The Future Belongs to the Risk Takers


The future belongs to the risk takers, not the security seekers. Life is perverse in the sense that the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.


Action is Everything
If learning about success was all that it took to do great things with your life, then your success would be guaranteed. The bookstores are full of self-help books, each one of them loaded with ideas that you can use to be more successful. The fact is, however, that all the best advice in the world will only help you if you can motivate yourself to take persistent, continuous action in the direction of your goals until you succeed. 


Self-Discipline is the Core Quality
The single most important quality of success is self-discipline. Self-discipline means that you have the ability, within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed. It is not what you learn that is decisive for your future. It is whether or not you can discipline yourself to pay the price, over and over, until you finally obtain your objective. 


Persisitence is Self-Discipline in Action
Perhaps the most important demonstration of self-discipline is your level of persistence when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Persistence is the true measure of individual human character. Your persistence is, in fact, the real measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed. 


The Common Quality of Success in History
The history of the human race is the story of the triumph of persistence. Every great man or women has had to endure tremendous trials and tribulations before reaching the heights of success and achievement. The endurance and perseverance is what made them great. 


Your Guarantee of Eventual Success
Calvin Coolidge, a president who was so reluctant to speak in public that he was given the nickname of “Silent Cal,” will go down in history for his simple but memorable words on success. He wrote, “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”


Action Exercise
Identify the biggest challenge or problem facing you today on the way to achieving your biggest goal. Imagine that it has been sent to test your resolve and desire. Decide that you will never give up.

The Law of Quality

The customer demands the very highest quality for the very lowest price. This seems simple except that many companies try to violate this law on their way to the bankruptcy courts. The customer is very smart. The customer will always act to satisfy the greatest possible number of his or her needs in making any particular buying decision. Only companies that cater to the customer's relentless insistence on even higher levels of quality at even lower prices are successful in the marketplace. 

Quality is What the Customer Says it is

Only the customer can define quality. Sometimes even the customer cannot define it clearly, but the customer will vote for quality by the way she spends her dollars. And more than 80 percent of buying decisions today are either made or strongly influenced by women.

Quality Includes Both the Product and Service
Quality also includes the way that it is sold, delivered, and maintained. The customer's definition of quality includes all of the activities associated with the purchase, ownership, and use of the item. Prices in a quality restaurant are not based only on the fact that good food is served on a plate. A first-class restaurant, one that commands above-average prices and can earn above-average profits, also services the food in an atmosphere of comfort and enjoyment that people are willing to pay more for. Can you imagine a waiter in a nice restaurant slapping the plate down on the table and just walking away? Even a simple product can be sold and served with a cheerfulness and courtesy, thereby increasing its perceived value. 


Profitability in Direct Proportion to Quality Ranking
What this means is that if a research firm was to go into your marketplace and conduct an honest, objective survey amongst the customers for what you sell, it could develop a quality ranking for your company in terms of how it compares to your competitors. A major reason that companies that are seen as high-quality companies are more profitable is because of the deep need that customers have for security or safety in their purchase decision. Better quality is associated in the customers' minds with greater safety and predictability. The perception of better quality reduces the feeling of uncertainty or risk in making the buying decision. It makes it easier to buy.


Action Exercise
Determine your quality ranking in your industry. Use objective polling if you can. Use your intuition if you must. But be absolutely honest with yourself. Ask your staff and colleagues where they would rank your company on a scale from one to ten among your competitors, as well. 

 The Law of Advance Planning

The best salespeople prepare thoroughly before every call. This principle is so simple that it is often overlooked. The hallmark of the true professional is thorough preparation, reviewing every detail, before every sales meeting. The very best salespeople are those who review their presentations and study the details of their products, their competition and their sales materials repeatedly prior to every new sales contact.

The Customer's Situation
The salesperson with the best knowledge of the customer's real situation will be the one most likely to make the sale. The more time you take to thoroughly understand your prospective customer and your prospective customer's situation, the more likely you will be in a position to sell at the critical moment.

Sales Professionals Plan their questions in Advance
There is a direct relationship between the quality of the problem focused questions that you ask a customer and the likelihood of a sale taking place. The only way of assuring that your questions are clear and penetrating is by writing them out, word for word, in advance. Some of the most successful salespeople who have ever lived have been "question experts."

