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Do You Believe in Willpower?

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I don’t believe in willpower.  Either I don’t believe in it, or mine’s just too tiny to believe in.

Always Baby Steps

What I do believe in is prayer.  And I believe that only new habits drive out old ones.  New habits are formed baby step by baby step, and the smaller the first baby steps – micro-steps are best – the easier the baby steps are to repeat.  Repeated baby steps build to a new habit, and the easier the new habit is to repeat.

Bust Through Barriers

It’s also critical to search out and list the barriers and pitfalls that will appear around you and doom the new habit to failure.  List the barriers in advance.  Solve them in advance.  Make the solutions part of your baby steps.

When it comes to forming new habits, “barrier busting” and “baby step power” are what I believe in.

Do you believe in willpower?  Or perhaps you believe in the power of habits? 

I’ve proven over and over again that my new habit is only as permanent as my solution to the barriers that were preventing me in the first place.  Do you agree with that?

 

How to Say “No”

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Client Catherine is about to retire and already knows she’ll be inundated with requests to join boards and do volunteer work.  She wants to help out but also wants to know how to say “no” nicely.  I suggested she say what I say when I can’t accept another commitment, “I’m sorry; I can’t.  The time is already pledged.”

“The time is already pledged.”

She liked it.  It is an effective and gracious way to answer a request. It’s easy to remember, simple to use, is exactly the image she wishes to project.

It can be a script

The script helps you manage your time and energy level whether your time is actually already pledged or not.  But it’s nice to know that the time IS already pledged, either to volunteer and help someone else, or to spend the time with your family or yourself, and that you pledged it after a thorough and fearless examination of what’s important to you.

Can you hear yourself using this tip?  Please let me know.

 

The Single Best Way to Discover Your Client’s Deepest Real Need

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Are you ready to make scary-big sales?  Would you like it to be easier to take scary-big risks?

To make scary-big sales, you have to discover – and prove you can solve – your client’s deepest real need.  To make the discovery, you have to be in fairly frequent, friendly communication with your client.  “Fairly frequent and friendly communication” tells us that relationship selling is a process that requires first that you grow a relationship.

There has to be intimacy

In my opinion, electronic communication alone won’t generate the kind of customer relationship and intimacy that makes the client want to trust you and tell you what he/she really needs this project or product to achieve.  You have to know the deeper need that is beyond the stated requirements in the RFP/RFQ/bid package.

The best way to start and maintain a client relationship that proves you are there to solve real needs:

Be there (physically).

Be sincerely interested.

Be absolutely credible.

Be prepared with two or three good honest questions.

Ask one question, then…

Be quiet.

Believe me.  This works.

Do you think this could work for you?  Are you willing to try?   Please click “Comment” and let me know.

 

 

 

Does It “Scale”? Here’s Exactly What That Means

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We should all be eternally grateful to Seth Godin for his constant emphasis on “Does it scale?”  I won’t repeat all his advice, but this is what I’m reminding myself of today.

Successful, Repeatable, Teachable

If you’re selling or taking risks, you want a set of skills that’s successful, repeatable, and teachable. In other words, a system that scales, that makes your results larger and more predictable.  Ditto if you’re working for yourself.

Skills That Are Systems

Plus, if you’re working for yourself, you should get really good at turning all your tasks into systems. Scale up your work life and work flow into a system.  We’ll be successful when we discover a way to make what we do scalable.

Entrepreneurs and salespeople are wise to always be watching for patterns in what they do, because it is the pattern that is scalable and will generate the most revenue.   So ask yourself, “What is it about what I know and what I do that is a pattern, a system that can be scaled?”

Thanks, Seth.

Have You Been Told “It’s not personal. It’s business.” ?

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When I was married the first time, my mother-in-law didn’t like me or want to get to know me.  When we were alone in a room, she didn’t look at me or speak to me.  It bothered me a lot until I realized it wasn’t about me.

It was not about me

Her reaction was not personally directed at me, not in the least.  She would have reacted that way to any woman who married her son.

It’s the same in business

In business we say “it’s not personal; it’s business” and we mean it.  We mean that if anyone had suggested that same (weak) plan, had given that same (sloppy) presentation, had hogged the floor during the meeting, they would have gotten the same bad reaction from the boss or the client.  You might not think your plan was weak or your presentation sloppy, but if it was, you got a reaction from the boss  or the client that was not personal, not in the least.  It was business.

