Being Different

Do you find yourself chasing prospects around?

First, they act interested, then they don’t call you back. Or after the first meeting they procrastinate and won’t even take your calls.If you’re like many entrepreneurs you advertise your products or services, mail information or meet prospects at industry events then attempt to follow-up on all of these “leads” to see who wants to buy something. And still – nothing happens.How can we motivate prospects to take action?Many marketing gurus tell us we have to DIFFERENTIATE ourselves – that we have to create more PERCEIVED VALUE.I say this is not a matter of “perception” but rather a matter of reality. The real question is… What can we do to actually BECOME valuable advisors for our prospects?We want to be “perceived” as different from other salespeople yet we act just like them. Most of us are still ACTING like salespeople. And most salespeople see all prospects as the same and treat them the same. The fact is that every prospect has a different timetable. They each have a unique set of circumstances that influence their actions. For this reason, one-shot follow just doesn’t work.What does work? A coordinated campaign that provides real BENEFITS for the prospect. In fact the only kind of campaign that does work is on that provides benefits for the prospect BEFORE they decide to do business with us. Oh come on Mark, how in the world can we do that?The Prospects View
Think of how marketing is “perceived” from the prospects point of view:FIRST: They see an ad that tells them how fabulous our product or service is. This may spark their interest and they may even call us to find out more, but does it benefit them? NOSECOND: They get something in the mail that tells them why they should do business with us. Some of this may ring true but does it benefit them? NOTHIRD: They get a call from us asking if we received the information requested with a clear intimation that the next step is to meet with us so we can “close” the sale. Does this provide them with any benefit? NOAnd we wonder why they blow us off?The Root of the Problem
The problem starts with the follow-up process itself. In most businesses, especially small businesses, new prospects are usually contacted only ONCE or a maximum of TWICE via mail and telephone. There is always the good intention to follow up again later, but the discipline required to do this is sorely lacking. I know because I’ve been there. There are always a million other things to do. Sales appointments. Meetings. Paperwork. Coordinating advertising. Dealing with employees. Client issues and ad infinitum.We have to remember that for every person who responds to our message, there are 2, 3, 10, maybe more, who ALMOST responded. They heard our message. Thought, “that’s interesting,” but were unsure. Perhaps they made a note and put it aside. Maybe they stumbled over the note a day or two later and read it again. Maybe, they even got to the phone and were about to call you, when someone came to the door and interrupted them. Finally, the note got buried with everything else on their desk and was forgotten forever.These people who ALMOST responded WILL respond to another nudge, or two, if the nudges come at the right moment and the message contains some kind of benefit for them. This is what marketers call “Residual Influence” and it’s an often-overlooked tool that’s the real key to successful follow-up.Understand the Timing
In my experience I have found that prospects fall into four distinct groups. Let’s refer to them as: NOW prospects, SOON prospects, FUTURE prospects and, NEVER prospects. Following up with each of these different groups requires a different approach and a different type of benefit for the prospect.”NOW prospects” are ready to make a buying decision. The only question is with “who.” The goal here is to determine their motives and link your product or service to that motive. It should be relatively easy to secure an appointment with this type of customer. But beware, any delay in following up on this type of customer can and WILL cost you business. There are never enough of these.”SOON prospects” are in the early stages of consideration. Typically they are thinking of making a purchase in the next six months but must resolve one or more issues. This could be budget, options, selection or the timing could hinge on another event. It is critical that you discover what these variables are. This presents a tremendous opportunity to provide some information or referrals that might BENEFIT this prospect and move them toward making the right decision. Know that they crave information that will help them with their decision. They also require some handholding and appropriate but consistent communication during the consideration process.”FUTURE prospects” are people who are not likely to make a decision within the next six months. These people are usually not very interested in your product or service at the present time because they are preoccupied with other issues. FUTURE prospects could also include your past clients, and customers with whom you have a long-standing relationship. I recommend that marketers develop industry updates that could be beneficial to theses future customers. We don’t want to spend allot of time with FUTURE prospects now but we do want to develop a relatively inexpensive but informative way to maintain contact with and influence over these prospects. The trick is to develop a method to keep these prospects in the pipeline by giving them something of value. Email is a great way to do this.”NEVER prospects” have no intention to purchase from you. These people will waste as much of your time and energy as you let them. They may like your information and the benefits you provide but they have no intention of dealing with you. Perhaps consistent and regular follow-up could convert NEVER to MAYBE, but you might never know, and it might take a tremendous amount of effort. Hint: often times prospects ONLY interested in price are NEVER prospects. If all they want is a cheap price are they worth the time?How to Tell the Difference
The problem is, how do you tell which type of prospect they are? And how do you do this without wasting your valuable time on the NEVER customers? You need to have a complete follow-up system that addresses the needs and wants of each group. The good news is that the system I’m about to describe deals with all four types of prospects automatically – you don’t have to worry about what type they are, and you won’t waste any time dealing with “tire-kickers”.A Typical Approach
While this can be applied to any industry let’s assume you are a real estate agent and you get an inquiry from a young couple. Mr. and Mrs. Smith that are thinking about selling their home and moving up to a bigger one in your area in the next 6 months. They are requesting one of the FREE Special Home Seller Reports you offer on your web site or in your informational marketing program. Most agents would determine that this is a SOON prospect and would send the report and then call to try to get an appointment. This would not result in a listing because Mr. and Mrs. Smith simply are not ready to move at this time. Learning this, the agent would create a follow-up for six months. At that time they would call Mr. and Mrs. Smith only to find that they listed their house and it’s already been sold. Has this happened to you?Using the Residual Influence Strategy
But by using our “Residual Influence” strategy we handle things quite differently. This time we tell the prospect that we are different than any other agent. We ask questions determining what they want to “learn” about. Then tell them we will teach them for FREE! We schedule a series of twelve appointments with the couple – one every two weeks for six months. At each of these twelve appointments, we sit down with them, at their convenience, and explain everything they could ever possibly want to know about buying and selling a house. We agree to educate them. To go above and beyond what every other salesperson is doing. To provide a BENEFIT for the customer even BEFORE they make the decision to buy from us!At the first meeting, we explain in great detail how they can find the best mortgage at the lowest rate. At the second meeting, we explain how they can find the best homes at the lowest prices.
At the third, we tell them what can be done to their house to immediately raise its market value. And so on. Every two weeks for six months, we impart all of our real estate expertise to ensure that they can make the best possible decisions. This is actually in the best interest of the customer!Now, if at any time during this six-month period the couple decides that they are ready to make their move, whom do you think they will call? The answer is obvious: YOU! By spending the time to educate them, and by demonstrating your expertise, you have become their preferred choice – the only choice. When the time comes to list their home, you will be viewed as a trusted advisor, NOT a salesmen hunting for a commission. Residual influence in action.As I say, the residual influence strategy can be used for just about any kind of business, product or service. It is a universal way to both improve your relationships and help your prospects see you as a unique option in a marketplace crowded with copycats. Again it’s not so much about being “perceived” as different it’s about actually BEING different.

