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Category: Personal Development

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

Aha – What Just Happened?

“Never let thoughts lazily reside in your imagination. Some seek life to serve you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert 

Do you take note of what’s occurring when you’re in different environments? If you don’t, you’re missing aha moments. Aha moments occur when your paradigm shifts about a perspective. That paradigm shift can lead to greater understandings about how you perceive your environments. Some aha moments are truly life-changing.

Aha – Don’t focus on ‘too’ easy or ‘too’ difficult. Assess the degree of difficulty associated with any task you contemplate, but don’t be over obsessive. If you think a task is too easy, you might put off addressing it because you think it will only take a short amount of time to complete. If you think it’ll be too difficult you might put it off altogether.

Aha – You don’t know what you don’t know. When making decisions, consider what you might not know that could add value to your thoughts. If the possibility of what you don’t know is overwhelming, delay your decision, continue thinking.

Aha – Everyone has the same amount of time and yet some are more successful than others. The account for their success lies in the way they utilize time. There are 1440 minutes in a day. To become more successful in life, don’t ‘kill’ time; use it to improve yourself. Make the most of the time you have.

The moment you embrace aha moments as enhancers in life, you will begin to elevate your life … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

When negotiating, what do you hear? What do you see? Does your periscope seek aha moments? There’s hidden value in such moments. You’ll only experience them if you’re watchful. Here’s how you can become more attuned to the possibility of aha moments.

Keep an open mind.

Be receptive to ideas, suggestions, and offers that initially may not be appealing. By considering the offer from other perspectives, you may experience that aha moment that leads to a greater outcome.

What’s that background noise?

Background noise can be a metaphor for anything that alters your perception. In some cases, negotiators have manipulated their environment by lacing it with different aromas. The opposing negotiator was not mindful of the fact that the maneuver was stimulating him. Had he realized, he may have recognized the aha that was captivating his senses.

Change environments. 

Changing environments opens the doorway to aha moments. When you feel stumped in a negotiation, call a timeout. Take a break to alter the way you’re thinking.

In your next negotiation, take note of what you’re not paying attention to. Ask yourself why your new thought had not captured your attention before. What you’ll experience is another way to uncover aha moments.

Thank you Mitchell Levy, The AHA Guy at AHAthat and TEDx Speaker

– Watch Mitchell’s TED talk: BEing Seen and BEing Heard as a Thought Leader

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/

#Reflection #AhaMoments #Mind #Brain #Thinking #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #Mask #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Best Practices Growth Management Skills Technology

Cognitive Performance — The Human Side of Cognitive Computing

By Daniel Burrus and Neil Smith

(In this blog series on how elevating cognitive performance is a game changer for organizations, I’ve invited Neil Smith, CTO at Think Outcomes, to join me in writing on this important topic due to his expertise and the cognitive performance software his firm has created.)

As a leader, your responsibilities exist on the cognitive side of your business, where you think critically, make complex decisions, collaborate among your network, communicate with your stakeholders, comply with regulations and monitor uncertainties, to name a few. These activities represent your cognitive work. Given today’s rapid growth in organizations using AI, you are most likely exploring the current state of cognitive computing and how it can help you with your responsibilities beyond the collection, storage and retrieval of data through computers as data appliances. You are also considering how the highly marketed definitions of cognitive computing from IBM Watson can help you?

How cognitive performance computing can help you as a critical thinker in business  

As we meet with leaders in business, management consulting and government around the globe, they, too, are wondering how they can leverage cognitive computing for their work.

These professionals occupy roles in the cognitive operations of their organizations, where there is a constant set of unknowns. Senior executives are responsible for closing their gaps in knowledge about the future state of their businesses. Trusted advisors must do the same for their clients. As standard setters must set guidelines as best practices, regulators create the laws that require cognitive compliance from organizational leaders. The next evolution of cognitive computing addresses their cognitive responsibilities — i.e., helping executives and management consultants work through their risk-reward trade-offs in context to situational context and criteria, while standard setters and regulators build the required thresholds into the thinking of organizational leaders. This segment of cognitive computing is known as cognitive performance. Enhancing cognitive performance improves critical thinking, stakeholder communications, decision making, advisory collaboration, monitoring of uncertainties and cognitive compliance. Cognitive performance software extends the human mind with computing to help humans learn, compete and grow the impact of their own intellects.