Notes
The power is on the side of the salesperson with the best notes. Plan your sales-call objectives thoroughly in advance of meeting the client. Write down and itemize exactly what you hope to accomplish in this visit. After the call, quickly write down everything that was said. Don't trust it to memory. Remember the Chinese saying, "The palest ink lasts longer than the finest memory." Prior to every sales call, and no matter how many times you have visited this same customer, take a few minutes to review the customer's file, the customer's situation, and your own notes on what has taken place in the past. You'll be amazed at how impressive you sound when you go into a sales interview having just reviewed the customer's file a few minutes before. And customers always know if you have done your homework.

Prior to Closing a Sale
The top salespeople in every field prepare exhaustively prior to selling, prior to their presentations, and prior to closing. They think everything through in advance. And they leave nothing to chance. Remember, it's the details that make the difference. The salesperson who has taken the greatest amount of time to acquaint himself or herself with the most specific needs of the customer is the one who builds the highest level of trust and the best sales relationship. Thorough preparation is the essential precondition for successful selling.

Sales and Marketing Profitability

Do you know the return on your sales and marketing expenditures? It is not unusual for companies to spend 25 to 35 percent of their revenues on sales and marketing, yet often they don't know the actual return on these initiatives. Before adopting a new marketing initiative, determine how you will measure, not only its impact on sales, but on profits as well. What is an acceptable rate of return? How will you measure the return? Establish a monitoring system whereby you can gauge the efficacy of the program throughout its implementation. 

Product Profitability

Every product yields a specific profit of a specific amount. When you offer more than one product, each will have its own profit margin. One of the most important things you can do is to determine the return on the investment you have put into each of your products. 

Marathon and Associates

Marathon and Associates, a niche consulting firm, receives enormous fees from Fortune 1000 companies to determine the exact cost of each of their products. This enables their clients to make product-offering decisions based on the profitability of each product, rather than simply relying on gross revenue figures. In today's highly competitive business climate, such an approach is critical in ensuring their overall profitability and even their survival. This is no less true of your own business or organization. Eliminating just one losing product can make the difference between robust growth and mediocre performance or even the demise of your business. 

Product Mix

Examine your own product mix. In addition to the normal “cost of goods,” you must include all expense incurred in delivering the finished product to the consumer, including research and development, promotion, associated sales and marketing costs, installation, customer service, product service, returns, proportionate share of general and administrative costs (overhead), and so on. Again, be sure to include the cost of your own time; apply your hourly rate to the amount of time you invest in the development, design, creation/manufacture, sale, and servicing of each product. 

Break Down Costs Accurately

Many individuals and businesses lump all their expenses together and then guess at how much is attributable to each product. Your job is to break down so accurately that you know within a few dollars exactly how much you net from the sale of each product. When you have completed your costing analysis, simply deduct the actual cost of developing, selling, and delivering each product from the price to determine its profitability. Which products yield the highest return? The lowest? Do any actually lose money? 

Market Profitability

If you sell into more than one market, the same principle applies. Some markets will be more profitable than others. When dealing in foreign markets, for example, you may incur much higher advertising and marketing costs. Conversely, your manufacturing costs might be significantly lower. If you export your products into foreign countries, import duties or tariffs may apply. At times, unexpected costs in dealing in new markets may make the difference between a profitable venture and a financial disaster. 

Action Exercise

Identify your most and your least profitable/productive tasks and activities. 

Writing Effective Emails To Build Rapport 

Building an email list is by far one of the most important parts of any online business. Your list can provide you with income on autopilot. However, there are some things you have to do within your emails to build rapport and a good relationship with your subscribers. Simply sending sales message after sales message without building rapport will only result in a lot of unsubscribes and spam complaints. 

So what do you need to do when writing emails in order to build rapport? The answer is very simple: storytelling. 

People love to read stories. This is how we really connect with one another. Otherwise, television, books and social media wouldn't be as popular as they are. People like to read stories, and they also like to relate. They want to relate to what you have to say. Although it might seem very tempting to come off as some kind of guru in your niche, that really isn't what we're going for here. 

Instead, you want people to be able to relate to you on a personal level. Sometimes, you might even want to entertain them with your emails. Other times, you want to inspire them with what you have to say. You know that you are doing a good job of this if people actually email you back, thanking you for your email. 

It's unfortunate that the online world has become a place of sales pitches for the most part. People are accustomed to getting a lot of sales emails and deleting them. What you want to do is create emails that allow people to know, like and trust you. That way, they won't delete your emails, but will read them instead. 