Does that help?  Does it help to know it wasn’t about you?  Please click “comment” and let me know.

I’m Dizzy with Fatique. You?

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Have you ever worked so hard, tried so hard that you were dizzy with fatigue?  And kept working until you were even more tired?  So tired you broke out in silliness?

I’ve done that a few times, working on proposals.  But there was something I was headed for, a prize I was seeking.  Have you ever been pumped up  with knowing that you were in the midst of doing your very best work?   That was the prize I was seeking; I have felt it several times in my life – lifted up, buoyed up, lifting, flying, knowing that my work was receiving the very best I had.  The work might not please everyone, there might be plenty of comments in red ink, but it was my very best work.

I hope to be lifted up many times when writing to you, buoyed up, doing my best work.  I hope you are that way sometimes too.

 

How To Sell What’s Not Unique

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An article in the November 2013 issue of Customer Relationship Management compliments GEICO for its short, strong benefit statement: “15 minutes could save you 15% on your car insurance.”  The statement hasn’t gotten old and hasn’t been changed in 20 years.

Get the benefit right and state it plainly

With car insurance there isn’t much they can show in a commercial to prove GEICO’s better, so they plainly and strongly state the one thing the customer is looking for: savings.  That’s how they sell something that’s hard to sell and that isn’t even unique.

Do you have the discriminator right?

You may also be selling something that’s hard to sell and not unique.   So do everything you can to discover your customer’s deepest need, the customer’s discriminator – the one thing the customer uses to discriminate between suppliers. The discriminator isn’t always what you think it is.  Be frank about whether your firm satisfies the customer’s discriminator, and if it does, say so, in a short, strong benefit statement.

Do you know what your customer’s discriminator is?

Do You Think “Done” Is Better Than “Perfect”?

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Are you familiar with this saying?  In movie-making, when a scene’s been shot and it’s good, but some minor detail is off that can be fixed later in editing, the director says “Cut and print!  We’ll fix that in post-production” meaning it’ll be fixed in editing.   “We’ll fix it in post” is the director’s second chance to get just one or two last details done.  For now, everyone gets to celebrate the 99+% that’s really good.  And really done.

It’s done.  Go celebrate.

It is so important to be able to recognize when 99+% is done and you can say “Cut and print! We’ll fix the rest in post” knowing that the work’s done and moments away from being ready to publish or put in the envelope.  You got it finished!  You can say out loud, “We’ll fix the rest in post.”

Now, take a breather, have a coffee, go home and celebrate.  Celebrate that you’re done. Come in tomorrow and fix the rest in post.

I’ve said “We’ll fix the rest in post” a hundred times and felt great every time.  Do you think it would work for you?

How To Silence Bad Thoughts

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“The Queen of Hearts turned crimson with fury, and after glaring at [Alice] for a moment like a wild beast, began screaming again and again, ‘Off with her head!  Off with her head!  Off with — ‘

‘NONSENSE!’ said Alice.

And the Queen was silent.”         (Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

Exactly.

How To Turn Your “Oh Crap!” Into The Beginnings of Success in 1 Step

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Studies are proving how important optimism is to mental health.  Optimism is absolutely essential in increasing your resilience.

What is optimism?

Optimism is this:  the skill of believing that, unless every piece of hard evidence is pointing the opposite way, the current situation is as likely to turn out well as not, and even if it doesn’t turn out well, it can still benefit you, will still bring all kinds of insights and lessons with it, if you’re calm and eager enough to look for them.  The “calm and eager” comes from optimism.

You Can Solve This

When we don’t know how to respond or solve something, and we feel our mood start to slide down the side of a cliff of “Oh crap!  This is gonna fail.  I don’t know how to do this”, a crucial mental step is to edit “I don’t know” into “I don’t know YET”.

Then  – and this is the step you cannot do without – give yourself over to curiosity.  As I’ve said to clients many times, “hundreds of thousands of people before you have solved this.  You’re a people.  You can solve this.  You just haven’t solved it YET.”

Do you agree that Optimism is a key to mental health?  When was the last situation when you could have used “I just haven’t solved it YET” ?  Please comment – we want to hear from you!

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