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Hi!
Here's the March 2011 issue of Psyche-Selling TM eNewsletter, and this time round, we have invited a guest contributor, Mr. Jerel Bonner, to give us some insights related to behaviors that lead to business success.
Time and again, people have been asking what are the secrets to success. And time and again, I have been telling people, there's NO secret to success.
Perhaps I have misunderstood the word "secret", and have taken its meaning too literally. While in my view, there may be no secrets to success, there might be some key competencies that could lead you to greater success in whatever you are doing.
Hence, this month's topics:
This issue's main article is on "The 6 Competencies of Business Success", and we will be looking at some of the most commonly needed competencies to succeed in today's fast paced global economy.
In brief::
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls. click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html.
In the meantime, if you believe the way you think now shapes the way your future holds, please feel free to check out the next workshop on Lateral Thinking in Shanghai (in Chinese) from 7-8 April 2011. Or attend our half-day version of the Six Thinking Hats (in English) on 25 March 2011.
The 6 Competencies of Business Success by Jerel Bonner
Business is all about the bottom line numbers and at the end of the day, it is the compounded affect of many individuals’ performances that affect those numbers. Peter Drucker writes about being an ‘effective executives’, Covey is known for his ‘7 Habits’, and there is even a story on the web titled “Steve Jobs 12 Rules of Success”. The 6 Business Competencies for Business Success are what people ‘do’ to become successful. Knowing how to be effective or being aware of the rules for success must be followed up with personal action. These competencies are the actions needed to be victorious in today’s fast paced global economy.
These 6 competencies are:
Each of these competencies is connected to all the different tasks and assignments each of us “do” every day. Take email for example. People send billions of email everyday, yet most of them are a waste of time and create more email. Some companies spend millions of dollars training employees on email efficiency. They do this to cut the costs of disk space used saving emails, reduce network traffic sending emails, and most importantly saving peoples time from writing and reading emails. All of this has a minimum impact on the business if the company does not measure how these principles are applied to each individual’s behaviour.
Let us now drill down into each of the ‘6 Competencies’ to get a better understanding of what we must ‘do’ to achieve business success!
What Gets Measured Gets Done
Competency 1:
Continuous Improvement
This is by far the most important competency to master. All of us want to be better at what we do. However, unfortunately, we do not plan our own investment towards our self-development. If you are not changing faster than your field, you will be left behind.
Companies are always looking for their employees to improve their processes, branding or quality. Yet most employees sit back and wait for management to announce their training plan or budget before they do anything to improve themselves.
You must be constantly learning today, to be victorious tomorrow. You need to create a plan to improve your weaknesses, or more importantly learn how to mitigate it’s impact on your future. It has never been easier to learn thanks to the Internet. You can watch videos, listen to podcasts or read professional blogs from the top consultants.
e-books and iPads can put thousands of pages of reading material in your hands within minutes.
If you do not have a
plan to improve, then your plan is not to get ahead. Top talent always find a way to get better faster in a more cost effective manner than the rest of the pack.
Competency 2: Measuring
As stated at the beginning, business is about numbers, and numbers are always measured. To reach the goal of any challenge in business you must be able to measure that you are heading in the right direction. The same holds true in your quest for victory. All of the competencies addressed in this article hold no value if you are not measuring your accomplishments. Without assessing these skills, or any other business variables, how can you tell when you reached your targets?
When
improving your communication skills, if your goal is to write less emails to your clients that like to talk, how will you know success if you don’t measure that you are writing less emails to clients A, B, and C. If you choose to improve on making better presentations so that you can close more sales, you have to make more presentations’ that are evaluated by great presenters that can you advise on what you did well. How can you be confident that you have mastered planning meetings better if you do not evaluate how the changes you made to planning your meetings delivered more effective meetings.
Measuring your own improvements is the first step in becoming better at measuring the value you create. Once you can evaluate the value you add to yourself, you can recognize value you create for others
How do You Create Value?
Competency 3: Creating Value
As mentioned at the beginning business is about the bottom line, and to keep profit margins healthy companies are focusing on finding ways to move to higher value services or products. No company wants to get cut out of the game bleeding to death on razor thin margins. In today’s world success is based on telling others about the value you create for others. Therefore, if you want a thrilling career with regular upward movement, you need to be talking about the high value you create in your role. Being able to share your success and victories with others will make you a sought after individual. The more you improve on your skillfulness in articulating the value that you created for your clients or organization without bragging the more people will want you on their team.
The most important is learning how to distinguish what
is valuable to others. This connects with
measuring and communicating. Having the knack to
recognize what others find valuable is a true gift for a
triumphant business career. If your are
selling water meters, you need to learn what is more
important to your client, less maintenance for
recalibration or very accurate readings due to old pipes
under the streets. Having
the wisdom to focus on
what is important to others be it short-term sales, or
long-term customer retention, will speak volumes when it
matches what is important to the other person in the
conversation. If it is valuable to them make it
valuable to you. Competency 4: Planning
Most married couples will plan to buy a home based on where they want their child to go to school. Yet most of them will not spend enough time researching their next job position inside or outside of their current employer, until a vacancy opens or a recruiter calls with an opportunity. Many individuals do not identify which key skills they need for their next position until they are not offered an interview for a position they desire. Now is the time to plan which aptitude to develop for tomorrow’s promotion.
No matter what the situation, at some point, you need to have a ‘plan’ of actions to move forward. The first plan is how to improve on your weaknesses. That may include; identifying a report’s or meeting’s objectives; who to contact; how to contact an individual; understanding their audience’s role; getting a group to accept a proposal or just planning one’s week.