Recently, I was talking to another marketer who does this very well. She had sent out an email to her subscribers about information overload. Her email was long and inspirational. She talked about how she felt overloaded with information when she first got online. She gave tips on how to get over it as well. 

This marketer was astounded when she started receiving responsive emails from her list about this particular message. People were thanking her for giving them that information and letting her know that that's exactly how they felt. She had sent hundreds of other emails throughout the year, but this was the only one that people actually responded to. 

The next week, she crafted an email message about having a strong foundation in your business. She used trees as an example. At the time, she told me, she was watching trees blow back and forth in her yard before a storm. She was noticing how the trees with the strongest foundation would bend but never break. So, she decided to write an email relating that to business. Again, she got many responses from people thanking her for her inspirational words. 

It's very tempting to spend most of your time sending sales emails because we all want to make an income. However, over time you will find that connecting with your list will make you more money than simply sending out random sales emails. Build that trust, and your list becomes a sales machine for you. 

Waste of Time?

 

7 Ways Time Management 

Can Improve Your

 

Work Performance

Your interactions with others consume as much time, if not more, than any other part of your day. You can eliminate waste of time by learning time management strategies that can help you build more efficient interaction with others. You can also maximize work performance by improving the quality of your communications.

Miscommunication is a Waste of Time

A major waste of time is caused by misunderstandings between people about roles, goals, and responsibilities. People do not know what they are expected to do, how to do it, and by what time.

Misunderstandings lead to inefficiencies, anger, frustration, and unhappiness. It often requires an enormous amount of time to clear up a misunderstanding and get matters back to normal.

Most of your problems in life talk back. They come with hair on top. Perhaps 85 percent of your happiness, or unhappiness, in life involves other people in some way. Miscommunications with other people can create a major waste of time and lower work performance, but this can easily be fixed through proper time management.

Unclear Priorities and Work Performance

Misunderstandings about priorities often lead to your working at the wrong job, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and perhaps aiming at the wrong level of quality. Or the problem may be that you are working for the wrong person.

The single most important cause of high levels of motivation in work for increased work performance is defined as “knowing exactly what is expected.” On the other hand, the number-one complaint, or demotivator, of employees is to “not know what is expected.”

In order to eliminate waste of time and increase work performance, you need absolute clarity about your job and what you are expected to do. You need clarity with regard to results required and standards of performance. You need clarity with regard to schedules and deadlines. You need clarity with regard to the rewards for doing a good job and the consequences of failing to do good work. If you are serious about improving your time management, clarity is everything.

Ineffective Delegation and Poor Time Management

Poor delegation to others, or from others, leads to mistakes and frustration on the part of both the boss and the employee. It is a major waste of time and a good time management technique to work on.

One of the rules for success in life and work is to “assume the best intentions of everyone.” You can generally assume that each person does the very best he can at the job he thinks he is supposed to do. But poor delegation causes even the most sincere talented people to have poor work performance or the wrong jobs. Therefore, they end up feeling frustrated and unhappy.

Unclear Lines of Authority

Unclear lines of authority and responsibility leads to waste of time. People do not know who is supposed to do what job, when is it be done, and to what standard of quality. People are left to wonder, who is supposed to report to whom? Who’s in charge? Who’s the boss?

Incomplete Information

Another major waste of time in business is poor or incomplete information, which leads to erroneous assumptions and conclusions that decrease work performance. It is amazing how often people jump to conclusions or make false assumptions on the basis of wrong information.

The very best managers take the time to ask questions, and they listen carefully to the answers before they make a decision. If there is a key piece of information that suggests a problem or difficulty, they double-check on this piece of information to make sure that it is accurate.

Aimless or Too Frequent Meetings

Too many meetings, or aimless meetings that proceed without an agenda, direction, or closure, are an enormous waste of time at work. These are meetings that start and stop without any particular resolution. No problems are solved, no decisions are made, and no responsibilities are assigned. No deadlines are agreed upon for action.

Lack of Clarity Concerning One’s Job

Lack of information or unclear communications on important matters affecting a person’s work can create a major waste of time. In one survey on employee motivation and work performance, the best companies were defined as places where each person felt that he was an insider and “in the know” about what was going on in the company. The worst places to work were described as those where no one was sure about what was really going on. In this type of situation, people were unclear about their responsibilities, unsure about their jobs, and cautious about taking any risks. When people don’t know what is going on, it leads to demotivation, poor work performance, lack of time management, and “playing it safe.”