Leverage cognitive computing for what your mind can’t do

Where machines continue to learn role-based tasks, it’s necessary for humans to work in harmony with machines to better navigate through areas of complexity and uncertainty. For business to advance, enhancing human performance needs to be a strategic imperative for business executives rather than accepting the status quo. With stronger human performance, culture will transform with faster cognitive insights and foresights to create an environment of deeper human learning. Without higher performance from our minds, we’re all operating the same way — figuring out situations on our own in a sequential order and learning from hindsight. Computers, available data and applying the four pillars of the Anticipatory Model will help us learn with foresight. To compete in industry today, we need cognitive computing to do more for our minds than provide data-driven insights. We need cognitive computing to assist the cerebral processing in our minds, help us gain perspective and put us in a position to make high-fidelity decisions. The human computers on top of our shoulders need turbochargers. As visual learners, wouldn’t it be great if we made our thoughts visual through thinking patterns to make the most of our risk-reward trade-offs! That would change the velocity of decision making and stakeholder communications! To move the needle much further in business requires a focus on the performance of human minds across teams — from senior executives and mid-level managers in business to those in their supply chains, consulting circles, insurance relationships, investor partnerships and professionals across the sciences, among others. Enhancing cognitive performance needs to be a strategic imperative to gain a competitive advantage.

Improve reasoning and judgment

Professionals know they rely on instinct and gut reactions all too often. Their ability to process information in their minds or to understand someone else’s viewpoint is often challenging. It’s a human limitation, and that’s where responsibility-based computing can help. The batting averages of professionals in reasoning and judgment must improve in today’s business world. The cognitive era is the time to break through these limitations and leverage computing to extend the capabilities of our minds.

Digital advancement in cognitive performance

Many teams responsible for operating processes on the transactional side of their businesses are now involved in digital transformation. They are automating their manual activities using AI, question-answering systems, big data and other software. Within the cognitive side of their businesses, the cognitive operating processes are ready to digitally advance as well. Those who spend time prioritizing and enhancing the cognitive performance of their teams will leapfrog their competitors as they will strengthen human performance.

The benefits of exponential advances in computing must now be applied to human performance. There’s a long, bright road ahead for the performance of the human mind. We’re just at the beginning.

Learn how to elevate your planning, accelerate innovation and transform results with The Anticipatory Learning System and how to maximize the cognitive performance of your team with Cognitive Performance Software.

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Read These Leadership Communication Tips Every. Single. Day.

Noise, newsfeeds, information overload, notifications, emails, text messages, podcasts, voicemails, 24-hour news cycles, you name it. We all face “busy-ness” as executives and team leaders. Our teams face it all too.

As a leader, though, you have to cut through all this noise so that your message gets through to your team members, and even more difficult, you have to craft your message in a way that will influence employees to behave or act in a certain way. That’s why they pay you the medium-size bucks, right?

Of course you have heard it before, one of the most important skills you can develop is the ability to communicate effectively. Here, I’ve put together some of the best communication skills of successful leaders.

1. Listen more than talk, ask more than tell. You may just be amazed at the results. Most people want to feel like someone hears them. Oh, and by the way, waiting for your turn to talk is not listening.

2. Over-communicate. Many leaders have a phobia of being repetitive, redundant, or generally sounding like a broken record (or a scratched CD, for you millennials). However, in all of my years in human resources, and in all of the many exit interviews I conducted, I don’t recall one employee who said she was leaving the organization because her supervisor just communicated with her TOO much. It just doesn’t happen. So I doubt seriously that you’re anywhere near the point of over-communicating. Surprisingly, some research suggests that people need to hear a message as many as seven times before they will really GET it. Marketing and advertising experts have always been aware of this fact and use it to make sure their messages get through to their potential customers, i.e., you.

3. Rather than talk ABOUT an employee, actually talk TO him. If you have an issue or conflict with a team member, address him privately and take care of it. Talking about one employee to another employee breeds distrust, and then you might as well hang it up and go home. No trust = no loyalty, no engagement, and certainly no commitment.

