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Are you the ‘Toast’ of your meetings?

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I’m giving a 10-minute talk at Toastmasters in NYC tomorrow night. Subject? Humor – what it is, how to create it, and how to use it.

I am challenged to help the club members (who all have humor as the basis of their speaking) find new ways and new ideas to make their audience laugh and engage.

MAJOR CLUE: At the end of humor is the height of listening. If you’re at a comedy club, and the comedian tells a joke, and you’re laughing so hard that your drink is coming out your nose, as soon as the comedian starts to talk again, you immediately stop laughing and start listening. You don’t want to miss what’s next. At the end of humor is the height of listening. Got it?

Presentation skills are one fifth of the sales process. The other four being your selling skills, your product knowledge, knowledge of the customer, and your attitude.

Most salespeople study presentation skills and positive attitude skills THE LEAST. When in fact, if you weigh the five elements, those two are at the top of the list. Why then are you not studying presentation skills?

If I ask everyone reading this column to put your hand in the air if you are a member of Toastmasters, not many hands would go up. (Yours included.)

Finding your voice, and combining it with your courage equals speaking in public. Speaking in public is arguably your best networking, notoriety, brand building, and confidence building opportunity in existence. And a great place to learn is Toastmasters.

Got speech?
Got courage?
Got (meaningful) subject matter?

If you’re in sales, speaking in public is critical to your success.

  • Learn the science of speaking and presenting.
  • Join and practice at Toastmasters.
  • Graduate to speaking at civic organizations.
  • THEN look for opportunities within your market.

Topics? Speak about something the audience will value and respect you for.

  • After ownership, how do I use…
  • Maximum productivity
  • Memorable service
  • New ideas
  • Morale in the workplace
  • Profit

BEWARE and be aware. The experts are not experts. Most “expert” advice about public speaking is weak and generalized. Here are a few examples (IN BOLD) of what NOT to do:

  • It’s ok to be nervous. If you go into a presentation and you’re nervous, in my book that’s NOT okay. You have to go into a presentation or sales presentation wreaking of confidence. The reason you’re nervous is because you’re unprepared. And being unprepared is one of the best ways to lose a sale or an audience.
  • You don’t need to be perfect. Really? When I see a rule like “don’t try to be perfect,” I always think to myself “exactly where would you like me to screw up?” When I am building rapport, when I am presenting my product, when I am trying to understand customer’s needs, when I am talking about my value proposition? Or maybe when I am trying to complete the transaction? (AKA: close the sale)
     
    NOTE WELL: Heck, if there is someone I want not to be perfect—it’s my competition. Let them screw up. Let them blow the sale.
  • Know your subject. DUH! When you’re giving a presentation ‘knowing your subject’ is a given. The rule should be “know what your audience doesn’t know, and talk about that.” What you need to know is how your customer uses, benefits from, and profits by owning your product.
  • Practice, practice, practice. When an expert tells me to ‘practice, practice, practice,’ the first question I want to know is, ‘practice what?’ What it should say is build your presentation skills daily by giving presentations and recording them. When you’ve done the recording, play it back immediately. If you’ve ever wanted a dose of reality, I promise you that playing back your presentation will be the funniest, most pathetic thing you have ever seen or heard. For most people, it’s the grimmest dose of reality.

THE VALUE OF RECORDING YOUR PRESENTATION: When you record yourself, it’s the exact evidence of what you said and how you said it. How impactful it was. How transferable it was. How persuasive it was. How convincing it was. And ultimately, how successful it was. Recording your presentation will reveal every blemish, every error, every weakness, and give you a report card on your effectiveness.

The average salesperson (not you of course) is presentation-weak. This is predominantly caused by lack of study, lack of creativity, lack of belief, lack of preparation, and lack of recording.

Wouldn’t you think with all this at stake, that presentation skills would be one of the highest priorities in a salesperson’s life? Well, luckily for you, the average sales person doesn’t feel that way. The average salesperson is home right after work hunting around for the TV remote instead of hunting up new facts for their presentation tomorrow. They’re hunting for a can of beer instead of hunting for a Toastmasters meeting.

Hunt for a speech. When you find it, there’s money attached.

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].

The Big Picture of Business – Mentoring Guides Your Success

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Smart Leaders Don’t Have to Be Lonely at the Top

Professionals who succeed the most are the products of mentoring. The mentor is a resource for business trends, societal issues and opportunities. The mentor becomes a role model, offering insights about their own life-career. This reflection shows the mentee levels of thinking and perception which were not previously available. The mentor is an advocate for progress and change. Such work empowers the mentee to hear, accept, believe and get results. The sharing of trust and ideas leads to developing business philosophies.