Anti-Attraction

The Top 10 Ways NOT to Attract New Clients

They say marketing has a bad name. But I maintain that NOT marketing has a much worse name. If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner interested in attracting new clients, are you still committing any of the 10 deadly sins listed below?

10. Make sure nobody can really understand what business you’re in. Use buzz-words and industry jargon. Never share the results of what you do or mention how you’ve helped your clients. Make people really work to figure out how you can help them.

9. Talk only about features and processes in your marketing materials. Don’t include any benefits or case studies of successful clients you’ve worked with. Throw in lots of impressive industry jargon and don’t worry about professional design or paper. Using 20# copy paper is fine.

8. Put up a quick-and-dirty website with most of the pages still under construction. Make sure to design it yourself and make it look as amateurish as possible. Of course, obscure navigation, huge graphics files and pages that lead nowhere will keep ’em coming back.

7. Forget about spell check and proofreading. People don’t care about typos or if you spell their name wrong. Whip out every e-mail as fast as you possibly can. And never put a signature line on your email, let alone a subject line that means anything.

6. Don’t ever network. Make sure nobody ever gets to meet you in person and learn who you are and what you can do for them. And if you do happen to show up at a networking event, make sure to sit in a corner with a beer and lots of hors D’oeuvres, away from pesky prospective clients.

5. Don’t write any articles or do any talks demonstrating to the world that you’re an expert and really know your stuff. Make sure to keep all of that a big secret. Also never share one bit of your expertise with anyone unless they pay you first.

4. Don’t ask questions when meeting with a new prospective client. Just give them a long, detailed presentation on all the technical aspects of your work. If they don’t understand you, they probably wouldn’t be a good client anyway.

3. Do substandard work as long as you think you can get away with it. Strive for mediocrity and make sure your clients pay for it through the nose. Why should you work so hard when they end up making so much money from your expertise?

