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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Truth Versus Lie

“Truth Versus Lie”

Have you ever been deceived, or lied to? The answer more than likely is, yes. When that occurred, how did you feel? Were you happy, elated, or overjoyed with a sense of exhilaration? Again, probably not.

Here’s the point, when we label an occurrence as a lie, it takes on a different meaning per the way we act, versus thinking of it as the truth. Nevertheless, in some situations, because someone has lied to us, we move towards a more positive outlook in our life but we don’t realize it at the time. Even though we may not know it at the time, that person has done us a favor. Now, I’m not suggesting that you seek to associate with those that lie to you to have them extend a favor. Instead, be mindful of the benefits derived from not being told the absolute truth about something, per the benefits it may hold for you. That may sound strange, but in life we get what we expect, so expect something good out of the situation.

The next time you catch someone in a lie, appreciate the fact that you’re seeing the person in a different light and be glad of that additional insight. You can use it to improve yourself, which might mean getting away from that person. If that turns out to be the case, you’ll be moving your life upon a path of future discovery and  be away from the environment that’s not serving as well otherwise … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

In a negotiation, deceit can reign supreme, as negotiators go about playing jet-eye mind tricks to position the other negotiator. It’s expected that neither will be so transparent as to disclose their full negotiation position. So, if it’s expected in a negotiation, and you’re always negotiating, why do you allow it to be permissible during a negotiation and not in other aspects of your life? The answer lies in the fact that you more than likely see one aspect, negotiations, as being something more formal than other aspects of your life. In essence, it’s the mindset you possess in one situation versus another. If that’s the case, and you’re the person controlling your mind, you can give the meaning of a lie a meaning that’s beneficial to you. That doesn’t mean you have to drop your guard, it means, be mindful and understanding of what you’re guarding. Do so … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

Categories
Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

Getting In Front of More of the Right Kind of People

Time and time again I stand in front of audiences full of Sales Professionals and business owners and ask for a show of hands to the question “Who would like more customers?” and see a room full of raised hands. When further questioned to how much more? the room responds with words like “Lots” or “As much as I can get.”

What continues to surprise me is that regardless of the size of the business, the number 1 challenge to sales people is that they just wished they could get in front of more of the right kind of people. I have literally stacks of proven ideas to get you in front of more of the right kind of people however it is the constant oversight of the basics that I see continually preventing us reaching the success we are all capable of.

We all want more business and we know that activity drives out results, however it is having a winning strategy that allows high levels of activity to deliver high quality results. Lets just take a step back and consider how being brilliant at the basics can give us the winning edge, stand out from our competitors and get in front of more of the right people.

1. Stop looking for a needle in a hay stack

Striving for more and having huge ambition are qualities that have fueled the sales profession since the start of time. This enthusiasm is also a huge barrier to us creating the opportunities that are available to us. Too many sales people are simply out striving for more, without having complete clarity for what more looks like. This results in any success being created purely from their massive activity levels.

Surely before you rush out into the market it makes huge sense to step back and decide exactly what your ideal customer looks like. As sales people we have the privilege of being able to choose our customers, the big mistake is that most do not execute that choice. I see every future customer as no more than a missing person. Instead of looking for anybody and everybody, get laser focused on exactly what your ideal customer looks like; to the point that you could describe them to a stranger like you would a missing person. Once you have that focused description in your mind you will see opportunity more often, get more of the right kind of customers and be more targeted in all of your activity.

The additional benefit you gain once you can explain each of your target markets is that you can utilise the support of others to help find them. Just like a missing person , you can describe them to everyone you meet and let them introduce you to people or opt in to be a potential customer themselves.

What I am not saying is that you will only deal with people that fit your perfect description but simply being more targeted on your activity means you get lucky more often. I view it as just like playing darts. Every time that you throw a dart you are aiming for something specific. You don’t always hit it yet each time you miss you still contribute to your score.

2. Asking for the one thing that everyone loves to give

What I have learnt about decision makers is that they are typically busy people, massively value their time and often have a significant ego. Given the fact that they are also often very well protected by gatekeepers; crafting the perfect message to catch their attention at the right time can be a huge challenge and mean that you never get your opportunity.

There is one thing that every important person loves to give and can allow you to be sat in front of the most guarded of people with relative ease. This simple technique has resulted in me winning appointments with countless CEO’s, Sales Directors, Celebrities, Sports Personalities and multi millionaire business owners. The technique in question is simply asking these people to share their opinion on something.