To be effective in today’s work environment,
individuals need to be more active in their
planning. Who are they inviting to a meeting,
what is the goal of the meeting, how much time for
each part of the meeting, who will take notes, and
how will people report back on their tasks are some
examples of being more detail oriented on planning.
If you fail
to plan, you plan to fail. I once went on a
sales trip to Argentina. My company sales agent
setup a meeting with the client of a large
telecommunications company. The meeting was a
complete failure because the sale agent did not know
that the company was having financial problems, and
that the client had been informed that he would be
let go in two weeks. This customer was no longer in
the position to make a purchasing decision! Talk
about poor planning, it cost my company thousands of
dollars for that sales trip and no value was
created.
Competency 5: Communication
In today’s high tech, always-connected world, people
are easily distracted by all the information being
communicated at them. All this digital noise is being
pumped to our smart phone or other digital device in a
matter of seconds. To communicate with others we need
to plan our messages based on how others like to
communicate. If we are too busy to do something once,
then we surely do not have the time to do it again.
Additionally, we need to
slow down our communication
process to confirm that the individual really understood our
message and the reason it is important to them. We
need to check for confirmation of details. We need to
validate what we heard with what they really mean. We
must ensure that we summarize what was agreed or disagreed
so that there are no misunderstandings afterwards.
Competency 6 Networking
Whether we are introverts or extroverts, we are still people. Things
are made for us to read, wear, eat or use. So to win in
your career you need to have a network of people that
you help and that can support you. Thus, you need to
‘plan’ to build relationships that are built on value,
not just numbers.
LinkedIn.com and other social media sites
can waste your time if you add people you do not know
just for the sake of being ‘connected’ to hundreds or
thousands of people. Need help in improving your competencies for business success? Simply e-mail info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype: cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All information shall be kept in confidence.
Power Breakfast Hour: 20 April 2011
Join International leadership, innovation and sales force effectiveness consultant c.j. Ng and guest speaker Jerel Bonner in this Power Breakfast Hour in Shanghai where you will find out:
VENUE: Crowne Plaza Shanghai • 400 Panyu Road (near Fahuazhen Road) • 上海银星皇冠酒店 • 番禺路 400 号 （靠法华镇路）
To make this a more conducive discussion, we are expecting a small group of about 15 people only. The room can only take in 18, so please register early to avoid disappointments. Please e-mail your registrations to sales@directions-consulting.com
You can also download our Power Breakfast Hour video on Taking On the Giants: How to Sell to BIG Companies even when You have Small Budgets and little Brand Recognition Part 2.
Pls. check out our web sites www.directions-consulting.com and www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for more inspiration.
Need a Keynote Speaker for your Annual Conference?
Whether you are holding a conference for your regional staff, resellers or even customers, we have the right speaker who can help you deliver the spirit of your conference, and effect positive changes to meet your goals.
The topics our speakers can speak on include:
Simply e-mail your requests to info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-21-6219 0021 for enquiries. Sample video and audio recordings available upon requests.
Practical Tips for Managers: How to Make Your People Work Smarter AND Harder
By c.j. Ng
I was recently talking to one of my clients,
Philips Lighting, and
they somehow started to ask me if I have any good sales
people to recommend to them, so they can hire and
strengthen their sales team.
Sometimes, smart employees try to do more with less time and effort. Most of the time, they ended up simply doing less. Sometimes, the hardworking ones work round the clock non-stop, only to realise that all their hard work has got little (if any) impact on their goals or business results. Only a handful few work hard AND smart at the same time.
Prior to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, ALL previous other modern Olympics lost money. Los Angeles became the ONLY bidder for the 1984 games, and the Olympics are falling into oblivion. In fact, the 1984 Olympics made US$220 million PROFITS by doing the following "simple" things:
The above strategies look simple, because they are viewed in hindsight. Peter Ueberroth, the organiser of the 1984 Olympics, attributed his success from a talk by Dr. de Bono, which he attended a few years prior to the game. If by merely attending a "talk" one can bring unprecedented success in an international sporting event, learning to work a little smarter should be quite an easy objective to achieve.
Dr. de Bono will be coming to Beijing and Shanghai in
October 2011. You can download details
here.
You can also refer to
BlessingWhite's web site
for more details. If you would like to get more and better ideas how to make your people work smarter AND harder, you can e-mail info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype: cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All information shall be kept in confidence. About PsycheSelling.com
Sales... ....the lifeblood of a company, a matter of "life and death", survival or extinction. Indeed, something that needs to be studied, applied and re-modified consistently.
Yet today,
Psyche-Selling TM is set up so that companies and sales people can make healthy profits and STILL provide genuine solutions to customers.
Psyche-Selling TM would like to create an environment where customers can trust sales people to give them what they want, and NOT be pushed with all kinds of products and services. In return, customers will become loyal fans of these ethical and professional sales people, and repay them many fold for the long-term.
Psyche-Selling TM will not rest, until the above is achieved. Not just in China. Not just in Asia. But everywhere where buying and selling takes place.
Psyche-Selling TM is a wholly-owned brand of Directions Management Consulting Pte Ltd that specialises in the field of improving sales performance by enhancing the performance of the entire sales team. Apart from the regular "selling skills training", Psyche-Selling ng TM conducts pre- and post-training analysis, interviews, monitoring and reviews, working closely with managers and even senior management, to deliver real improvements in sales leadership and performance.
Hence, Psyche-Selling TM would like to be known as the preferred choice of outstanding and remarkable clients, and pride ourselves as such. We will also be continuing to assist our clients achieve greater heights in 2009 and beyond.
Enquiries and suggestions, pls. e-mail info@psycheselling.com or visit www.psycheselling.com
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