Sales: Obliterate aggression.

By pure chance today (if one believes in chances / coincidences…) I bumped into an old friend today in the centre of the city.
He’s a young chap and superbly successful; a partner in a sales company.

He had just returned from six months in the Middle East where he had had to ‘re-invent the wheel’ insomuch as re-instating the credibility of his particular industry.
Typically, he had been phenomenally successful.
Further on returning home, his success here has rocketed up (next stop, the moon.)

We spoke about this and I asked him if he had figured out what the key was?
Typically, he had.
He has been in sales for so long; been so successful and been so driven to continue to be successful that he said without realising it, a degree of aggression had slipped into his presentations.
In the Middle East, it damned him. Completely.
Clients shied away from it, blatantly.
He had to re-train himself – take himself back to basics – back to humanity.
Now there’s a turn up for the books!
A sales person who had some humanity!

In returning home, he continued to apply this and voila, his success is climbing to even greater heights.

“In my field Alex, I’ve got to be sure I obliterate aggression or aggression will obliterate me.” he smiled, pleased with his own phraseology and shook my hand as we promised to cross paths again.

Interestingly, I applied his technique directly in the afternoon.
I relaxed and re-focused 100+% on the person and voila!
Success.

Maybe the World is changing

NB. My friends success relies on repeat business. I add this as I can imagine that many people in short term sales perhaps feel that aggressive ‘get the sale’ is sufficient – especially if it is a ‘one off’ result requirement.
I would only add the caution that as we go through life, it’s breath-taking who we bump into – and how people remember us.
Be careful of those bridges

One Minute Vacation.

I seldom have time to post mid-week.
However, today I do and having posted two totally random matters, I thought I’d offer up a stress busting technique that I’ve used for years to great effect (the good old oldies, eh? )

My work is often high-stress. So high stress that people frequently burn out at incredible speed. It takes a great deal of self-management to stay on top and at the top and this is the technique that I use frequently and to this day, still to great effect.

In fact, this technique has proven so successful, that both friends and colleagues have adopted it and if you know what you’re looking for, it’s easily available on the Web.

The One Minute Vacation can be used as either a very basic hypnotic technique (by recording it onto a device and listening to it) or a suggestive technique by allowing your mind and body to follow the instructions as you read it.
Personally, I only ever read it or these days, merely think the process through (I’ve become so familiar with it.)

I believe in the Holocaust but I don’t believe in Global Warming.

“Damning the development of the developing World” 

Oh dear, it seems to be a day of it.
See what happens when I have time on my hands!

The other evening (8th March, I believe) I missed the Despatches “Great Global Warming Swindle.”
I wasn’t that sorrowful about missing it as I have been a strong supporter of Friends of the Earth for a long time – even campaigned for them to raise funds, so concerned had I become about Global Warming.

However, of late, I had met one or two people and in conversations – interesting and balanced – I had started to question the man made aspect of Global Warming…
I was aware, had been aware for quite some time, that the Earths temperatures fluctuated…
Further, on my travels, I had also not been oblivious to what had struck me as ‘damning the development of the developing World’…
Yet who was I to speak out – I am certainly no scientist even if an avid reader of much scientific material…

So today, I sat down and watched “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and lo and behold, the ideas that had been presented to me of late – ideas seemingly too far fetched, too inhumane to be possible or even probable… became just that.

This film is 75 minutes long but worth its time, a lifetime over.
For if what it implies is real, we could all be guilty of lives being lost needlessly.

If the Bird Flu doesn’t kill you, the med’s might…

Bird Flu vs. Tamiflu.

I don’t often blog about news events but every now and then something catches my eye.

In this case, my concern about Tamiflu – the drug being stockpiled around the World to counter a possible Bird Flu pandemic – has been awakened, with a shiver.

Now, I am loathe to be an alarmist – despite my somewhat emotive title of this post – but should there be a Bird Flu pandemic, the idea that the countering drug – that being Tamiflu – could cause ’self harm, delusions and suicidal behaviour’ in young people (under the age of 17 – not to mention the one or two adults who have also been reported to be acting extraordinarily out of character) worries the hell out of me.

