and money (or as my Mama would say, “That and a dollar will get you on the St. Charles streetcar!”).

Ask open-ended questions. Influential leaders don’t necessarily have all of the answers, but they do ask great questions.

Use stories, analogies, and examples to give context to what you want your team members to really get. Remember, people would rather use Tabasco for eye drops than listen to someone lecture! Tony Robbins says it a little differently: “Information that is not attached to emotion is not retained.” Stories evoke emotions. Use em’.

To be a good coach, you need to have a good coach. Hire one. I did. Professional athletes do. It’s pretty hard to see the label when you’re inside the wine bottle… er, or as my coaching client said recently, “ I don’t know what I don’t know, Jen. That’s why I need you to help guide me along this leadership path.” A good coach helps you to not only see your own blind spots, but to identify and leverage your strengths.

Invest in team and leadership development. Notice I said invest. You should be able to expect ROI, such as improved communication, amped up employee engagement, enhanced customer service, and ultimately, a beefed-up bottom line. And don’t forget to measure the results.

As a coach, your role isn’t so much to teach people WHAT to think, but rather to teach them HOW to think – for themselves. It’s a fine distinction, but you don’t want to create order takers who need to be spoon fed and told what to do. By asking for their ideas, opinions, and suggestions, you’ll help them to think in terms of solutions and options.

Be a lifelong learner. You can’t give to others what you haven’t first learned. ‘Nuff said.

In my experience, most people need a guide on the side, a coach to help them along the way, because we’re all a bit blind in one way or another. What a way to spread your love and appreciation to your team members! Just remember that this is an ongoing process, a journey, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

To receive solutions to your people problems in your inbox every month, and to receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved,” click here.

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Leadership Team Accelerated Results Program

Stay Home From Your Next Leadership Conference

Why Your Employees Should Stop Thinking Like Employees

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

What Kind of Editor Do You Need?

Some writers, those who have just begun the process, know that they need editors. Others, who have a little more experience, may question that need. “I know how to spell and punctuate,” they say. “I have good grammar skills.”

Editing, though, involves much more. Think about your home and car. How much of the work needed for maintenance and repair do you do yourself? For how much do you hire professionals?

An editor, in any of the categories I describe below, has a professional ability to make your  manuscript shine.

To simplify these descriptions, I’m taking the example of a nonfiction book, although these forms of editing can also apply to fiction, blog posts, marketing materials, and other forms of writing.

At What Stage is Your Project?

 Have you ever started this kind of project before?

  • Do you have an idea you want to develop?
  • Do you have a rough draft?
  • Have you finished a manuscript?
  • Do you feel stuck at any stage of the writing?

Developmental Editor

In the early stages of a writing project, consider a developmental editor to lend structure or organization. Say, for example, that you want to share the lessons you’ve learned in building a business. Maybe you can’t decide whether to have the lessons unfold in within the context of telling your life story (autobiography) or to tuck the autobiographical elements within the format of each lesson.

A developmental editor can help you make these decisions and also break your information into individual elements so that they can be best organized.

This kind of editor may work with you from the beginning to the end of the project.

Content Editor

This editor will evaluate your manuscript and make suggestions for changes that can be minor or major. This may involve fine-tuning the smoothness of flow from one topic to the next. If you’ve inadvertently repeated a story in Chapter 11 that you told in Chapter 2, the content editor should catch that. He or she gives your book a macroscopic (looking at the larger aspects) polish.

Line Editor

This editor provides the microscopic polish. She or he looks for clichés, poor pacing, run-on or overly long sentences, overuse of passive voice, incorrect word usage, and other errors. This kind of editing may include grammar and punctuation.

Copyediting and Proofreading

From my viewpoint, most of the differences between these forms of editing are too minor to be noted. This editor works on punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

A proofreader has an additional role worth mentioning. For a print publication, proofreaders check the overall appearance of the pages before printing, looking for unintentional space, missing titles, mis-numbered pages, and related issues. If they see typos and other errors, they will mark them for correction.