2. Don’t return phone calls – ever. Just wait for them to call you back. If they really need your assistance, they’ll keep trying until they catch you in. And when they do reach you, make sure to sound impatient and too busy to help them.

1. Disappear. One you’ve completed a project, make sure they never hear from you again. Heck if they really need you, they’ll call. But don’t make it too easy by ever giving them your business card or putting your name in the yellow pages. You don’t want to look like you’re begging. Have some dignity, for goodness sake!

If any of these symptoms are present in your business, its time to think about making some core changes to your marketing effort. At the Small Business Advisory Network we like to say that we influence decisions, improve performance and inspire change. That’s what our consulting, workshops, web site, weekly articles and The Small Business Hour Radio Show are all about.

All You Can Eat

Right now on the Serengeti there is a gazelle running like the wind. Her blood is pumping in her veins. Her lungs are nearly exploding. She runs harder and faster with fear in her heart.

Why does she run?

She is being chased. The queen of the beasts is at her heels… a bloodthirsty lioness. She escapes as the lion takes down a different, less agile gazelle. She will live another day.

A few hours later, the gazelle finds herself grazing on the same plain not fifty feet from the very same lion and her entire pride. The lions lick their chops. They are stuffed and tired from the hunt. The gazelles are no longer afraid because the lion is no longer acting hungry.
I have found that most customers feel like that gazelle. They feel like they are being hunted, stalked, and eventually taken down. I guess that’s because sales people are taught to act hungry. Even marketing material: ads, brochures, mailers, web sites and the like are focused on “hunting” for easy prey.
Traditional selling and marketing is a manipulative process that is designed to get someone to buy regardless of whether or not they need to buy. Make no mistake, traditional marketing is about the pursuit – the hunter and the hunted. It’s about overcoming obstacles, circumventing roadblocks, and tricking or trapping your enemy.

What if you were able to break out of this traditional marketing trap? What if you were able to present your products and services in such a way that prospects and customers sought you out, rather than you chasing after them? How valuable would it be to your business if you could ATTRACT your ideal prospect without spending a fortune on advertising?
All marketers like to believe they have a unique solution. They are confident that they are different from the competition. When you get right down to it, however, most marketing says the exact SAME thing. It talks about what the company, product, or service DOES. At best, it may promise some generic group of benefits in which buyers MAY be interested. Even the best marketing materials (web sites, brochure, flyers, ads, radio or TV spots, promotions, interactive CDs or videos) attempt to communicate to the customer why their product, service or company is better than the competition. Few focus on the problems that the customer is having. This is at the core of the attraction mindset.
My advice to you is this:

  1. STOP acting hungry. The more you chase, the more they will run.
  2. Let your marketing materials educate, inspire and influence your customers and prospects rather than SELL them.
  3. Take a big step back when you approach prospects. This goes for creating marketing materials as well.
  4. Focus on the customers problems in your conversation as well as in your marketing communication. When we understand the customer’s problems, we can build a viable solution that is probably very different from your hungry competitors.

Taking this approach will allow you to build stronger relationships with clients and establish a brand that will be viral worthy and create a buzz in your industry. In short, the best way to have “all you can eat” is simply to not act so damn hungry.

Check out my new Attract More Business Self Study program. Now you can get five days of my attraction mindset FREE. Just click here!
Have a great week!
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com

Mark Deo
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Tips on How to Find a Mentor

Mentors can help you escalate your career, boost your self-development and improve your relationships. My whole life, from an early age, I sought out mentors in many different areas of life. You can find a great mentor and here are a few tips to help you do that.
Decide what area you want help with – examine your life and determine if you want help with your career or your health or your relationships. When you know the area you want to focus on you can then begin searching for a mentor.

Investigate top performers in your industry – if you want to find a career mentor, find out who are the experts in the field of expertise you want to develop.

Find out where your role models hang out – check out networks, industry events and conferences to watch out for potential mentors. Spend time watching the people in the room and make note of anyone who stands out and has the “presence” you are looking for.
Investigate official mentoring programs – many organizations now have internal mentoring programs you can become a part of. If you work for yourself you can also investigate Government areas that have established mentoring programs also.

Select the mentor – when you find the person you believe would be suitable, spend some time watching them in action. Ask to go along to a presentation with them or ask if you can spend a “day in the life of” them and watch what they do.