The mentor endorses the mentee, messages ways to approach issues, helps draw distinctions and paints pictures of success. The mentor opens doors for the mentee. The mentor requests pro-active changes of mentee, evaluates realism of goals and offers truths about path to success and shortcomings of mentee’s approaches. This is a bonded collaboration toward each other’s success. The mentor stands for mentees throughout their careers and celebrates their successes. This is a lifelong dedication toward mentorship…in all aspects of one’s life.

The most significant lessons that I learned in my business life from mentors, verified with experience, are shared here:

  • You cannot go through life as a carbon copy of someone else.
  • You must establish your own identity, which is a long, exacting process.
  • As you establish a unique identity, others will criticize. Being different, you become a moving target.
  • People criticize you because of what you represent, not who you are. It is rarely personal against you. Your success may bring out insecurities within others. You might be what they cannot or are not willing to become.
  • If you cannot take the dirtiest job in any company and do it yourself, then you will never become ‘management.’
  • Approach your career as a body of work. This requires planning, purpose and commitment. It’s a career, not just a series of jobs.
  • The person who is only identified with one career accomplishment or by the identity of one company for whom he-she formerly worked is a one-hit wonder and, thus, has no body of work.
  • The management that takes steps to ‘fix themselves’ rather than always projecting
  • It’s not when you learn. It’s that you learn.
  • Many people do without the substantive insights into business because they have not really developed critical thinking skills.
  • Analytical and reasoning skills are extensions of critical thinking skills.
  • You perform your best work for free. How you fulfill commitments and pro-bono work speaks to the kind of professional that you are.
  • People worry so much what others think about them. If they knew how little others thought, they wouldn’t worry so much. This too is your challenge to frame how they see you and your company.
  • Fame is fleeting. The public is fickle and quick to jump on the newest flavor, without showing loyalty to the old ones, especially those who are truly original. Working in radio, I was taught, “They only care about you when you’re behind the microphone.”
  • The pioneer and ‘one of a kind’ professional has a tough lot in life. It is tough to be first or so far ahead of the curve that others cannot see it. Few will understand you. Others will attain success with portions of what you did, but none will do it as well.
  • Consumers are under-educated. Our society takes more to the copycats and latest fads. Only the pioneer knows and appreciates what he-she really accomplished. That reassurance will have to be enough.
  • Life and careers include peaks and valleys. It’s how one copes during the ‘down times’ that is the true measure of success.
  • Long-term success must be earned. It is not automatic and is worthless if ill-gotten. The more dues one pays, the more you must continue paying.
  • The next best achievement is the one you’re working on now, inspired by your body of knowledge to date.
  • The person who never has aggressively pursued a dream or mounted a series of achievements cannot understand the quest of one with a committed dream.
  • Much of the population does not achieve huge goals but still admires and learns from those who persevere and succeed. Achievers become life-long mentors to others.
  • Achievement is a continuum and must be benchmarked and enjoyed.

7 Levels at Which Mentors Are Utilized:

  1. Resource. Equipment, tools, materials, schedules.
  2. Skills and Tasks. Duties, activities, tasks, behaviors, attitudes, fulfillment.
  3. Role and Job. Responsibilities, functions, relationships, accountability.
  4. Systems, Processes, Structure. Control, work design, supervision, decisions.
  5. Strategy. Planning, tactics, organizational development.
  6. Culture and Mission. Values, customs, beliefs, goals, benchmarking.
  7. Philosophy. Organizational purpose, vision, ethics, long-term growth.

7 Levels of Mentoring:

  1. Conveying Information. The mentor is a resource for business trends, opportunities, an active listener and adviser on values, actions.
  2. Imparting Experiences. The mentor is a role model. Insight offered about own life-career. Reflection strengthens the mentor and shows levels of thinking and perception which were not previously available to the mentee.
  3. Encouraging Actions. The mentor advocates for progress, empowering the mentee to hear, accept, believe and get results. Sharing of feelings, trust, ideas, philosophies.
  4. Paving the Way. The mentor endorses the mentee, wanting his-her success. The mentor messages ways to approach issues, drawing distinctions and painting pictures of success.
  5. Wanting the Best. Continuing relationship between the mentor and mentee. Progress is visioned, contextualized, seeded, benchmarked.
  6. Advocating, Facilitating. The mentor opens doors for the mentee. The mentor requests pro-active changes of mentee, evaluates realism of goals, offers truths about path to success and shortcomings of mentee’s approaches. This is a bonded collaboration toward each other’s success.
  7. Sharing Profound Wisdom. The mentor stands for mentees throughout careers, celebrates successes. Energy coaching and love-respect for each other continues throughout the relationship.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