Very often we are simply looking for the smallest of opening to get in front of these important people and that gives us the chance to start a relationship and carve out an opportunity. Everybody loves to be asked for their opinion as it shows that you respect them. Keeping the remainder of your request vague triggers the emotion of intrigue and means that they have to see you just to find out what its all about. I am sure you all have something that you could seek the opinion of your most wanted prospect.

3. What I learnt from a fudge shop

A short while ago I was shopping in Stratford upon Avon when one of my little girls needed to use the bathroom. As the girls went off to use the ladies I was left doing the one thing that I hate the most; waiting. This resulted in me scanning the cobbled streets on a Saturday morning looking for something to occupy my mind when I was then surprised to see a small boutique fudge shop absolutely teeming with customers.

It was remarkably busy and was certainly the busiest shop on the street and I was trying to work it out. I was certain that all those people had not woken up that morning and made a special trip just for the purchase of fudge. I continued to watch and moments later the shop emptied and then out came an attractive girl with a tray of samples, stopping passers by and enticing them back into the shop. Minutes later the shop was full again and I had joined the crowd to see inside. A few minutes later I left the store £6.80 lighter with 3 bags of fudge.

This taught me a number of things. It reminded me of the ability to sell things to people that they had not already decided to buy, the power of creating a crowd but above all else it demonstrates that if you show people what you do as opposed to tell people what you do you attract far more potential customers. You see if the shop had a sign saying that it produced “The finest fudge in town” it would have attracted far less. It was the fact that it stepped out and demonstrated the quality of its produce that attracted the crowds.

4. Bin the brochure

Sticking with the theme of showing your potential customers rather than telling them what we do, it continues to surprise me why so many company brochures and websites do no more than tell the potential customer what is done. Lets be honest and ask ourselves how often the leaving of a brochure has resulted in a customer ringing us up at a later date being ready to take the next step?

If we want a tool to help us get through doors then it must be of value to the recipient; something that they can use, will be around a while and ideally demonstrates your expertise. In my business this is easy as I use my books and cd’s for this purpose but what could it be in your business?

Think about the challenges your target customers have and look to provide them with a tool that will help them overcome this challenge, show that you know your stuff and also demonstrate that they may need some help to overcome this. I have seen marketing companies use SEO guides, Engineering companies provide technical explanation guides, Catering companies provide useful tips on arranging your event and countless others. By demonstrating your expertise and providing something of value then when they realise they need your service you are the only company in question.

5. How a TV detective taught me something magical.

You may or may not be familiar with the television detective of the past called Columbo. He was famous for one set of words that he would produce as leaving a conversation, when the suspects guard was down and would allow him the chance to gain the key piece of information he needed to solve the crime. As he was leaving he would simply say “Just one more thing…” and it was this that allowed him to have the full attention of his suspect in a vulnerable position and ask the killer question.

We often find ourselves in conversation with either key prospects or people who could lead us to our key prospects yet find it difficult to get the conversation we would like. Just imagine how you could create “Columbo moments” in these conversations and then either introduce your key opportunity or ask for an introduction into the key person within the organisation you are prospecting.

6. If you don’t ask….

We all know how that sentence finishes yet quite often the reason that we are not getting the opportunities that we would like is that we are not asking for them. It is highly unlikely that we will gain more appointments with key decision makers than the appointments that we ask for. With many people looking to avoid confrontation and hide behind email and direct mail to gain the attention of their prospects you can achieve a lot by just picking up the phone. In doing so we must be precious of the fact that their time is precious.

We are looking to sell the appointment and not our product or service. Keep the conversation short, give as little away as possible and be certain that it is just a short meeting. The goal is to make it very easy for them to say yes. Ask for their opinion, say that the meeting will just be 10 to 15 minutes and then confirm that with the time you are asking for the meeting. By asking for a meeting at ten to the hour, quarter to the hour, ten past the hour or quarter past the hour you will have far better conversion rates than asking for appointments on the hour.

By offering just 2 dates that you are available followed by the words “when suits you best?’ typically brings an agreement to one of those dates or the suggestion of an alternative. Every way round you still get your appointment.