Ask others opinion of your selected mentor – when you have chosen someone, ask around to find out what you can about their achievements, beliefs, values and way of operating. This will give you insight into them before you approach them about mentoring you.

Approach the selected mentor – phone them or make an appointment to see them. Advise them why you want to meet and schedule time. This is an important step in the process so you can show them you respect their time and you are committed to dong the right thing.

Have an agenda – when you meet have an outline of what you would like to discuss. Your agenda should include why you want them to mentor you, how long it is for and what you hope to gain during that time. If they agree to mentor you, you can then work out how you can also support them.

Set up an agreement – if you both decide to proceed, set up an agreement with guidelines for timeframe, contact boundaries, full honesty etc. If you would like to know more about this check out “How to be a great Mentee“.

Fulfill your mentee commitments – always turn up to meetings prepared, always complete any assignments or tasks given to you from your mentor and always look for opportunities to support your mentor.

When you find a good mentor it can change your life.

This article was written by our friend and partner, Neen James, a leading productivity expert from Australia. She has worked with many organizations to boost their performance through communications and message management. She has numerous articles on productivity available on her website at www.neenjames.com.
Have a great week!
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com

Mark Deo
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The Miscommunication Tool

I don’t know about you, but I’m spending more and more time with email every year. It used to be that email was used for sending quick messages. Now people are carrying on entire relationships (personal and business) using email. It’s not unusual for a client to request to be communicated with exclusively by email. When this happens, how do we truly understand their motives? How can we urge them to take action? What can we do to ensure we are being understood and how can we make sure we in fact do understand what the client is communicating? I would venture to say that email is as much a tool of Miscommunication as it is communication itself!

While some authors and trainers talk about email strategies and tactics, one of the best resources on using email more effectively is the book Email Power by Steven Griffith. I interviewed Steven on our show this week and you can listen to it by clicking below:Email Power Interview Segment 1Email Power Interview Segment 2Email Power Interview Segment 3

Email Power utilizes The Language Response System, a process for analyzing and determining the communication style of the individual you’re corresponding with-in less than 60 seconds! Griffiths talks about how we can identify and speak in any of the four styles of communication: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and digital. Human beings process and interpret information in different ways depending on which sense system is dominant in their brain. While most people “mix and match” one style usually dominates.

  • Visual communicators take their world in by what they see. They talk in terms of “view,” “vision,” “show,” and “appears.” A visual person is interested in how your solution, your proposal or your presentation “looks” to them.
  • Auditory communicators take their world in by how things sound. They talk in auditory terms such as “I hear you,” “Talk to me,” “Sounds good to me,” etc. An Auditory person is interested in how your solution, your proposal, your presentation “sounds” to them.
  • Kinesthetic communicators take their world in through their feelings. They transform images, words, and sounds into feelings terms such as “I have a gut feeling,” “Let’s get a handle on this,” “I have a sense this is the right decision.” A kinesthetic person is interested in how your solution, your proposal, your presentation feels to them.
  • Digital communicators process and organize their world by how it makes sense in their head. Digitals usually don’t have many “feeling” words in their communications. They’ll “think” about your offer, “consider” the alternatives, and “formulate a response.” A digital person is interested in how your solution, your proposal, your presentation if it is logical and makes sense to them.

His book contains numerous examples of how to structure emails that help us to match with the intended receiver and thereby build a better relationship.

Thanks for tuning into this weeks business update. Also, remember our upcoming Dale Carnegie Sales Advantage Course starting on July 31, 2006 where we talk about how to match with others using these styles. Additionally, our Attract More Business Program is available in a 6 CD and 186 page hardbound set now. Just go to www.attractmorebusiness.com.

Relationship Marketing

I remember my first trip to England back in the eighties. We were kicking around London looking to pass the time and spotted a “tealeaf reader.” For fun we thought, “let’s go check it out.”