People need to know everything that is happening in the company that affects their particular jobs. The very best companies are open and honest with all employees concerning those matters affecting the health of the company.

Employees need to know what is going on and how their jobs fit into the big picture. When employees are unclear or unsure, an enormous amount of time is lost as the result of conversations, discussions, and gossip, which lead to ineffective work behaviors and poor work performance.

I hope you enjoyed this article about increasing work performance and time management to eliminate waste of time. 

3 Ways to Improve 

Your Public Speaking 

and Presentation Skills

There are three components you must know in order to improve your presentation skills for better public speaking. When someone asks me how he can build effective communication skills and improve his public speaking, I quote to him the words of Elbert Hubbard, who said, “The only way to learn to speak is to speak and speak, and speak and speak, and speak and speak and speak.”

But while it’s true that the only way to become good at anything is by repetition, over and over, until it becomes second nature, there are many things that you can do to be more effective speaking in front of audiences.

The starting point in the art of public speaking is to pick a subject that you really care about. It is to think through the subjects that have had an extraordinary impact on you, the subjects that you would like to share with others because you intensely feel that others could benefit from your knowledge. With this, you have a springboard off which you can leap into your first public talk.

The second part of public speaking is preparation for effective communication. Preparing is more important than anything except caring about your subject. It’s not unusual for a person to spend many hours, days and even weeks preparing for a talk.

Planning for Effective Communication

To prepare for a talk, the first thing to do is to write out an objective statement of what you wish to accomplish as a result of your presentation. Whether it’s a 10-minute presentation or a 10-hour presentation, the statement of your objective is the same. It’s the answer to the question, “Who is my audience, and what effect do I want my talk to have upon them?”

So you need to ask, “What action do I want this audience to take as a result of the things I say to them?” Write out this action statement of your objective very clearly. Then write down everything that you think you could possibly say, one point after the other, to this audience to cause them to take this action. Remember, the reason for public speaking is not simply to teach or to share information. It’s to move people’s minds and hearts and to provoke them into changing their behavior in some way.

Once you have an outline of what you want to accomplish and some of the ways that you can accomplish it, begin to do your research, if necessary. If you don’t have enough information, begin to read and to ask questions.

If you’re giving a short talk, the very best strategy to improve your presentation skills is to write it out, word for word, in detail. Then read through it and edit it. Revise it wherever necessary. Add to it, and subtract unnecessary data. Work on it until it is polished, and then read through it several times so that you have such a good sense of the material that you can go through the entire talk prior to falling asleep or while you’re driving your car.

Improve Your Presentation Skill

If the first two parts of successful public speaking are caring and preparing, the third part is practicing and improving your presentation skills. If you have a tape recorder or, even better, a video camera, record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it, and make notes on how you could make it better. If you’re using a video camera, look into the camera and use the same facial expressions and the same body gestures that you would use if you were speaking directly to someone. When you critique yourself, be very hard on yourself. Remember, the more honest and objective you can be about how you come across to others, the faster you will build effective communication skills for success.

Practice makes perfect, and perfect practice makes it even more perfect.  If you practice consistently, you will find that your presentation skills have dramatically improved over time. Remember, your ability to speak effectively in front of people can do more to advance your career and your life than perhaps any other skill you can develop.

Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

It’s normal and natural for you to be nervous about public speaking, but you must overcome that fear to improve your presentation skills. Fifty-four percent of American adults rank public speaking ahead of fear of death among life’s major fears. Most people become nervous and uneasy at the very thought of standing up to speak in front of an audience, and their hearts pound.

Speaking professionally really is not something that you can decide in favor of or against. You don’t really have a choice. If you want to realize your full potential in the world of business, you must learn how to improve your effective communication skills to better communicate with people. I have seen executives make extraordinary career jumps, saving themselves as much as five to 10 years of time working up the executive ladder, simply by using effective communication skills at a corporate meeting. I’ve observed men and women who’ve put their careers onto the fast track by overcoming their fears and developing their presentation skills.

Pay any price, spend any amount of time, overcome any obstacle, but make a decision, right now, that you’re going to learn to speak well before groups and practice your presentation skills consistently. It could be one of the most important decisions you ever make in assuring long-term success in your career.

