Here’s Something You Should Try at Home !!

Say what?

I have just finished the accreditation process for Navigational Conversations from Leadscape Learning.  This is a workshop that introduces strategic coaching skills for leaders who want to take a coach-approach when working with others.

Not surprisingly, listening is the key element of the Navigational Conversations program.  For a long time, I’ve felt that listening is the one skill that most of us should improve.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who is distracted by something else that is going on and doesn’t seem to be really paying attention to you?  I know, probably not.  But, it could happen!

The folks at Leadscape Learning speak about three stages of listening that exist on a continuum of listening skills.  At the low end of the continuum is what they refer to as tracking.  In this stage of listening, we are engaged in a primary activity that supersedes listening.  This is the listening that includes responses such as ‘uh-huh, yup, okay, whatever, …”.  Again, maybe you’re not familiar with this situation, in which case I apologize for enticing you into this blog via the title.

However, for those who understand that the power in a conversation comes from the listening, read on.

In the middle of the continuum is a stage of listening where we are now focused on the conversation at hand.  However, while we are listening, we are thinking about what is being said to us.  We might be thinking of the next question that we want to ask, or we might be forming our response.  We might even interrupt the other person by not waiting until he/she has finished speaking, so we can speak.  In this listening mode, we run the risk that we won’t pick up on all of the nuances in the conversation.

So, if you are bold enough to try something at home, here it is.  Move to the far end of the listening continuum and practice being present.  In this listening mode, we are listening with a quiet mind.  We are intentionally not thinking up our next response.  We are listening and observing.  We are able to discern meaning from body language.  We can pick up the essence of the conversation.  We are simply being present.

Being present is a difficult listening mode to achieve and it is also difficult to remain in this mode.  But it is a very rewarding skill to achieve.  The person that is speaking to you will feel very connected and you will realize the power of listening.

Why not try it?

 

 

A Strategic Getaway

The home stretch for this calendar year is in view. It’s a great time to review YTD performance against the current strategy and it is also a good time for some sober second thought about whether the current plan is sufficiently robust for your next fiscal year.

Convention Business Travel (CBT) is worth your serious consideration.

You can take the team to a retreat destination of your choice this fall and I can help you make the experience unforgettable for you and your team and also a Smart Investment. As your facilitator and business coach, I can help you map your meeting discussions in an agenda to meet your business objectives AND with the help of our Strategic Partner at Convention Business Travel you gain access to their Agenda Builder Tool with which you will record the meeting discussions, duration and participation.  The report provided by the Agenda Builder Tool is the document you will need to attach to your expenses for Canada Revenue Agency purposes. It supports your travel expense claim and is immediately available, upon request.  Furthermore, my facilitation exercises and work assignments are all built-in and ready for us to discover together…

http://www.conventionbusinesstravel.com/FocalPoint.aspx

What could be better!  You and your team get some good planning time together. I add additional value, truly making this a Smart Investment.  Furthermore, depending upon your particular industry regulations, the FocalPoint content qualifies for Continuing Education Credits. (for more detail visit:  http://www.conventionbusinesstravel.com/Education/FocalPoint.aspx).  Talk about two birds with a single stone. But it gets even better!  You also have the opportunity for some free time that you can use to further improve team morale.

It’s easy and it’s strategic!

“It’s Too Expensive!”

How often do we get confronted with the response “it’s too expensive” when engaged in a sales conversation with a prospect? Possibly more often than we might like?

Next question. How often do we respond with either some type of justification or explanation of our stated price? Or, perhaps we simply jump to offering a price reduction. Do either of these responses sound familiar?

If we believe that the value provided by our service or product offering is fairly priced, why do we experience so much trepidation around the prospect’s response to our price? It might be because this is what generally happens to us and we haven’t determined how best to respond.

Brian Tracy (public speaker/author/educator) offers an interesting response to the price objection. He suggests that we ask “how do you mean?”. Personally, I feel that this response is a good one. In my experience, many prospects (and customers for that matter) have normalized similar products to the point that most of them have been ‘commoditized’. If this is true, then it becomes easy to understand how a prospect would decide to offer a price objection so readily and so often. After all, he/she believes the same product can be purchased elsewhere and presumably at a lower price.

The “how do you mean?” question invites a response. It puts the person who made the price objection in the position of revealing more information. That person might still complain about the price. At this point, our next question might be “compared to what?”.

Pricing can be a tricky proposition. However, some preparation on our part will help us respond to price objections.

Now, if we are able to differentiate ourselves and our offering in some clear and tangible manner, then maybe some of the pricing issues will go away.

When we dig deeper, perhaps what is ultimately too expensive is the ‘hit’ to our business due to a lack of differentiation on the part of our business in the marketplace.

BIZBUZZ: Gary Hamel: Competing For The Future

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to episode 13 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations in order to challenge business owners to Be Different and to Act Boldly.

The following video highlights some content from Competing For The Future, written by Gary Hamel. I enjoyed reading this book and it offers some interesting observations on the subject of differentiation, which is one of my favourite topics.

http://youtu.be/8MCbRuKBEgI

I am going to highlight three of Hamel’s suggestions that I find particularly noteworthy.

The first one deals with return on investment (our return/our investment). Hamel contends that we spend too much time obsessing over the denominator (the amount invested). In an environment where our competitors are growing, denominator reduction with steady revenue is simply a way to profitably sell market share. Hmm. Do we know how well our competitors are performing?  Are we paying sufficient attention to what is happening with the numerator?

Secondly, Hamel suggests that tomorrow’s competitive advantages must necessarily be different from today’s. Companies must be capable of getting different. He further states that laggards follow the path of least resistance.  However, challengers follow the path of greatest opportunity. Which are we?

There are numerous other interesting tidbits in this book but I’m going to end on Hamel’s assertion that it is not necessary to be a seer to discover the future but it is absolutely vital that you be unorthodox. Now if that isn’t a call for differentiation, what is?

Well, that’s it for Competing For The Future.

Thanks for watching.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

What’s hard to acquire but easy to lose?

We have likely all heard that people buy from others that they know, like and trust. I would like to stress that when I say “buy”, I don’t just mean the exchange of money for some good or service. I am including all transactions wherein one person is attempting to convince, influence or persuade another person to exchange something that they have for something the other person has. We’ve also likely discovered that trust, like Rome, is not built in a day.

Trust might be compared to money in our bank account. It has value and the more that we have the more valuable it becomes and the greater the number of options that present themselves to us. Without it, our options are greatly diminished. It takes a concerted effort to build our ‘trust account’ with others.

So, how can we develop this thing called trust?

One possibility is to look for situations where we can make a commitment to do something. Once we’ve made a commitment, please realize that a commitment is a promise. The good news related to promises is that most of us believe in keeping the promises that we make. Our promises help define us.

So, make a small commitment to a prospect that you absolutely know that you can keep. Then deliver on it. It can be as simple as making an offer to send something of interest that you spoke to your prospect about. However, don’t surprise the prospect by simply sending the item to him/her. Instead, clearly state that you’ll send it and indicate a completion date. Then follow through.

The above action will demonstrate that you keep your word.  And bear the following in mind. When you are working towards building a trusting relationship, “we are our word”. Others don’t know how to judge us in the early days of a relationship except by what we say and whether we do what we say we are going to do.

When that elusive trust is gained, it would be a shame to squander it by breaking our word.