Why?

Probably, in part to this: -

In times of stress – such as a war environment or in this instance, a pandemic – people do behave extraordinarily out of character. Those that we would perhaps normally look to to be our guardians may themselves be struggling with rationality in such a situation. In the midst of such pressures, there is then the added concern that this medication could (already is) cause further chaos.
If it has been proven to cause ‘delusions and suicidal behaviour’ then whose judgement is one to trust?

Oops.

 Link to details of Bird Flu H5N1

Links to Tamiflu (Oseltamivir)

What is a delusion? Click here and have a read and therein you may understand the enormity of my concern.

Accept Criticism

It has, to be honest, been a ghastly week.

In the middle of it all, I took quite a knock.
As dreadfully vain as it might sound, I don’t often take knocks professionally.
I am, after all, damn good at what I do. Normally.

However, this week, I wasn’t.
I could blog with zest about all the reasons why I wasn’t a high performer this week but as I read moments ago in the introduction to Aldous Huxleys ‘Brave New World’,

‘you don’t get clean by rolling in muck’.

So I need to address where I am and what I am going to do about it.

I am going to be my own worst critic.
I am not going to shift the blame (as tempting as it most certainly is!)
I am going to accept responsibility.
I am going to find out what I am capable of as I step forward again.

And all of a sudden, I feel empowered!

An Analogy between Success and Failure

I love analogies.

In my work, I use them constantly and more often than not, to great effect.

The following is one of my favourite and I use it when looking to motivate flagging sales professionals.

Imagine a tiny, tiny seed.
Safe in its shell.
Buried some six inches under compact, dark, dank shit.
It has just recently rained, making the soil even heavier.

Now that seed has a choice.
It can stay, safe in its shell.
Or it can reach for the sun.

That seed has no way of knowing how far away, how high above it the sun is.
But it craves it.
So a tiny little fragile stem breaks out from the shell and it starts its long dangerous journey upwards.
It pushes and wends its way through the dark, cold, heavy, wet soil.

Now all too often, I see people do this.
None of us know quite when we’re going to be successful.
What is horrifying; what is heartbreaking is people, who like that tiny little fragile stem get to an inch beneath the surface.
An inch from the sun.
They don’t know it just like that stem doesn’t know it.

But they give up.
It’s been too much of a battle.
It’s taken too much effort.
They’ve lost faith.

So they shrivel and wither and never find the light, the sun. Success.
Yet, another stem, just as fragile, just as weighed down, just as exhausted, pushes on that little bit more.

And breaks through.
Success.

To some, the analogy might seem far-fetched but as one who coaches people to success; as one who watches success and failure take place, this analogy is frighteningly accurate.

Don’t give up.

Say my name.

I had to call someone this week, someone I’d never spoken to before (and therein quite obviously never met.)

It is my habit to listen to people carefully.
To listen to what people say.
To listen to how people say things.

This young lady excelled herself.

Throughout the telephone call there was a great deal of background noise.
Telephones ringing incessantly.
Other voices, strident in the unseen.

Yet the young lady held my attention to perfection.
Simply.

How?

She kept saying my name.
Had she have used the same technique, face to face, it would have been too much.
It would have been ‘odd’ and made me feel uncomfortable but for the purpose of a telephone call, it was perfect.
It let me know that despite all the background noise at her end and all the visual stimulus my end, my attention remained firmly on what she was saying.

If you use the phone alot, try it sometime.
You’ll make the person at the other end of the phone feel special.
You’ll make the person at the other end of the phone feel important.

Subliminal Manipulation for the Masses.

I control people.
Daily.
Hourly.
By the minute.

Quite often these people are complete strangers.

The control is easy.
Embarrassingly so, in many cases.
Fun more often than not when people think they’re ‘above’ everyone else.

I’ve done it for years.
In some spheres I am considered a master at it.

Dangerous, really.
Or it could be.

Am I going to tell you about body language?
Nope, I’ll leave that to the others.