7. The missing ingredient

I am sure in the ideas that I have shared there are a number that you can take away and action to help you improve your results in winning meetings with decision makers. There is one simple quality that can quite often be the difference between success and failure. Once you have decided on your ideal target for a business opportunity, how hard to you try and keep getting knocked back before you give up? I have had the privilege of studying and interviewing a huge number of very successful people and learned a lot about what it takes to reach high levels of success. What I have learnt from countless “overnight success” stories is that none of them happen overnight.

The prizes worth winning never come easily and persistency, resilience and hard work are all qualities that are essential when knocking down challenging doors. People love doing business with those that want to work with them. Sometimes people will continually put you off just to test how much it means to you. That’s why its worth picking your prospects carefully and ensuring that you are prepared to see it out till the end and do whatever it takes.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Personal Development Women In Business

Daily Habits of Highly Successful People

Jump-Start Your Day. One of the first habits of successful people is they don’t hit the snooze bar several times before finally rolling out of bed and easing into their day. They hit the ground running!

Read and Reflect. Hitting the ground running doesn’t mean their life is a whirlwind of chaos and confusion. Instead, highly successful people invest the first hour of their day to lead their life from quiet.

Fuel up. Highly successful people eat food that taste great and is nutritious. Since they have a lot on their “plate,” they make sure the food on their plate fuels their body.

Work hard. Highly successful people work harder than others for two reasons. (1) They usually enjoy their work, so work feels more like play than work. (2) They know hard work beats talent every time talent doesn’t work hard.

Work smart. Successful people also work smart. They set goals. They prioritize those goals. Then they take steps each day to accomplish those goals. Focused work is one of the most important habits of successful people.

Don’t Complain. Successful people are not immune to bad things; bad things happen to all of us. What makes highly successful people so successful is they don’t focus on the event, but instead on how to best respond to the event. This is why their outcomes are often successful no matter what circumstances they face.

Exercise. Regular exercise is one of the best routines you can establish in your life to become highly successful. You’ll be in better shape. You’ll have better energy. You’ll think better. You’ll be more positive. You’ll even be happier. (That’s why I do yoga and spin each day).

Serve. Contrary to popular opinion, highly successful people do not focus primarily on money. They focus on serving and giving because serving and giving creates value. Value often leads to financial reward, but successful people know the reason behind financial reward is value, so they focus on creating value and serving others.

Run at problems and decisions. Average people run away from problems and decisions. Successful people do the opposite. They run at them.

Invest in Yourself. Did you notice everything listed above is about investing in yourself? Yet highly successful people go even further to invest in themselves. When they really want to learn something, they look for ways to supercharge their learning. They attended conferences, take classes, hire coaches, and even join mastermind groups. Of all the habits of successful people, this might be the most powerful because of the principle of The Slight Edge.

Do you have questions or comments about the issues in today’s post, want to know how to apply them, or how to help others with them? If so, contact me at connie@pheiffgroup.com or CLICK HERE to schedule a 20-minute discovery call to discuss with you personally.

 

Categories
Leadership Marketing Operations Personal Development

The Surprising Secret to Sales Growth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting in on the Initial Consideration Phase

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

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

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

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

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

The Happiest Way to Spend Your Money in 2017

Not Meeting Your Targets? Here’s Why

Ignore this at your Peril: How Customers Decide

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

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

 

 

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Rethinking the Manager/Employee Touch-Base Meeting

Manager/employee touch-base meetings were created to be better than yearly or twice-yearly job reviews. But have they turned out to be as good as everyone expected? Sometimes, but not always.

A supervisor usually pulls up a document that was created in the last touch-base and says, “Here are the to-dos we talked about last time. Have you done this . . . have you done that?” And then the final killer question is, “Why not?”

If you conduct touch-bases like that, you are sending the message that you, the manager, know everything and that your supervisee must prove him or herself. Your employee leaves the room feeling blamed, pressured and even threatened.

Yet there are simple, highly effective ways to turn touch-base meetings into opportunities for mentoring, coaching, and positive motivation. The strategy is to reverse the process so you’re letting your employee take responsibility, rather than your catching them at what they’re doing wrong.

Start with a simple open-ended question . . .

Questions like “Has it been a good few weeks since we last talked?” or, “Have you been enjoying work lately?” kick off a give-and-take conversation that allows you to then talk about anything in a safe way. They also offer you a chance to get a general feel for how things are going for your employee.

Replace “Let’s see how you’re doing on your to do list” with “What do you feel good about accomplishing since we last talked” . . .