4. Stop issuing edicts and start having real conversations. In some organizations, there seems to be a disconnect between the executives who create policy and the frontline workers. In reality, the frontline workers are aware of and understand the real problems facing the organization. So back away from the keyboard, walk away from your spreadsheets and computer screen, and get out to the team members who are responsible for “shipping product.” Ask what’s on their minds, what challenges they’re facing. And then listen to their concerns. Have real conversations.

5. Make it personal. People who say that business isn’t personal just don’t get it. Leadership is synonymous with influence. To influence someone, there must be a relationship and mutual trust. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. People follow leaders they know, like, and trust. If your team members feel like they don’t know you – and more importantly – like you don’t know them, you don’t have a trusting relationship.  As a young business professional, I worked for a leader who had thousands of employees under her responsibility. Yet I was always amazed at how she took the time to ask about me and my family. She knew and remembered details about me, and regardless of how busy she was, she seemed interested in me as a person. In other words, she invested in our relationship. Years later, when she asked me to take on a huge assignment (that I really didn’t want, I might add), I agreed because of the trust and loyalty I felt toward her and the organization.

6. Be direct without being blunt. Some executives, with the intent to be nice, sugar coat their messages. But what ends up happening is that their message is muddled, unclear, and even confusing. You’re not doing anyone any favors. At best, you may be giving someone false hope or a false sense of security, when in fact, her performance needs some dramatic adjustments. Give honest, direct feedback, along with specifics about how to improve.

7. Take responsibility for maintaining the flow of information until all of your team members are on the same page. It’s not their fault if they don’t get it. When things go South, great leaders look in the mirror and hold themselves accountable. If you have a vision to cast, a message worth sharing, or a concept you want to get across, make it your mission to ensure that everyone in the organization gets it – from the C-suite to the frontline.

8. Don’t try to fake it ’til you make it. Most people will spot a phony baloney a mile away. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, ask for help and then shut up, listen, and learn.

If you don’t top your “newsfeed” with tips and reminders like these, you will get bombarded with too much junk and noise that won’t help positively influence your team.

COMMENT HERE:

  • How do you ensure that important messages are effectively communicated within your organization?
  • What communication tips would you share with aspiring leaders?

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:

Managing for Maximum Performance

Four Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Team (and How to Stop)

Leadership Team Accelerated Results Program

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.

Photo source

Categories
Culture Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Art of Avoiding CEO Burn Out

“More in You” was painted after hearing the story of a CEO who could not calm down. The doctor told him he was going to die one of the youngest billionaires in the U.S. if he didn’t reduce his stress levels. It’s a story I hear often. My paintings and experiences I create for them change their mindset and their  life.

I know from personal experience meditation for the new student is so hard in this state. I believed my paintings could offer a better solution than demanding a overstimulated brain and a system likely suffering adrenal fatigue reach for a mental Everest. Not just to the C-Suite but to roaming employees and consultants. I have been helping collectors and audiences calm down and get into flow since my TED talk four years ago

It seemed to me the journey of calming down could be supported by gaming the system. Looking at images and at changing color fields and moments. The mind could focus on something new without the spirit resistance. The brain could enjoy a mind game that calms and then re-energizes. That’s exactly what “More in You” accomplishes. We are swept in and out of the blue caverns like Han Solo on a epic flight through the galaxy. We can float among the waves like a day out snorkeling across the reef. As the light changes upon the painting a fresh course is revealed. Or it can be taken in as a giant atmosphere we can disappear into during a break.

I felt it was important to choose an environment that also reflects our inner makeup. The water, the suggestion of ocean, of atmosphere in front of us reflects the water inside us. Water is our great connection and our unifying healer. It is the great distraction away from all those digital distractions healing one c-suite leader at a time.

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

How to Uncover More Hidden Value Opportunities When Negotiating

“Opportunities are concealed in hidden value. Heighten your sense of value and you’ll uncover more hidden value opportunities.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert 

“Did you really want those bananas?” That was the question asked as one friend watched another negotiate the price of a lamp. “Yes, I wanted them”, was the reply. “I love bananas, especially when they’re free!”

