Women and the economy: an opportunity for growth

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One of the most strategic challenges remains inexplicably a black hole. It is time to unveil some figures and share thoughts on this hidden treasure: women.

As Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund states: if women were employed at the same rate as men, GDP would increase by 5 percent in the United States, by 9 percent in Japan and by 27 percent in India.

Gender inequality is a reality

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About the Author

Martine LiautaudMartine Liautaud is the author of Breaking Through: Stories and Best Practices From Companies That Help Women Succeed (Wiley, April 2016). Martine is also founder the Women Initiative Foundation (WIF), in coordination with global energy player and expert operator ENGIE. WIF seeks to improve the place of women in business and increase their presence in universities around the world through active mentorship, sponsorship support and training programs.

StrategyDriven Enterprises Launches an Online Talent Management Program Forum

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StrategyDriven Enterprises launched an online talent management program forum; providing leaders access to decades of first-hand experience in programmatically acquiring, developing, and retaining high-quality employees.
 
StrategyDriven Talent Management ForumStrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC announced the launch of an online Talent Management Forum; providing innovative thought leadership and collaboration opportunities to help executives and managers programmatically drive the acquisition, development, and retention of high-quality employees.

“When highly skilled and knowledgeable people give the full measure of their creativity, intellect, and effort to achieving the organization’s goals, truly remarkable performance results,” explains Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “Thus, talented personnel are the lifeblood of every organization.”

“Implementing StrategyDriven’s recommended talent management practices can help enhance any organization’s ability to attract, develop, and retain top talent,” says Karen Juliano, StrategyDriven’s Editor-in-Chief. “This is achieved through deliberate actions that make employees feel valued and respected, inspired and motivated while at the same time being managed effectively and efficiently.”

Contributed to, by highly experienced business leaders, StrategyDriven’s online Talent Management Forum provides actionable methods and tools executives and managers can use to implement and enhance key components of their talent management program including:

  • Talent Acquisition – identification of near and long-term personnel knowledge, skills, and experiences needed combined with the effective search, vetting, and signing-on of employees whose backgrounds meet these needs
  • Talent Development – enhancement of employee knowledge, skills, and experiences so to prepare a sufficient number of individuals to meet the organization’s near and long-term talent needs as circumstances dictate
  • Talent Retention – creation of a workplace environment that attracts and retains the highly talented individuals needed for the organization’s success while concurrently ensuring the departure of those personnel not contributing sufficient value to the organization

The StrategyDriven Talent Management Forum’s thought leadership documents are being distributed to StrategyDriven’s clients, including some of the world’s most respected companies. These documents are available at: www.StrategyDriven.com/talent-management.

Procedure Development Best Practice 1 – Integrated Development

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StrategyDriven Procedure Development Best Practice ArticleThe complexity of modern organizations necessitates a collage of policies, processes, and procedures to guide their operations. Some procedures guide the actions of personnel within a single workgroup while others govern interactions and handoffs between workgroups.
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The price is… er, ah, the price is ah…

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The price of whatever you sell carries with it a discomfort for most salespeople. They’re hesitant to bring up the price because it’s the final element in completing any transaction – or so they think.

Actually, price or fee or rate is a logical progression of a presentation. If the rest of the elements of a presentation have been properly communicated, and transferred, then price is not a barrier to sale. Better stated: price is not a barrier to the customer deciding to purchase.

Why do salespeople have reluctance or fear of price presentation? Because it determines outcome – yes, no, or delay (which usually means no). Price also brings truth. The “I can get it cheaper, we’ve decided to go with someone else, we’re putting this out for bids, I’m not the only decision-maker.”

But the main reason salespeople get nervous about fee is that their belief system is weak. They’re not certain of their product, they’re not certain of their ability to deliver their message, they’re not certain of the customer’s desire to purchase, and they’re not certain of themselves.

When belief is weak, price is a bigger barrier to the salesperson than it is to the customer.

As a professional salesperson, your job is to be as personally prepared as you are customer or prospect prepared. Personal preparation, or should I say mental preparation, will lower the barrier to your own price reluctance.

If you’re ready for the customer, if you’re proud of your company, if you’re proud of your products and services, if you believe in the value of what you’re offering, if your communication skills are excellent, and your self-confidence is high, then you don’t have to worry about price.

There are 5.5 keys that will help you in moving forward with price confidence:

1. Study your past successes. Look at all the reasons why customers bought from you in the past. If you don’t know the reasons, now would be a good time to call them and ask. Customers have all the “price and value” answers you could here hope for. Most salespeople never ask for them.

2. Prepare your presentation in a manner that discusses prices and fees along the way, not at the end. Personally, I bring up prices and fees in the first five minutes, that way all the anxiety is gone. The customer knows there is a price attached to your product or service. The sooner it’s discussed, the easier it is to make value the heart of your presentation.

3. Convince yourself that you’re offering the best products and services in the world for value received. If you are not totally convinced, don’t start the presentation. Your belief in what you sell is evident to the prospective buyer whether present or absent.

4. Believe in your heart that the customer is better off purchasing from you. That they will profit more and produce more, and that the value of what you offer far exceeds your price. When your belief is so powerful that it becomes transferable to the prospective buyer, then you have become believable, and trustworthy.

5. Bring testimonials to the presentation. The voice of other customers that talk about the value, the piece of mind, and the confidence that others have in you. People who have paid your price, and are glad they did.

5.5 Bring your best self to the meeting. In the Little Red Book of Selling, you have read that the workday starts the night before. It’s a quote from a friend of mine’s grandfather, who coincidentally was a multimillionaire. The better prepared you are, both physically and mentally, the easier it will be to deepen your belief system, raise your self-confidence level, and walk in with a feeling of relationship, rather than sale.

WORTH RESTATING: Your personal preparation, especially your mental preparation, holds the key to your confidence and ability to deliver the price. Become an expert at how your customer profits from the use of your product or service. Become a master at outcomes and ownership – not sales presentations and closing techniques.

These personal elements and sales tools, when presented as a group, will make a compelling message, prove value over price, and create the atmosphere in which the customer want to buy.

Your challenge is to master the elements.

If you want a few ideas on price negotiation, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first time visitor, and enter PRICE POINTS in the GitBit box.

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

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey 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].

Scan for the 3 key ingredients of trends to survive in the Expectation Economy

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Right now, at this very minute, there are hundreds if not thousands of brands out there heightening your customers’ expectations. Companies like Google are heightening expectations around data-driven personalization. Patagonia is spreading expectations around supply chain transparency. Periscope is creating entirely new expectations around media consumption. Tesla is rewriting expectations around how drivers purchase a vehicle. If you work for a small firm or a giant organization, in fashion or finance, in Texas or Tanzania, you are competing in a ruthless, globe-spanning Expectation Economy.

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About the Author

Maxwell LuthyMaxwell Luthy is the author of the new book Trend-Driven Innovation. Based in New York, Max runs TrendWatching’s North American business, regularly delivering keynotes and workshops for leading brands, from Disney to Samsung. Max has been quoted as a trend expert in the Financial Times, The Next Web, and strategy+business. Max also oversaw the TW:IN trend spotter network until 2013, hosting meetups everywhere from Johannesburg to Manila. A contributor to five of TrendWatching’s most-recent annual Trend Reports, Max now lives in the oft-overlooked trend hotspot of New Jersey.