StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 41 – The Big Picture of Business: When the Next Recession is Coming

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 41 – The Big Picture of Business: When the Next Recession is Coming explores the marketplace markers that signal a recession’s start and the timing of the next American recession. During our discussion, Hank Moore, Corporate Strategist and author of The Business Tree: Growth Strategies and Tactics for Surviving and Thriving, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the cyclic nature of economic recessions
  • markers indicating a recession is forthcoming
  • when the next recession is likely to occur
  • where to look for business improvement opportunities learned during a recession
  • how to be prepared for business opportunities the next recession will present

Additional Information

In addition to the outstanding insights Hank shares in The Business Tree and this edition of the StrategyDriven Podcast are the resources accessible from his website, www.HankMoore.com.   Hank’s book, The Business Tree, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

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About the Author

Hank Moore has advised 5,000+ client organizations worldwide (including 100 of the Fortune 500, public sector agencies, small businesses and non-profit organizations). He has advised two U.S. Presidents and spoke at five Economic Summits. He guides companies through growth strategies, visioning, strategic planning, executive leadership development, Futurism and Big Picture issues which profoundly affect the business climate. He conducts company evaluations, creates the big ideas and anchors the enterprise to its next tier. The Business Tree™ is his trademarked approach to growing, strengthening and evolving business, while mastering change. To read Hank’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:32 — 61.2MB)

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Project Management Best Practice 10 – Communication Plans

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Projects represent change and change requires communication. In order for communication to be successful, it must be received, understood, and acted upon. Achieving these factors can require a substantially different approach when communicating with different groups and individuals. Consequently, effective communication is frequently difficult and time consuming. Thus, a clearly defined communications plan is needed to maximize the probability of each communication’s success while minimizing the overall effort expended.

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Your sales voice. What is it saying to you? What is it saying to others?

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I was recently at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, giving a seminar sponsored by Sales & Marketing Executives International. I had an informal logistics meeting with some of the association members before the event when Jamie, the young woman who directed me to my preparation room, talked to me about her career. I asked her what she was seeking to become.

Her response startled me. She said, “I’m still trying to find my voice.”

I was taken aback because I expected some alternate career choice, or something along the lines of ‘make a lot of money,’ or ‘get a job in event planning.’ But no, she was seeking something much higher.

Jamie was seeking to gain control of her self and her power first, and find her career path second. We talked about ‘voice’ for a while, and I began to type to capture the thoughts. What came out of the brief conversation will benefit you and your career, and help you understand who you are and who you seek to become.

Jamie was looking for her voice to come from something she believed in that would make her voice stronger, more resonant, more powerful, and more believable.

How do you speak?

Not the just words, the voice that you project. Your voice is a statement and picture of your character, your poise, and your persona. It’s a statement of belief, confidence, and personal power.

Where does your voice come from?
How do you ‘find’ it?
And once you do, how do you master it?

BE AWARE: Your voice has nothing to do with your selling skills or your product knowledge. Your voice is way beyond that.

GOOD NEWS: You don’t have to look far. Most of your voice is right at the tip of your tongue. The rest of it is mental and emotional.

ANSWER: It STARTS with your inner voice. It’s the language you speak to yourself BEFORE you say a word.

Your voice becomes yours, and authentically yours, when you…

  • do what you believe in.
  • do what you’re passionate about.
  • work in your chosen field.
  • find your calling.
  • discover something you feel you were made or born to do.
  • do something you love.

EASY WAY TO START THE DISCOVERY: Write down the hobby or sport you love best, or the sporting event you go to because you love to see your team play and cheer them on.

My friend, Hall of Fame baseball player Dave Winfield, said it as simply and as completely as I have ever heard it, “I loved baseball and baseball loved me back.”

Here are the elements of voice:

  • You have decided to pursue your chosen path.
  • You have belief in who you are.
  • You have belief in what you do.
  • You have a desire to succeed.
  • You’re personally prepared – attitude, enthusiasm, friendliness, and ideas.
  • You maintain self-confidence that comes from your heart, not from your head.
  • Your enthusiasm is real.
  • Your sincerity is evident.
  • You’re eager to master every aspect of what you do.
  • Your passion is contagious.
  • Your moxie engages others.
  • Your desire to improve is never ending.
  • You love what you do.

NOTE WELL: Your voice is not about how to make sales faster – your voice is how to make sales forever. For your voice to appear, you must possess ALL of these elements. Most people have a ‘weak’ voice because they don’t love what they do, or lack sincerity, or they don’t fully believe in themselves, their company, or their product.

SUCCESS ACTION: Go back to this list and rate yourself on a 1-10 basis. Ten being the best, your highest possible score is 130. My bet is you’re 90 or below.

SUCCESS ACTION: Record your spoken voice ONCE A WEEK, and listen to it actively – which means take notes. By listening to yourself – arguably one of the toughest things on the planet to do – you will gain a true picture of where you are right now. Your jumping off point.

And for those of you living in the dark ages still trying to ‘find the pain’ in your sales presentation, just record and listen to yourself – THAT’S the pain. The real pain of selling is listening to your voice trying to make a sale – it’s also funny as hell.

You’ll know your voice when you hear it.
It will speak to you before you ever say a word.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Leadership Inspirations – Nothing is Free

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“We often make people pay dearly for what we think we give them.”

Comtesse Diane (1829 – 1899)

Recommended Resource – Act Like a Sales Pro

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Act Like a Sales Pro: How to Command the Business Stage and Dramatically Increase Your Sales with Proven Acting Techniques

written by Julie Hansen
and published by Career Press

About the Reference

Act Like a Sales Pro by Julie Hansen reveals the behaviors exhibited by effective salespersons that create a memorable buying experience. Julie teaches readers the art of selling through easy-to-follow exercises then enable them to more effectively prepare and execute on all types of sales engagements. By reading her book, one learns how to:

  • Gain an appointment using audition techniques
  • Draw interest from reluctant prospects using secrets of the performer
  • Deliver memorable presentations
  • React to the unexpected and control the sale using the rules of improvisation

Benefits of Using This Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like Act Like a Sales Pro for its fresh approach to effective selling. Julie’s book engages the reader and translates for them the insights she’s gained from the acting world into that of the sales call. And her step-by-step exercises make these ‘acting behaviors’ immediately implementable by even those who don’t consider themselves to be good salespersons.

What makes Act Like a Sales Pro truly different from other books on selling is its focus on personal behaviors. Other quality books focus on the process of selling whereas Julie’s book teaches readers the physical and verbal behaviors they should exhibit while executing the selling process. We put some of Julie’s recommendations to the test and found they did help secure a positive outcome.

Act Like a Sales Pro effectively fills what is often a void in other sales books and training programs. Filled with immediately implementable recommendations and real world examples, Act Like a Sales Pro is a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Additional Resources

Complimenting Act Like a Sales Pro, StrategyDriven provides an abundance of information on the consultative selling process within the StrategyDriven Consultative Selling Knowledge Center.