I had no idea what tealeaf reading was all about. I thought they would whip out a leave from a tree or something and start reading it like a book. What I discovered was even more incredulous.For the Highland Scots, twists of fate were prefigured in the patterns left at the bottom of one’s empty teacup. The general idea of “tealeaf reading” is to interpret the significance of an alphabetical list of the natural symbols commonly found at the bottom of a cup of tea. They would apparently predict fame, fortune and failure based on these soggy herbs.What does this have to do with business improvement, you ask?Let’s face it; running a business is a sober undertaking. There’s no place for the crystal ball, as it were. Successful business leaders must possess a set of pragmatic disciplines in order to make the necessary daily decisions in running their business. They must make very rational and logical connections based on their circumstances.For example, they may see competitors reducing their price and think, “I need to effectively compete by lowering my price or building value.” Or they look inside their company and see an unproductive sales group and think, “we need an incentive program to make people work harder and sell more.” Or they may look at their product mix and notice a product or service not performing as well as others and think, “let’s launch a creative promotion or advertising campaign.”These are very logical and rational responses but I don’t think they are enough. Not that these decisions are incorrect, but they are only part of the story. Not being one to believe in fortune telling, I do sometimes think that business leaders can learn a thing or two from these prognosticators.Everyone’s heard about the 5 P’s of Marketing: Product, Pricing, Promotion, Packaging and Positioning. Certainly all of these disciplines are important but I now realize that they are somewhat lacking in our new 21st Century.As I’ve said many times, today we live in an age NOT of information or technology but of relationships. Certainly consumers are still influenced by promotions, pricing and packaging but relationships have the greatest impact over brand choices and vendor selection.Relationships often take longer to form and carry even greater weight in the B2B world. If you think about it, the higher the cost of a product or service or the more complicated that product or service is, the more critical the relationship. This means developing a powerful relationship with a vendor or supplier who will do more than quote prices and take orders.Therefore it is not enough for suppliers and service providers to merely REACT to client needs. In fact they must learn to become PROACTIVE in predicting customer needs. In a sense good marketers need to learn to read their customer’s minds. They need to become good at “reading tea leaves.”Ultimately client’s need suppliers who will help them learn to evaluate and make the right purchase decisions. This is where CRM or Customer Relationship Management can become very useful in helping to predict buying trends. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a label that has been tacked onto practically everything having to do with marketing. Like the broad field of marketing, CRM touches all aspects of marketing analysis, marketing communications, sales, and customer service.CRM is a technique aimed at collecting information from prospects and customers about their needs, and providing information that helps them evaluate and purchase products that deliver the best possible value. Think of CRM as a process for managing the company’s resources to create the best possible experience and value for customers while generating the highest possible revenue and profit for the company.A typical CRM system uses a centralized database to store data about marketing, sales, and customer service. This gives employees a complete view of the company’s relationship with each customer. This improved communication technique results in creating a one-to-one relationship of understanding each prospect’s needs and showing that the company’s products or services meet those needs. This encourages the prospect to select that vendor. In other words, a CRM approach helps a company implement the learning and communications techniques that demonstrate the desire of the company — and the value to the customer — in forming a long-lasting relationship.For marketing to be effective, management must understand what the needs of the target audience are, which product attributes they value, and what motivations they respond to.
This requires more than creative advertising. It requires researching and understanding a target market, making products or services convenient to purchase, and giving each customer true value and satisfaction.You may not feel the need to go out and buy a bag of tea leaves and practice your fortune telling skills, but I encourage every business owner to think about ways that you may be able to put CRM in place within your organization. The information you will gain will help you to accurately predict buying patterns and maybe tell you more about your company today as well as your customer of the future.

Productive vs. Unproductive Conflict

From time to time we feature other experts in business improvement. I am thrilled to bring you this insightful article from Dr. Victoria Simon and Dr. Holly Pedersen of Talk Works, Inc. The ladies were recently guests on my Small Business Hour and we discussed how unproductive conflict can be turned into “productive” conflict. (Yes, there is a difference). They were even able to resolve some conflict between Matt Walker and I – a miracle in itself! Check them out at www.ourtalkworks.com.

-Mark Deo Introduction
A couple of months ago we received a call from a mid-sized Los Angeles based company that had recently expanded. One of the new division heads called to book a communication-training program for his team. He explained that he wanted us to come “immediately, if not sooner.” Due to his obvious concern for the success of his new division, we shuffled our schedules and arrived to begin our team building training the following week. Our first in-person meeting took place in his office, just prior to the start of the first session. He explained that his team had made virtually no progress with their initial goals “because there’s too much conflict!” My only thought was, “Oy! Wait till he hears our introduction to his group when we tell everyone that we’re here to teach them how to have conflict!”