You  may end up needing all of these professionals in the course of your publishing journey in order to ensure that your book is as good as it can be.

One well-qualified editor can provide more than one type of editing.

The editor will save you from embarrassing typos, improve your work, and make you shine.

Pat Iyer is one of the original 100 C Suite Network Advisors and is an editor and ghostwriter. Contact her through her website, www.patiyer.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development Sales

If You Don’t Know Your Differences, You’ll Never Know Your Value

It’s simple:  Your offer’s value exists only in a customer’s mind. When you hear the phrase “customer perceived value”, I want you to remember that the “customer perceived” is redundant; there is no other kind of value besides customer-perceived.

Customers only derive value based upon differences. There’s more to it, which we’ll come to in a minute, but let me simplify half a century of consumer choice research for you.

Hueristics:  Shortcut Mental Processes

Buyer choices are based upon differences between different offers, which is a mental shortcut, or heuristic (an academic researcher word.  Impress your friends).  We shortcut a complex set of choices based only on what’s different.  Think about buying an automobile, for example.  When comparing the options, you don’t go down the list of “what is the same”.  Your brain knows that is a waste of mental energy.  You won’t even take notice tires, spark plugs, cylinders, steering wheels; every option has the same number, and any differences are unimportant to most buyers.  However, you might notice that one option has a comfortable leather-wrapped steering wheel…but really only if the other car doesn’t.

Not all differences are the same (sorry for the pun)

Differences become differentiation (in the consumer choice sense) when two things occur.

First, those differences need to be factored in to a decision process.

Second, they need to be given weight, or value.

For value to “occur” in the customer’s mind, you need to do both.  Let’s start with the first.

Differences need to park between your customer’s ears as differentiation before they can grow into value.

Differences are promoted to differentiation (differences that the customer uses in a decision) under a consistent hueristic.  Buyer (all personas; not just a purchasing agent) decision-making follows a consistent prioritization of differences which:

Come to mind easily. The buyer psychology term is “ the availability principle”.  This means that decision makers default to easy-to-recall differences. Differences that you give to a prospect (especially without confirming conversation) are not as “available” as differences they can describe unprompted. Let’s go back to an auto purchase example:  I’ll recite advantages of one of your two “acceptable” finalist options to you.   Then, I’ll ask you to explain to me the advantages of the second option.  Which one will you end up buying the next day? The reason is the availability principle.   Availability is part of why a customer believes what they tell you much more than what you tell them.  Use conversation to get a customer to process differences into differentiation.

The customer has to produce themselves. If nobody produces any differences,  some buyers will dig deeper to uncover them. This does happen, but you’re leaving things to chance.  Differences which don’t enter a customer’s consciousness don’t create differentiation or value.  I once learned that a customer valued my company’s responsiveness, and willingly paid a small price premium — which could have been much larger.  When there was a “both parties’ fault” problem which shut their production down, we made things right in the way they knew we would…and which we took for granted.  This was the exception, not the rule.  Because we didn’t uncover it, we never had the option to sell (and possibly price, had the difference been something a little more image-positive).

Price becomes a primary differentiator only when no other differences exist in the prospect’s mind.  Note:  some procurement/purchasing folks will lead you to believe that your differences (above) are insignificant or nonexistent – purely to drive a price-centric conversation. It is the responsibility of a seller to determine how real this gambit is. If your sellers respond only by discounting, you may have a significant opportunity to improve.  I work with sellers to understand how and when to play this game.

Status quo becomes your biggest threat when no differentiators have appeared as your customer goes down this decision pathway. It is a threat almost always, of course, but if not even price seems different between the top two choices, status quo always wins (consumer choice research has established this using dozens of experiments repeated hundreds of times).  If status quo is not one of the finalists, customers will produce a differentiator that might seem so frivolous that it feels like they used the dartboard to make their choice.  These are frustrating wins…and even more frustrating losses.