If you follow this advice, you will start out focusing on positive changes and accomplishments that the employee has made. Next, give positive reinforcement for what they’ve accomplished and let them feel proud of their achievements. Then move on to any items that are still undone, which you can now discuss in a positive and upbeat way. This change drains the blame from your meeting and creates positive, motivational conversations.

Ask, “Are there areas where you need some help?” . . .

This is where you can coach and assist employees. Your offer of help prevents them from feeling bad about something that is undone and lets them feel comfortable about getting the help they need. Be sure to listen for underlying reasons why your employee might not be tackling certain tasks. The issue could be time, meaning they don’t have enough time to do everything – perhaps others in the organization could help?  It could be that they lack some piece of technology that would help them, the services of a consultant, or something else.

The bottom line is, by offering help you are helping someone not feel guilty about not getting something done. Under the old system of job reviews, people would often feel guilty and want to mislead or try to divert blame from themselves. That is very unhelpful. Having a frank and honest discussion, much better.

Let the employee set his or her own “to-dos” and priorities . . .

As a supervisor, there will be times when you need to make firm assignments. But as much as you can, allow your employee to set his or her own priorities and projects. That builds a sense of ownership and enthusiasm.

After the steps I recommend above, ask your employees how they’re doing on their action plan (a better name than a “to-do list”) to see if anything has been missed. Then ask them if they have anything they would like to add to the list. You can follow up with motivational questions like, “Why do you think this is important?” and, “How do you plan to tackle it?”  If there’s something you would like them to put on their list that they didn’t already think of, now’s the time to mention it. Most of the time, they are highly likely to have thought of that idea in the first place.

And to add still more encouragement . . .

Observe the “five to one” rule when meeting with supervisees who could benefit from an extra dose of positive inspiration. How does it work? For every one thing you say that could be interpreted as criticism, say five things that are positive and encouraging.

To sum it up . . .

When you adopt the approaches I recommend in this article, you change the touch-base to an extremely positive experience for encouragement, coaching and honest discussion. It is no longer an inquisition. In essence, you’re reversing the process by having employees take responsibility for their own action plans. Because you are now a mentor and coach, you will create a very strong and positive work bond.

 

 

Categories
Marketing Personal Development Technology

Are You Using the Right Content Marketing Metrics?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Personal Development Women In Business

It’s My Prerogative

I’m working with a new client who reminded me our emotions could quickly and easily derail our goals. Mix your emotions together and you come up with a lethal cocktail.

“There are four emotions sure to undermine our goals:

fear, uncertainty, doubt, and shame.”

~Michael Hyatt

Seasons of life change often. Each season of life brings new events. Such as job change, divorce, sickness, or something else. Our emotions are then subjected to fear of the unknown, shame, uncertainty of our abilities, self-doubt, and acceptance.

Before respectively earning the title of Unstoppable DIVA, I did not speak. I would avoid social interaction. My colleagues just assumed I was anti-social. If I did attend a social event, I would have a glass of wine to relax my nerves.

An event that derailed my behavior, its called divorce. Initially it was embarrassing and the shame consumed me. My self doubt and fear of the unknown was too much to bear at times. Everyone was looking at me, they knew about me. Or so I thought.

Perspective

As I’ve come to learn, it’s human nature to have these feelings – these emotions. It doesn’t matter if I’m coaching corporate executives, entrepreneurs or speaking. These emotions are a common affliction.

There’s no manual or playbook telling us how to feel or behave. It’s our prerogative to make it up as we go along. The nerves of acceptance by clients when launching new products still creep up on me. When I speak I still get those butterflies in my belly. The truth is if you don’t feel that way, you’re clearly egocentric.

We will always endure these emotions it’s human nature. It keeps us real. Just don’t allow the emotions to derail your goals.

Realization

I came to realize when developing my programs I must focus on my audience. They want to know how I can help them, they’re not thinking about me. Everybody is infected by emotions at every season of life. When I realized I wasn’t alone in the divorcee club, I got out of my way, got out of my comfort zone and I felt better about me. The wart on my nose went away.

Socializing became enjoyable. Asking for dollars became enjoyable. Owning the title of UNSTOPPABLE DIVA became natural. I was stepping out and using my emotions to keep me on track to reach my goals.

Emotions could derail your goals. It’s up to you to keep your goals in perspective and overcome the negative influence around you. It’s your prerogative. Let’s Be Unstoppable Together.