Bananas can be a metaphor for anything you get as a bonus when negotiating.

Two friends were at a flee market. One saw a unique USB lamp. He asked the seller for the cost. The reply was $7. The friend offered $5. The seller said he paid more than that. So, the friend offered $6. The seller still said no. With that, the friend turned and began walking away. As he did, he spotted bananas. He turned and said, I’ll give you $7 for the lamp if you’ll give me seven bananas and the lamp. The seller said, okay. He gave the buyer the lamp, along with seven bananas, and that consummated the deal. That occurred even though the seller had the bananas listed at sixty cents each.

Objective:

When you negotiate, do you note your real objective? In the situation above, the objective was not to get the lamp for less than $7, it was to maximize the purchasing power of the $7. The bananas added value to that purchasing power. That recognition helped the friend bring the deal to fruition.

Hidden Value:

When contemplating the objective of a negotiation, consider the hidden value that might provide added value to the outcome. That will afford you more flexibility in achieving your objective. It will also stave off possible impasses in the negotiation. Not only should you consider what you might seek as added value, you should consider the same for the other negotiator. Considering his perspective of added value will give you a possible bargaining chip to overcome a point of contention.

In part, you can entice the opposition to possess a red herring; a red herring would be something that you professed as having value. Feign extreme hardship at forgoing it, to give it added value. Offer it as a trade for what you’re seeking, or to help bridge the gulf between what the other negotiator seeks from the negotiation.

Know the Needs:

To employ the use of added value successfully, know what added value is. Per the way the other negotiator perceives it, obtain insights from conversations and her writings before the negotiation. Do that by acquiring foreknowledge from friends and associates of hers. For your own means, consider everything you might want from the negotiation and how obtaining it would add value to your outcome expectations. For either of you, that can be in the form of financial, prestige, or perceived as being fair. Whatever it is, know what it is and use it appropriately.

Before you set out to negotiate, consider the different ways you might enhance the negotiation. Consider the possibilities that might present themselves as an added value to the outcome. Some may be things that you don’t really want. Nevertheless, you can use them as chits to enhance the probability of getting more from every negotiation you’re in. By uncovering more hidden value opportunities when negotiating, you’ll enhance your negotiation position, power, and outcome … 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/

#HiddenValue #Opportunity #Power #secrets #HiddenOpportunities #Mistakes #Management #SmallBusiness #Money #Negotiating #combat #negotiatingwithabully #bully #bullies #bullying #Negotiations #PersonalDevelopment #HandlingObjections #Negotiator #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology #NegotiationPsychology

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Leaders Inspire Trust with The Learning Cycle

A systems thinker avoids expressing blame because it damages trust and does nothing to address the real root causes of mistakes or problems.

“Where the rubber meets the road” is a popular phrase that means “there is a point where a theory is applied.” What does a leader do when there is a mistake and/or poor results? This is where the rubber meets the road. How does that leader facilitate improvement? What does that leader do to protect trust and address the root cause?

Leaders need a problem-solving skill that addresses problems and protects trust. They need a problem-solving skill that gives them total confidence the problem will be addressed without micromanagement. They need a skill that reinforces a self-organizing, self-managing, environment. This skill must enable people to tell the truth, to manage trust, and to be optimally innovative.

Matchbooks have been around since the late 1800s. The first ones had the striking strip on the front of the book along with a warning “Close cover before striking.” Careless consumers would often set the entire book on fire because the other matches were easily exposed to a spark when one match was struck. The warning was an “easy” way to solve the problem. It put the responsibility on the consumer to follow instructions and to be careful doing it. This solution did little to solve the problem.

It wasn’t until 1962 that a true solution was found. The manufacturers moved the striking strip to the back of the matchbook, thus preventing a spark from igniting the other matches. This was a true solution to a problem. The solution required a significant change in the manufacturing process. It required innovation and an investment in time and money. It required thought and a predictable problem-solving method. It exemplifies how a change in the system will influence behaviors. This method is known as Plan-Do-Check-Act, the scientific method, and/or the learning cycle.