When Differentiation becomes Value

I often quote Bob Miller, who pointed out that Customers don’t buy our offers, they buy outcomes. Buyer research shows that people decide based upon differentiation… differentiation they value due to the outcomes that differentiation yields.

How does differentiation turn into value?  When a prospect gives it weight by connecting it to an outcome or outcomes. The value/weight of an outcome increases as it progresses through “theoretical”, “possible”, ”likely”, ”probable”, then “assuredly”.  It also increases as the desirability of the outcome progresses through “unquantified tie breaker”, to “I’ve visualized the outcome”, to “I’ve visualized myself realizing that outcome” then “I’ve quantified the outcome financially and personally”, and finally,  “I’ve also quantified ancillary outcomes”.

The same rules of availability apply to value building.  If you build a value case and deliver it to a prospect, it is far less available(and thus less value is built) than if you walk the prospect through the exact same validation/quantification process such that they build it themselves in their own mind.

Buyers (other than purchasing folks) seldom use price as the primary differentiator.  Far more frequently, they use your price premium (that’s your price difference, remember?) vs. their own estimate of value. Using an auto purchase example, a consumer might justify whether the leather upholstery option is worth the $1500, quantifying comfort, longevity, prestige, in a way that translates each of these differentiators into a dollar justification.

Bottom Line

If you never help your customer identify your differences, they probably won’t think you have any, and you will never enter the finalist stage.

When you fail to help your customer process differentiation into your (outcome-based) value, they won’t fully appreciate what you offer, and won’t be willing to pay you what you’re really worth.

When you don’t know your value, you’ll never know how to sell or how to price.  Your achievable price premium depends on the value of your differences to the customer.

I invite your comments and feedback.

To your success!

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

But Wait, There’s More – Negotiation Insight

“Never forget that you have the power to choose what you wish others to see in you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When do you reflect upon where you are in your life? Does it occur when you’re beset by misfortune or when you’re in a state of exhilaration? It’s a thought that warrants attention because you’re always being moved by your thoughts. And, your thoughts transfer into actions.

When you’re in a certain mental state, note the words you use to represent that mindset to yourself and others. Words have power. Thus, the way you use them will influence your actions and that of those around you. When you muse to others and yourself about what you’re thinking or how you feel, you’re giving insight into your personality. That insight allows others to assess who you are, what you might do in a situation, and how they might interact with you during those times.

Anytime you’re not feeling normal, whatever that might be for you, and you don’t wish to expose it, cloak it by displaying a different demeanor. If you’re a frequent reader of my writings, you know you’re always negotiating; that means, what you do today impacts tomorrow’s opportunities or lack of. You don’t have to consider your actions as being a negotiation. Nor do you have to consider air as a vital part of life. Nevertheless, both are truisms.

To achieve more, you must be mindful of how you represent yourself to others. The more you wish others to perceive a certain persona, the more aligned your actions should be with that persona. If you leave people with the thought that there’s more to you than they know, you’ll have them in a state of wonderment that states, but wait there’s more. That will heighten their intrigue of you, which will serve to increase their interest … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Predictability vs. Unpredictability

During a negotiation, a collage of thoughts, words, and actions will attempt to drive the negotiation down different paths. The predominant collection of that makeup will determine your success; another consideration will be your past demeanor. The latter will serve as input about how you’ll respond to certain stimuli.

In a negotiation and in every aspect of your life, people will believe of you what they see. Sure, they’ll color their perception based on their biases. The rub is, if you don’t present yourself based on how you wish to be perceived, they’ll fill in the blanks without your input. Don’t wonder as you wander. Show others what you want them to see in you.

People like predictability. But, if you want to win more negotiations, they’ll be times when it behooves you to be unpredictable. During such times, leave others wondering if there’s more to you to uncover. Doing so will serve your benefit. They won’t be able to completely figure you out. Thus, they’ll lack the ability to predict what you’ll do next. That’ll serve to foil their negotiation plans. To keep them off-balance, create a state of mind for them that says, but wait, there’s more.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

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

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

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