Do you have questions or comments about the issues in today’s post, want to know how to apply them, or how to help others with them? If so, contact me at connie@pheiffgroup.com or CLICK HERE to schedule a 20-minute discovery call. I will be happy to discuss with you personally.

 

Categories
Growth Management Operations Personal Development

Leadership "Off-Brand" Behaviors

When speaking with C-Suite executives, I have noticed that the most popular chapter in my new book (Corporate Brand personality) is the chapter on Leadership ‘off-brand’ Behaviors. I wonder why? Perhaps you are savvy enough to realize that today yours and your leadership team’s individual brands play a significant part of the perceived brand of your business. Furthermore they have an increasing impact on your employer brand and employee engagement levels.

Employees and clients alike look for a level of authenticity in the brand they work for and buy from. This most strongly comes from you and your leaders reinforcing in the brand in your own individual ways, via aligned behaviors. As a leader, having a clear set of values and being open and transparent with those values, will enable you to ‘take’ people with you more effectively.

According to research by Burson-Marsteller, a CEO’s reputation account for 50% of a company’s reputation, and is 63% in Germany!

Maybe it’s time to take your personal brand seriously and treat it as strategic priority in your business.

To download this chapter of my book or buy it – www.lesleyeverett.com

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

David, Goliath, and the Investor Pitch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Security is Not Insurance – Debunking the Myth

Since 2005 I have been in the Information Security consultant and today I consult and coach security executives on strategy, compliance, messaging, and teams, so today I am going to talk about something that is critical to any organizational leader: information security. More specifically, the myth that security equates to insurance.

Many people in the security industry have used the security analogy for a very long time to explain the importance of security to an executive or client who has said,  “Why do I need security? It’s expensive and nothing has happened to my network; my company’s data is fine.”

The response often provided has been “for the same reason you need car insurance or medical insurance, you never know when there will be a problem.” Using a real-world situation to help explain something that is not always clear makes sense, but this analogy is not correct.

The reason it’s not a good analogy is because security is not insurance. Insurance attempts to make you whole again. It is there to replace your car, rebuild your house, allow you to replace lost or stolen items, or help you regain your health. Security on the other hand does not make you whole; once your data is stolen, your network breached, or your systems locked up with Ransomware it is not security that will make you whole again. There is insurance you can purchase to use when the hacker on the other end of the phone says we want 20 Million Dollars to unlock your systems, but that really is insurance.

If we are going to use analogies, then security is your force protection, it is proactive. You know the guys (or gals) at the perimeter with the big guns that are going to keep the bad guys (or gals) out in the first place. When I used to work at the Pentagon, there were armed guards with very big guns making sure only the people with the proper access could enter the building. Then there were locked doors within the building that could only be accessed by another select group of people. That is security! We don’t call them insurance guards we call them security guards (or in this case military police).

The same is true for access to your computer systems, network, and data. Your Information Security or Cyber Security (if you are using that term) team is the armed guards; it is their responsibility to keep the bad people out, to monitor for intrusions, and to react if or when a breach is observed. If you are treating this group as insurance you are not giving them the level of importance they deserve, the funding they need, or the authority they require.

For small organizations, you might think, “Who wants my data? I’m good till we get bigger; the hackers are out there looking for the big guys to steal from.” But that is not true at all. It’s like the burglar who will just move on to the next house when they see the ADT sign in your neighbors yard. If your neighbors are the bigger companies with the fancy security and armed guards it is your network the hackers are after because they know it will be easier.

But you want to say “I don’t have anything worth taking” and that might be true at the data level, but you do have something worth taking. It is your resources, your connection to other networks, and it is the fertile playground you are giving them to practice their craft. By allowing your network to go unprotected, you are allowing hackers to practice, to find vulnerabilities they can use against other networks, and to potentially use your network to launch an attack on another organization.

I am writing this so that we can stop equating security with insurance. Stop looking at this as a cost and start looking at is as a responsibility. You are not only protecting your data, your employees, and your customers; you are also protecting other organizations by putting the guards up around yours.

If you do not have a security team or strategy, don’t worry. It’s not too late and it does not have to be scary. There are lots of great consultants out there who can help. As a 12-year veteran of the information security and compliance space,  I invite you to send me an email at sharon@c-suiteresults.com or reach out via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithsharonj/ to ask any questions you might have on this topic.