What is productive conflict? (and do we really need it?)
Here is our definition of unproductive conflict: frequent, repetitive arguments that are not resolved and that leave both parties feeling more angry and frustrated. It is common for unproductive conflict to occur when the “real” issues are not being communicated, but instead trivial issues are being expressed through provocative communication styles such as jokes, sarcasm, denial, blame, etc. Productive conflict, however, is an open exchange of conflicting or differing ideas in which parties feel equally heard, respected, and unafraid to voice dissenting opinions for the purpose of reaching a mutually comfortable resolution. Because this type of conflict allows individuals to feel comfortable sharing conflicting opinions and ideas, it is a very creative and dynamic process that reveals new possibilities and insights. The stronger your ability to engage in productive conflict, the more profitable your business will be. Think about it: why do you hire different “experts” in your company? Because each one of them has different education, work and life experience, and problem solving skills. The ability for teams to come together and share their ideas, expertise and opinions is what inspires the most creative and forward thinking business decisions. But this will inevitably involve conflict as your teams share their different opinions on the “best” way to accomplish each goal. Even the sole proprietor profits from successful productive conflict skills since interactions with clients or customers can be handled in ways that ways that undermine trust, create negative feelings and ultimately turn customers away or that allow relationships to flourish (and generate excellent word of mouth and referrals).

5 simple steps to productive conflict
1. State position using “I” statements, OR speaking behind a glass wall. Imagine that you are standing behind a glass wall. You can see and hear the person you are talking to, but you are only allowed to discuss what is taking place on your side of the wall. You do this by talking ONLY about yourself. Be very careful not to assume that starting a sentence with “I” is enough to avoid pointing the finger (We hear this all the time from “I” communication beginners: “I think you’re wrong!” Clearly this will not avoid an argument.). The goal is to avoid creating defensiveness in the other party and to ensure that you are clearly voicing your ideas and thoughts rather than becoming distracted from the issue by pointing fingers at the other person. Just think about how it feels when the person with whom you are arguing says something like, “You just don’t get it! Your ideas are crazy!” That “you” immediately places us on guard, so we become unwilling to engage in the kind of healthy exchange necessary for productive conflict. Try “I” instead! 2. Identify common ground or a common goal. While productive conflict does by nature involve an exchange of differing ideas and opinions, it still requires that the involved parties share the common goal of developing a mutually agreed upon resolution, plan, or decision. Clearly stating what you and the other party have in common — to complete the project, resolve the conflict, decide on a plan of action – means that you begin the discussion as members of the same team, moving forward in the same ultimate direction, rather than as opposing forces. 3. Use reflective listening. In order for conflict to be productive, the thoughts and ideas of all involved parties must be truly listened to and understood. We are often so eager for someone to hear and agree with our point of view that we lose site of the fact that a solution that works for both parties can never be reached until all opinions, wants, needs, and desires have been shared and listened to. Reflective listening involves not responding immediately, but actually thinking about what the other person has said asking questions, if needed, to ensure that you understand and to reassure the other party that they are really being heard. For example, “It sounds like you’re suggesting that we restructure the management team, is that correct?” 4. Get curious About others’ ideas. Rather than immediately shooting down a co-worker’s ideas, or jumping to defend your own position or opinions, “get curious” about your co-workers’ ideas. Focus the discussion on finding out more information about your co-workers’ thoughts and experiences, and the reasons for their position. Uncover as much information as possible about why your co-workers think the way they do. This not only prevents the discussion from being an argument in which the involved parties staunchly defend their position, but it also may result in you learning something. 5. Gradients of agreement. Making conflict productive and creative also involves redefining what it means to “agree” with others. An agreement doesn’t have to mean a 100% consensus of involved parties. It could mean a partial agreement, or even an agreement to move forward with a decision without complete consensus from the group. Operating under the assumption that all parties must agree completely may keep you stuck in the process of resolving a conflict or making a decision. See if it is possible to achieve a gradient of agreement. ConclusionBusiness productivity depends on your willingness to engage in productive conflict. Hopefully your business creates a work environment where top, mid and lower level employees trust that openly sharing ideas and voicing opinions is not only acceptable, but encouraged. By applying these five simple steps you will be able to transform “conflict” into a powerful business tool. To learn more communication and collaborative team building skills, we encourage you to see our website at: www.ourtalkworks.com or to contact Talk Works at 310.860.5191. Victoria Simon, Ph.D., CEO Talk Works, Inc.Holly Pedersen, Ph.D., President Talk Works, Inc.

Negotiation

“Everything is negotiable.” We’ve all heard that line.