Corrective Action Program Best Practice 12 – Formally Defined Corrective Action Program

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StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ArticleEffective corrective action programs engage employees in the identification, documentation, evaluation, prioritization, and resolution of organizational challenges thereby enhancing achievement the organization’s vision, mission, values, and goals. These programs themselves are highly efficient and capable of producing repeatable results. Documenting corrective action program processes provides the framework necessary to achieve this level of focused execution consistency.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

What do you do when workplace ‘change’ happens?

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For most people, ‘change’ is a mixture of what was, what used to be, what is present, what I’m being faced with now, what I believe the future holds, and what I have to change to face that future.

In short, how does this change affect me, my family, my lifestyle, and my position?

That’s a hell of a lot to think about, and that’s why change is so perplexing, so resisted, and often so fought against.

The answer to this age-old problem was discovered more than a thousand years ago and has been hidden. When Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new” he was giving you (and me) the wisdom of his ages, and a thousand years later it is still wisdom of our ages.

SOCRATES REALITY INTERPRETATION: The more you can concentrate your thoughts and actions on what will be tomorrow, the easier it will be for you to accept today, adapt to today, and the less likely you are to dwell on what was.

GITOMER INTERPRETATION: Add ‘forward’ to the word ‘change’ and when something changes, think, CHANGE FORWARD.

Known as ‘drinking fountain conversation’ or ‘pity parties,’ many people, not you of course, spend 74% or more of their time griping, whining, blaming, and lamenting any sort of change. None of these elements will productively move you forward as a person, and all of these elements will keep your mind closed to what your new potential or opportunity might be.

Just so we’re clear, there are 3 predominant types of change to deal with:

  1. Business or career change – which could also affect revenue.
  2. Family change – both positive and negative. We have a new child. I’m getting a divorce. My mother died. I’m getting married.
  3. Personal change – which can be affected by business and family changes, but can also be an issue relating to neither. Think: health and finances.

In order to effectively deal with any change in your life, I recommend that you take a different perspective on looking at it. Mine has always been to look at the circumstance and call it opportunity rather than call it change. That automatically makes you look towards the future. That automatically makes you look at what could be positive. And that automatically, points you in a direction of forward to what’s next, rather than backward to what was. In other words: Change forward.

When I say ‘opportunity’ you immediately think of something good, and subliminally in your mind, you might think, “How can I best take advantage of this opportunity?” rather than thinking, “oh crap the sky has fallen.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Having a five-year-old child in my life has awakened me to kid’s movies and their lessons. I recommend that each of you go out and buy or rent the movie Chicken Little. It’s a great lesson and will help you come to the conclusion that the sky is not falling. (I only watch kids movies now. Big lessons.)

The next action is for you to identify what the opportunity is, in writing. When you write things down, clarity almost immediately occurs. Writing down what happened will help you understand why it happened and no matter if that why was good or bad, it is now the new reality. Once you’ve identified the history, you have to list at least a dozen good things that can happen as a result of it. The first few will be hard. Especially if there’s any anger or fear attached to your change.

Identifying the opportunities will begin to calm you down and help you realize that with a combination of hope, attitude, and hard work, things will get better.

They did for me. I gave myself permission to move on and move forward. No matter what the change is, keep your eyes and mind open to the opportunity, and keep the faith in yourself.

Don’t fear change, change forward.

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].

Corrective Action Program Best Practice 11 – Check for Duplicate Condition Reports

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StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ArticleLeaders valuing continuous performance improvement encourage employee engagement in the corrective action program as a primary input to organizational learning and growth. Combined with a low reporting threshold, these organizations process numerous condition reports every day, some of which will be duplicative when an adverse condition is observed and reported by more than one person.

Each condition report filed requires the expenditure of resources to investigate, prioritize, and resolve. Duplicative condition reports result in the expenditure of resources with no organizational value added. To ensure this does not occur, checks for duplicate condition reports should be performed as early in the process as possible and, when found, duplicate condition reports should be eliminated.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.