The learning cycle can be traced back at least as far as Galileo, who developed the idea of making observations, creating a hypothesis and then conducting an experiment. Edison used the method to test 6,000 materials before finding the one that proved to be most practical and cost effective for the filament for a light bulb.

Plan-Do-Check-Act is the recommended problem-solving method for leaders who want to protect trust. It requires the creation of an action PLAN including the steps of knowing what to improve, creating a hypothesis that offers hope for a solution, the identification of the current condition of the problem, and how to measure the success.

The DO portion is carrying out the planned experiment. The CHECK portion is about analyzing data to see if the hypothesis was correct. The ACT portion is about deciding to revise the hypothesis, revise the method, or to adopt the method just tested. The adoption of Plan-Do-Check-Act creates an environment where blame is unnecessary. Every member of a team can contribute their ideas and their effort to experimenting with new hypotheses and with new methods.

Are you using the Learning Cycle? Are you teaching and coaching it?  Are you team members using it?  These are the opportunities for leaders who want to inspire trust.

Adopting PDCA makes problem solving a fun exercise that can involve everyone. It creates engagement and improved quality for customers. Proper and frequent use of PDCA leads to great ideas like moving the striking strip. The adoption of PDCA starts with the C-Suite leader and that is why Dr. W. Edwards Deming once said, “Quality starts in the boardroom.”

The skill of using PDCA requires knowledge, the embrace of systems thinking, the appreciation of self-organizing systems, patience to avoid jumping to conclusions (the most obvious answer of the moment), the discipline to invest time and energy in experimentation, and the desire to teach others. It’s comprehensive.

Being a leader can go to one’s head, encouraging the belief one is omniscient. That belief will damage trust. Enabling everyone to use PDCA in their work boosts trust and engagement and avoids the trust-damaging belief that leaders must always be omniscient.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.  See other resources here.

For more, read on: https://c-suitenetwork.com/advisors/advisor/wally-hauck/

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

You’re Always Negotiating

“If you seek greater progress in life, negotiate better and greater progress will seek you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Right now, you’re creating your future. And, you’ve done so in the past. That’s what created the environment that you’re in, right now.

My motto is, you’re always negotiating. That means, what you’ve done in the past has led to where you are today, and what you do now will lead to where you’ll be tomorrow.

If you’re like most people, you don’t understand how frequently you’re engaged in negotiations throughout the day. When you’re talking to an associate, you’re negotiating. When you engage in a conversation with a client, your superior, your spouse, you’re negotiating. The fact is in those situations, you’re giving insight into your thought process, your beliefs, and how you might engage in different situations. That’s a negotiation.

Why is it important to recognize that you’re always negotiating? The answer is, the more you’re aware of what you say and do, along with how you say and do it, the better you can shape your persona. By shaping how others perceive you, you can become more aligned with the way you wished them to perceive you in the future.

Here’s the point. Always be mindful that your actions are under constant observation and evaluation. To reiterate, that means you’re always negotiating. Negotiations occur in many places, not just at the negotiation table. Every time you engage in actions that detract from your goals, you’re detracting from them through your actions.

Raise your sense of awareness no matter the environment. If you feel the need to ‘let your hair down’, control the degree. Don’t expose too much of yourself by letting your hair expose too much of you. Once you raise your awareness that you’re always negotiating and align your actions with your future goals, you’ll be in a better position to achieve those goals. In so doing, you will have raised your dreams, hopes, and lights that lead to a better future. That will make living life more memorable … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

When negotiating, even good negotiators lose their cool. They display aspects of their demeanor that belie thoughts that would be better left unexposed; we’re all prone to being off kilter at times. Not so good negotiators fall into a deeper abyss by not recognizing that their self-constraint and reasoning has deserted them. Good negotiators distinguish themselves by regaining their composure quickly. They do so because they focus on their mental agility. They’re aware that they need to spotlight the long-term goal of the negotiation.

Progress never moves in a straight line. If you remember that you’re always negotiating, you’ll be more mindful of when progress has exited that line. Your attentiveness will serve as the alert to get the negotiation back on track.