Those who are most skillful at negotiating usually come out ahead. Negotiation is the key to resolving conflict. Let’s face it, few of us enjoy dealing with conflict – be it with customers, employees, co-workers or even family members. This is particularly true when the conflict becomes hostile and when strong feelings become involved. Resolving conflict can be mentally exhausting and emotionally draining. But conflict avoidance just makes problems worse.Part of the problem is that we are predisposed to think of conflict (or resolution of conflict) as an isolated incident or event. In reality resolving conflict is more of a process, or a series of events over time involving both external and internal variables. Conflict episodes typically represent the result of past behaviors of both parties. Therefore negotiation is not a static exercise. Effective negotiation must include the “background events” in the relationship. These cannot be separated from the resolution.Professor E. Wertheim of the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University says, “an effective negotiation usually involves a number of steps including the exchange of proposals and counter proposals.” In good-faith negotiation, both sides are expected to make offers and concessions. The objective is not only to try to solve the problem, but to gain information that will enable you to get a clearer notion of what the true issues might be and how your “opponent” sees reality. Through offers and counter offers there should be a goal of a lot of information exchange that might yield a common definition of the problem.Negotiation is not so much about winning or losing but rather about meeting your opponent half way and convincing your opponent to meet YOU half way. Here are some tips in how to effectively negotiate for the win – win:

  1. Conduct your negotiation tactics in order to obtain more information.
  2. Try to understand and identify with your opponent’s motive.
  3. Conflict should not be avoided; rather it should be faced head on.
  4. Confrontation is not bad, rather it is good and more often results in resolution.
  5. Resentment is often the result of conflict avoidance.
  6. Conflict involves the thoughts, perceptions, memories, and emotions of the people involved; these must be considered when negotiating.
  7. Negotiations are like a chess match. So make sure you enter into negotiation with a firm strategy.
  8. Anticipate how the other will respond and act accordingly.
  9. Be honest with yourself regarding the strengths of your position.
  10. Evaluate how important each issue is to your opponent and how important it will to yourself.
    · Begin with a positive approach and try to establish rapport and mutual trust before starting.
  11. Try for a small concession early in the negotiation.
  12. Pay little attention to initial offers. Often times these are points of departure; they tend to be extreme and idealistic.
  13. Find agreements and joint gains. Make these your primary focus.
  14. Focus on the other person’s interests and your own goals and principles, while you generate other possibilities.
  15. Be very clear on what Professor E. Wertheim calls your BATNA; “Your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. This is important because the negotiation needs to aim to match or do better than your BATNA. The BATNA establishes a threshold for the settlement. Determining your BATNA or walk away is not always easy. You have to establish a concrete value for various alternatives.”
  16. In the planning process it is also important to estimate your opponent’s BATNA.
    · Try to come as close to the other person’s BATNA as you can.
  17. Aim to influence your opponent that their alternatives may not be as good as they perceive them to be.

While we all engage in many negotiations during a week this doesn’t mean we will become more proficient negotiators. As they say PERFECT practice makes perfect. To become better we need to become aware of the structure and dynamics of negotiation and we need to think systematically, objectively, and critically about our own negotiations. After engaging in a negotiation, reflect on what happened and figure out what you did effectively and what you need to do better.Often times at the Small Business Advisory Network we are called upon by our client’s to both assist and coach them in negotiating business issues or relationships. If you are looking to learn more about how effective negotiation might improve your business performance, please let us know. Our mission is to influence decisions, improve performance and inspire change. That’s what our consulting, workshops; web site, weekly articles and The Small Business Hour Radio Show are all about.

Love In Business

The biggest disease this day and age is that of people feeling unloved.–Author Unknown

