Growth & Leadership Insights

3 Revelations of Optimistic Leadership

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Counting our blessings during Thanksgiving often generates optimism and energy.  Optimism, as it turns out, makes a difference in business metrics like productivity, customer satisfaction and profit. Why? Because optimistic people expect to succeed. When they encounter obstacles, they try harder – instead of giving up, they find ways to overcome the barriers and reach their objective. Leaders who are optimistic raise the aspirations of their people to see what’s possible and to achieve their …

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Pursuing the Tipping Point

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The marketer’s challenge is to reach the tipping point where most people in the target audience feel that most other people are already benefiting from the marketer’s new product or service. The role of proactive marketing is essentially to alert the right people in this audience that now is the exact time to acquire the new offering, if they want to remain in sync with others in the market, which is a goal for many. …

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The Bridge of Whys

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The best sales people have developed proven methods that help them discover a customer’s current needs. They are so comfortable with their technique that they often reject any refinement, even though they realize that an improvement could make them even more effective. If the purpose is to win a transaction, then devotion to an existing discovery process may be enough. But if the objective is to consistently earn a customer’s business, to earn that customer’s …

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Searching for Opportunity

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When I served in senior leadership roles, it was a constant struggle to break away from current challenges so I could focus on the future. Everyday problems relentlessly seek to attract your attention, and it’s easier to deal with these – you’ve seen them all before. Contemplating what’s next for your business is the bigger challenge, and a great opportunity. It forces you to get your head up, to look outward and to assess the …

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Three Levels of Customer Commitment

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Customers react to proposed solutions in one of three ways, and they will progress in a positive direction, from one level of commitment to another, when effectively guided by the salesperson. Meetings are held every day to discuss changes that should be made in a business, but often never are. Your proposed solution will be reviewed in one of these meetings, and a decision will be made to accept your proposal only if the customer …

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The First Step in Earning Leadership

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Being named as leader doesn’t make you one. Leadership is earned from those you seek to lead. For you to be successful as a leader, they must choose to follow you. Your team will make this choice by judging your truthfulness, your authenticity. The first step you take to establish your leadership identity creates a lasting impression that defines your potential as a leader. Before you can lead others, you must know yourself well, and …

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“Measure Twice…Cut Once”

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These words were the first I heard when I began to help my dad with projects around our home. Every time I begin a new initiative, they come back to me. When an organization is transforming their selling strategy to one focused on customer-partnering, the implementation is more successful if the new process is “piloted” prior to full scale launch. Successful sales people will resist a change away from a selling process that has worked …

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Authenticity and Challenge

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In 2013, the Edelman Trust Barometer documented that only 18% of people reported that they trusted business leaders to tell the truth. That same year, Gallop polled 180 million employees and reported that only 13% of them are engaged at work. With confidence and morale so low, one attribute is most often mentioned as the primary reason that employees respect their leader. Authenticity enables leadership. But it can also disable it. How is that possible? …

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How Customers Define a Productive Sales Experience

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In this age of limited time and unlimited access to information, many customers specify their preference of working with a salesperson whose expertise and insight help clarify their needs. What 3 factors define a productive sales experience for these customers? An effective sales discovery process will uncover a customer’s goals, but the way this process is experienced by the customer is the key to making it productive for both parties in the transaction. Sales people …

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Pursuing Leadership Mastery

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The pursuit of mastery – the drive to be the best, to have an extraordinary technical or other competence – creates an intriguing challenge for business leaders.  (See “The Mystery of Mastery” post 6/11/15) Encouraging and enabling their personnel to develop the highest level of expertise in a given discipline is a fundamental responsibility of leadership. But in a world that grows increasingly dynamic, where change is constant, with no finish line in sight, how does …

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