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/

#Mind #Brain #Thinking #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #Mask #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

Categories
Personal Development Sales

A New Entrepreneur Is an Easy Target for Unreliable Merchants

We have an old saying in California that goes, “The only people who made money during the Gold Rush were selling shovels!” Someone on the hunt for gold needs a lot more than a shovel. He needs a map—the people selling shovels can’t help out with that, because they’d be mining the gold themselves if they knew where it was. They wouldn’t be selling shovels!

There are far too many people today “selling shovels” to entrepreneurial “gold miners.” They’ll help out with your website, your online business, your social networks, and even your sales pitch—but you have to make all the sales.

These merchants want to find people who are excited about new possibilities, hyped up by the media, and perhaps over-simplifying what it takes to make a sale. If you’re a new entrepreneur, you might be like the gold miner without a map. You might buy a shovel because you think you’ll need it if you will eventually mine gold (assuming you even find any). These merchants will stock you full of goods and services you think you’ll need—everything except a map. Bonnie has an expression that really hits the nail on the head: “If we had ham, we’d have ham and eggs, if we had eggs!”

Many products merchants will sell are untimely for your business growth, based on wrong assumptions, or simply pointless. A lot of these require subscription fees and might even need “experts” just to use them. Many of these services try to be all things for all people, so it’s easy to pay for things you’ll never need or use. And they still need a ton of plug-ins to navigate around their shortcomings, but what does it matter to the sellers? They have your money and they’re on their way.

The map to find gold can only come from other successful gold miners! When it comes to entrepreneurship, this is someone who has started and successfully run a business, someone who is now looking to share the secrets that brought him or her to “gold”. These are the people you should be looking for, especially in the beginning. For one thing, they can help you save on premature overhead and costly fees since they’ve also made those same mistakes. They can help you build a strategic client base that will justify services and identify exactly which ones you need. And, more importantly, when you actually need them.

Recently funded, new startup owners, are sitting ducks for those shovel-sellers who target people looking for the next big gold rush. These days, entrepreneurship is the next big gold rush. Don’t get carried away by the hype. Just focus on getting and keeping your customers. Understand that reality first! No tool or service will guarantee those customers, but acquiring them is essential to be able to afford any additional overhead. And how exactly do you get these customers? Have a conversation with successful entrepreneurs who’ve already done it themselves! They have the gold maps!

We can’t even begin to count how many failed businesses we’ve seen load up on unnecessary overhead before they even made one sale. They just ran out of money. Today’s openness to crowd-funding for capital seems to intensify this problem. Neither the recipient of the funding or the crowd doing the funding really understand how to achieve positive cash flow. They are both fogged up by the hype surrounding the product itself. They’re convinced that taking on major overhead is required to be successful, so they typically don’t analyze overhead investments until it’s way too late!

So, before you buy a shovel, invest in a map!

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

 

Categories
Marketing Personal Development Sales Technology

Boosting the Shopping Experience

Estimates hold that more data will be produced in 2018 than in all years previously. Much of that is consumer-focused—what we buy, how we buy it and why we buy it, among other information.

Thanks to the leverage and insight afforded by big data analytics, retailers of all sorts have the ability to enjoy an enormous opportunity to better focus and improve their customers’ overall shopping experience.

Big data analytics can now be used at every stage of the retail process, including identifying consumer trends, forecasting demand, pricing and pinpointing the most efficient means of delivery. That’s a proactive form of decision making, one of the benchmarks of my Anticipatory Organization Model.

That’s also good news for both shoppers and the organizations that serve them. Here are just a few areas in which data analytics is crafting a more rewarding shopping environment for everyone.

Product Recommendations

Most every Internet shopper has experienced “If you like this, consider this” and other similar pitches based on buying history and preferences. But, advances in data analysis and other related forms of technology hold the promise of more interactive, personalized forms of shopping guidance and suggestions. For instance, clothing retailer The North Face now offers an online tool called Fluid Expert Personal Shopper. The system, which uses IBM’s Watson cognitive computer technology, employs a “personal shopper” that can ask consumers questions about gender, location and even the sort of weather conditions where the clothing will be worn. From there, the system can provide specific recommendations.