5 Tips for Running Effective Meetings: Improve Meeting Management Skills

Meetings are an essential part of the life of every organization and your ability to run effective meetings with your management skills is a critical part of your success in meeting management. As a leader, there are a series of things I recommend that you keep in the back of your mind.

Meeting Management Tip #1: Begin With a Purpose

 

One of the most important tasks you need to do to improve your management skills and hold more effective meetings, is to begin with an outline of the purpose.  When everyone sits down you say, “We are holding this meeting today to accomplish these goals and objectives.”

The opening five to seven minutes in any meeting is the most important component to conducting more effective meetings.  It sets the foundation, establishes the parameters, organizes the terms of reference and tells everybody in the room why they are there, for how long, and what they need to accomplish.  I also recommend that you write out your introduction word for word and read it out.  This clarity will allow a person who doesn’t know you or the situation coming in to get right up to speed at the start.

Improve your management skills during a meeting by being both specific and punctual with the timing.  Be sure to announce the duration.  This should also be printed at the top of your agenda, but you want to restate it in your introduction.  Begin right on time. Do not penalize the people who were there on time by waiting for others who are late. Assume that the latecomer is not coming at all and get right on with the meeting.  This helped me so much when I first learned this.

If someone comes in late and finds out they’ve missed important information, refuse to start over for them.  They will eventually get the message, be more punctual, and help you improve your management skills in a respectable manner.  Many companies have a policy where if a meeting is called for 10:00 am, they lock the doors from the inside at 10:01. You only have to do that once to get people to be on time.

If you’re there to solve a problem you say, “We are here to talk about and to come to a decision, conclusion, and resolution on this problem.  Here are the facts of the problem.  Here is the information that we have, the alternatives we’ve considered, and our market intelligence.  Now, what do we do from here?”

Meeting Management Tip #2: Encourage Open Discussion for More Effective Meetings

 

It’s very important that you get input from everybody; not only the people who have a lot to contribute and are eager, but also from those who are more shy and less likely to speak up.  You want input from especially women and others who may be a little bit reluctant to try to compete with more aggressive or assertive people.

Remember that leaders don’t dominate. We have found that the natural tendency of meeting leaders is to speak 50 percent of the time on average. This is not for you and it is important for you to steer away from this to improve your management skills. As a leader, you should take the role as a facilitator and avoid hogging the discussion. There is a tendency for you to speak more and more because you’re the one who prepared the agenda.

The way to avoid inadvertently dominating the meeting is to delegate meeting leadership. Whenever possible, assign the meeting management responsibility to someone else, to build subordinates skills. This is wonderful training tool that gives employees the opportunity to build their meeting management skills, organize their thought, and perform in front of a group. They will learn a lot from planning the meeting and preparing the agenda, and this will ultimately help you run more effective meetings.  Very often what I’ll do in my management positions is rotate the leader position to other staff in subsequent meetings, which will help them improve their management skills.

Keep the discussion on track.  A key job of the meeting leader is to keep bringing people back to the issue. Stick to the items on the agenda and don’t allow discussion to stray or wander. By keeping the discussion back to the main issue, this will help you conduct more effective meetings and save a lot of time.

Meeting Management Tip #3: Press for Closure

Once you start talking on a subject, discuss it thoroughly but press for closure on what has been decided and who’s going to do what and by when, before you go on to the next item on the agenda.

The inability to keep on track and to press for closure are the two major time wasters and major complaints from people who attend non-effective meetings.

Meeting Management Tip #4: Summarize the Main Point

An important meeting management tip to learn is to summarize at the end of each discussion point and at the end of the meeting.  Set out and summarize your time and action schedules, and your implementation plan and assignments.  Then have everybody in the meeting agree on what has been decided.

Something very interesting happens.  There is what is called “peer pressure.”  People who agree to do something in front of their peers are much more likely to follow through.  If everyone heard them say that they would do something by Thursday at noon, it is much more likely that they will have an internal incentive that will save you the need to monitor, inspect and control.

They can’t come back later and say they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, because there is a group of witnesses.  So getting people to commit publicly is a very powerful tool of meeting management psychologically and one of the best management skills I’ve learned to use.

Meeting Management Tip #5: Keep a Record

Finally, distribute minutes from the meeting within 24 hours. The more important the decisions that have been taken, the more important that you have them distributed in writing so that if they have questions they can get back to you. If there are no questions then they are accepting the record of the meeting as distributed. This is a final step that is very important part of conducting more effective meetings and improving your management skills.