I am however, going to give you some instantly applicable  examples – try them out if you will and have fun!

Experience shows that what I’m about to share with you is all too often the difference between successful interaction and failure. People who have already decided to implement these techniques agree that their success in any one-on-one or group interaction has improved immeasurably.
Some people say to me, right at the beginning “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” when I give them an example until I show them that they already do it! This is one of the things you’re going to love about this – I’m not asking you to do anything new but just to be aware of what you already do.
In just days from now when you’re using these techniques knowingly you’ll look back and marvel at how simple, how obvious some of the most powerful secrets of success are.
Now that’s a fabulous thing, isn’t it?

Ready?

_____________________________________________

The techniques I am talking about, I have just used.
You’ve just read them in the paragraph above.

Let me break it down for you.

“Experience shows that”… this phrase implies an air of authority. It implies feedback from other people. It implies consensus – crucial in matters of influencing.

“People who have already decided to”…. this backs up the first implied authority. Furthermore the word “agree” is extremely powerful if right before it, you use the persons name.
Psychologically, it’s like receiving a command.

“Some people say to me”… herein I offer an objection and usually do so in a whinging voice before I return my voice to normal in counter-acting the objection. In essence I offer the objection and address it before the person I’m speaking to can.

“One of the things you’re really going to love about this”…. This one makes me smile because I’ve never been a mind reader but the sentence implies I can read minds. Even more intriguing is that although I can’t, by using these techniques, the outcome indicates I can! Saying ‘one’ also indicates there’s more than one reason you’re going to love whatever it is!

“You can…. because”…. people like to have a reason – a justification. As illogical or unrelated as some of them can be!

“In just days from now when you’re …. you’ll look back”… Using this technique you make the person re-frame their view of the present. What right now, looking at it right now might seem daunting, re-framing it and getting the person to see the advantages from the position of them being in place and applied can be priceless.

…”isn’t it?” is known as a tag question and one that personally keeps me entertained.
Doesn’t it?
Aren’t you / they?
and so the list goes on.
Using this technique alone, I’ve talked people into agreeing with ideas or events so far removed from their sphere of common-sense or comfort that it’s mind-boggling (Don’t panic or go into vigilante mode – I always let them off after I’ve made my point.)

_____________________________________________________________________________

In the great big wide World out there, there’s plenty more of these techniques.
Simple and breathtakingly effective.
Just imagine…

How to WIN every argument!

Madsen Pirie is an unsung hero.
A genius.

And a writer.
Author indeed of a book called “How to WIN every argument.”

Brilliance on parchment.

If you’re in sales, politics or a relationship (!) this is a must read.

Presented in a light and rather entertaining manner, Madsen Pirie gently leads the reader through the darkness of debate with a 6 cell maglite of insight lighting the way – and I am confident that like me, anyone else reading the book will learn alot about themselves – realising that even us simple folk quite often use certain techniques blindly (but effectively.)

Now, if you’re happy to allow others to have their way, don’t read this book.
But if you’re sick and tired of coming off worse in an argument or debate, regardless of the arena or depth of your knowledge, this is a must read!

Wanna argue about it? 

Compliment Letters to achieve the impossible.

Friends and business colleagues are frequently commenting (and often with some envy) at my ability to achieve the seemingly impossible in so many areas of my life.

If I need tickets to an event or even something as mundane (but often crucial) as a specialised print run, it gets done.

How?

By writing thank you or compliment letters.

A close call last week.
I needed a parcel completed and sent.
Theoretically, there wasn’t the time.
The man in charge of the outfit told me that in a ‘brook no argument’ tone of voice.

My response?
“I really appreciate your honesty – you’re amazing – can I write a letter to your manager? They deserve to know they’ve got such a top-notch guy working for them!”

The chap looked stunned and pleased.
He checked, made a call and came back to the desk.

The parcel – with a few favours from his friends at work – was delivered on time.

This week I got a nice letter from his manager and a gift voucher to spend with the company – for taking time out to appreciate their work!