Although still in an initial, limited stage, programs such as Fluid Expert Personal Shopper hold the potential for an even more comprehensive and useful customer experience. For instance, Watson is now using additional data to develop a “sentiment analysis” feature, which will allow systems to gauge changes in customer moods to better manage interactions with consumers. In effect, shopping systems will be able to interpret in an intuitive manner whether customers are pleased with a purchase, dissatisfied or interested in some other item.

More Useful, More Focused Apps

An increasing number of retailers are using mobile apps as a means to improve in-store shopping experiences and better interaction with store employees. That can begin well before a customer arrives at the store itself. For instance, retailer Nordstrom’s mobile app allows customers to check details such as product availability, size and color before they visit a Nordstrom store. The system also offers personalized recommendations based on gathered customer data. Customers who opt in can also have their profiles—including purchase histories—forwarded to in-store salespeople when they enter a store so they can receive immediate, personalized service.

In another example, Target’s mobile app leverages product location data, a store’s physical layout and customer profiles to offer personalized promotions to customers as they shop in-store. To that end, the company has begun installing beaconing technology at dozens of locations to gather movement and shopping pattern data from customers who agree to be monitored. This, in turn, promises to help customers not only make better buying decisions but to do so more efficiently instead of wandering up and down aisles in search of a particular item.

Greater Delivery Choices

The convenience of mobile Internet-based shopping has afforded consumers a greater range of control over not only when they shop but also where and when they receive items they buy. Locational data provided by the proliferation of smartphones takes that level of convenience and specificity to a completely new level. In one respect, that opens up the possibility that items can be delivered to customers wherever they happen to be—at home, on the job, at a restaurant having lunch and at any number of other locations.

Alternatively, by leveraging geolocation data, companies can also immediately notify shoppers when purchased goods have been dropped off at their homes or other spots. Not only does that lessen the chance of a delivery being missed, but time-sensitive deliveries—such as a gift that the buyer wants to keep secret from a family member—become that much easier to manage.

Consumer data isn’t limited to information about a particular shopper. Big data analytics allows organizations of all sorts to apply that information to make shopping more enjoyable, efficient and customer-focused for a broad range of consumers.

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Growth Management Personal Development

Spread this Virus Across the C-Suite to Increase Team Productivity

In the “C-suite” there is no way that you are immune to flu outbreaks and viruses. The kids are back to school and often bringing home some germs to share with your family. In a leadership development program I was teaching for the C-Suite of a large healthcare organization, I was talking with the Chief Nursing Officer and asked her how they prepare or deal with illnesses in the workplace. She answered that they tell people not to come to the emergency room, so as not to spread the germs.

Could you imagine if you had the opportunity to tell some of your co-workers, “Don’t come to work today! We don’t want your germs.”

While flu germs are nasty and easily spread, I’m talking about the “negativity germ,” which is contagious just like a flu virus.

When you lead a team of people, you wield significant influence – and not just within your department. What kind of germs are you spreading? We are all spreading viruses whether we realize it or not. Your leadership influence extends well beyond your direct reports and may reach many others within and outside of your organization. Due to your prestigious position, people figure you are in the know. If you are grouchy and distracted, they figure you must know something that they don’t know. Employees assume the worst and start worrying about what could be wrong. Your negative attitude will certainly rub off on others and spread like wildfire to other employees… and to your customers.

Hey there leader, boss, executive: You are responsible for creating an environment that is conducive to productivity and service. You set the temperature – you set the tone! It’s easy for anybody to be a thermometer – to just take the temperature of the room. But it’s a lot harder to be a thermostat – to actually adjust the temperature of the room.  You must model the right attitude and approach to the current business climate.

Take the opposite approach to combat germs. Use your powerful influence to spread a virus of positivity. Use the term coined by my friend and colleague, Rosanne in Pennsylvania, to describe a positive attitude: “Positude.” Why not have a positude? You have a responsibility to have a consistent demeanor. Your positude will also catch on like a virus.

Use this time to think about what kind of virus you’re spreading. Will your team members want to get a vaccine to ward off your germs, or will they come to you for a booster shot that will make them more productive and valuable?

How are you affecting others? What will you:

  • Start doing
  • Stop doing, or
  • Continue doing

to fix your attitude and subsequently improve the attitude of your team? Comment with your action plan here so we can all learn and grow!

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.”

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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