The software engineer put on Nirvana’s “In Utero” as he did every evening when he got home from work, took his gun out, loaded it, and tried to garner enough courage to put it in his mouth and squeeze the trigger. This was a ritual he had played out every night or the past year. While successful at work, he was miserable. He felt no one cared about him as a person- he was just another programmer, doing what programmers did, living a solitary life with no friends. Then one day, out of the blue, his boss sent him a personal e-mail- not related to code revisions, interface changes, or other work related items. But one that expressed his thanks and sincere appreciation for the work he had accomplished in the time he had worked there, and how he was valuable to the team not as just a programmer, but as a person. He told this employee that he was glad he knew him as a human being, not just as someone who typed away at his computer all day. That night the software engineer went through his daily ritual of putting on Nirvana, loading his gun, and for the first time- he was scared that he might actually go through with it. He sold the gun, and with the proceeds bought his boss a gift- and told him the story of how that simple gesture had saved his life. This story was related to Mark Deo and I on the small business hour this week by Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App. He is at the forefront of a new wave of business thinking- not one focused on numbers, but one focused on people. His philosophy is that one must share three things in order to have a successful business relationship: knowledge, networks and compassion. By doing so you can not only help your business, but you can help others as human beings, much as in the story above. How does one share their knowledge? By staying informed reading about the latest trends in business reading about things that interest other people and then sharing that knowledge with people who are interested in it. How do you know what you should be reading? A great place to start is the list of books on our website www.smallbusinesshour.com. Tim Sanders also maintains a reading list on his web site at www.timsanders.com. Some publications that are excellent are business magazines such as Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Business Week, and Business 2.0. By reading these books and publications you’re making yourself valuable as a walking library to people that you speak with. This allows you to become a personal resource to others- someone who they can trust and count on for information. This in turn makes you as a person more valuable. What do we mean by sharing your networks? This is not some reference to computers and internet access- To share your networks you must take your personal contacts and instead of protecting them and hiding them in secrecy open them up to the world. Share your contacts with others who might find them to be of use. This can be a simple matter such as simply passing a phone number on to someone, or giving a referral. Better still is personally introducing two people who can both gain some value from establishing a new relationship. By doing so you become a business “matchmaker” of sorts- someone who helps others to achieve their goals through communication with people to which you introduce them. How does someone show compassion in business? It comes back to one of Dale Carnegie’s principles, “Become genuinely interested in other people.” Only by being interested in someone and showing that interest can you demonstrate that you care about them as people and not just as tangible resources. People respond to being cared for- you never know how making a small gesture can profoundly impact someone’s life. I encourage you to think of someone in your business life who you can show your love to this week. Become genuinely interested in them as a person- not to try and gain something from them, but to find common ground you share. Then discover what it is that interests them, and find some information about that topic that you can share with them. Find someone in your network of contacts who also has interest in the same topics, and introduce the two. You will be amazed at how that will endear you to both contacts, turning them from business relationships into personal friends. I’d love to hear your success stories at mwalker@sbanetwork.org. Have a great week! This Business Update was written by SBA Network Business Advisor Matthew Walker- for more information, please contact him at 310-320-8190 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.

Listening Louder

Listening is one of the most deceiving skills in business, or in life for that matter. Ask anyone how effective they are at “listening” and most will say they are pretty good. Yet in reality many “miscommunications” and unneeded conflicts occur just because we fail to practice good listening skills. This is rather evident in sales and marketing interactions.

Salespeople are taught that the client should do most of the talking and they should “listen.” Yet if we were to observe salespeople in action with their clients, as I have, we would see that the very opposite is true. They carry-on about the benefits of their product, service or company and often burn themselves out on their own “pitch.”I am not without guilt. I have stopped myself too many times in the middle of a great rant. Being a radio show host for over a decade as well as an instructor and public speaker it’s no wonder that I could ever shut-up! Nevertheless I have found that the “info-download” method of selling and marketing is less effective than ever before.Neil Rackham of the Huthwaite Organization and author of Spin Selling, conducted extensive research on the selling behaviors of high performers in sales. What he found through his research was that high performing sales people did three things differently in their meetings from those people who were not effective.High performing sales people:
1. Asked a lot more questions
2. Allowed the client to do most of the talking
3. Waited much longer before jumping in with a solutionUse the one minute tool (inspired by Robin Ryan’s excellent book, 60 Seconds & You’re Hired): if you have more to say than you can say in a minute, limit yourself to one minute and use that time to give an overview of the most important points you would make if you talked longer. Then stop and ask your listener to help you decide what to prioritize and how much more detail to go into. For each point and sub-point you add, start by speaking for just one minute, asking for more feedback as you go on to clarify which issues you need to address, and taking a moment before speaking to focus what you will say.This is also true in marketing. Often times web sites, brochures, and even mailers and promotional material is focused on “selling.” Think of ways that you can “engage” the user. Make your marketing material interactive. While we can’t practice the same types of listening techniques in second party marketing material, we can “listen” by making our material highly interactive. Ask for their response, advice, suggestions. Often time these materials are more like info downloads rather than engaging conversations.Listening is a skill that impacts every area of our life. I urge you to think of ways that you can “listen louder” to your clients, prospects and those within your sphere of influence. There is no better way to practice attraction than to master the art of listening.Please call or e-mail me with any comments or questions.This article was written by Mark Deo. You can reach me at 310-320-8190.