Monday 26th July

Sales Skills

That’s enough about ME. Let’s talk about YOU…. What do YOU think of ME?

I’ve just sat through a sales pitch from a software company that wanted to sell me the latest thing in …errr… software.  Don’t get me wrong. I invited them in because I am interested in the type of software they offer.

Instead of finding out what I needed, the company in question spent almost the entire meeting telling me why I should use them, who they had worked for before and in what capacity.

Borrrr-inggg.

Hello..if a potential client has invited you in, they already know this stuff. That’s why you’re there. What you need to do is find out about them.

How many times have you been stuck with a terminal bore at a party? What made them boring? Yes, they talked about themselves all night.

And how many times have you met someone and just clicked? Why? Because the other person made an effort to find out about YOU. To listen to YOU.

This is such a simple concept that it still amazes me that salesmen choose to ignore it.

more…

Myers-Briggs®

Okay, so you’ve had a simply fabulous idea. It will revolutionise the way the company works, will cost next to nothing and will need hardly any resource to implement.

You’re an ‘extrovert’ in Myers-Briggs® terms so you’ve just got to tell someone. You excitedly share your idea with the people around you, get them to trial it and now they’re hooked too. You are a genius, if you say so yourself.

You bound off to see your ‘introvert’ boss. You’ve got to get this idea off the ground and you’ve gotta do it NOW!

Your boss is busy. You know he’s snowed under with work and you can see he looks stressed. You ignore this because, well, you have an idea that will revolutionise the way the company works and will cost next to nothing to implement and …yada yada. more…

Podcast: Download (Duration: 17:41 — 16.2MB)

Do you have a team that does not always play to win? Do you feel more like a referee in a fighting ring, some days than a manager?

Don’t worry if you do, the good news is that people are not designed to work in team. Think ‘survival of the fittest’ we have a natural instinct to be competitive in order to survive…so it is completely normal for things to kick off a little!!

At Think, we believe that, whilst rivalry and competitiveness is healthy, you should never excel at another persons loss or expense. To help you unite your team to work together to achieve common goals why not try our Team Skills course.

Teamwork
Some people regard their glass as half full, some half empty. In my case, if I were to sum up my week, I’d say that someone had downed the rest of my wine and made off with the glass afterwards.

Unlike last week, however, where you’ll have noticed my mood was dark; this week I have decided to view the theft of my proverbial glass as a good thing because:

1.)  drinking too much is bad for you and;

2.)  it gives me an excuse to loiter in the Waterford Crystal department in John Lewis next weekend.

As Francois Lelord says in his wonderful book, ‘Hector and the Search for Happiness’, “Happiness is a way of looking at things”.

I have spent the week overseeing the implementation of a new computer based sales system for a client; with set-back after set-back as the system would not play ball (a bit like the England football team except that we eventually won).

Whilst I could look back at the week, exhausted, with a sense of utter frustration, I am choosing only to see the good in what happened. more…

Motivation

I have just finished reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a colossal novel depicting the rise of the charismatic and omnicompetent Thomas Cromwell.

I’m sure I should have something profound and intellectual to say about this magnificent piece of literature but to be honest, my over-riding thought when I’d finished was:

“ Bloody hell, HR law was so much less complicated in the days of Henry VIII”.

Coaching? Informal Counselling? Disciplinary processes? Appeals? No, don’t bother with all that; just cut off their heads.

Granted, things are much fairer these days but I bet some people would have a lot more motivation to do their jobs well if the alternative was an appointment with a drunken executioner and a rusty old axe.

As you may gather, I am not in the best of moods. more…