Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of coining the phrase, “If it doesn’t get measured it doesn’t get done!” In all honesty, many people who start a business are just excited to practice the trade, skill or talent that they’ve spent years learning and perfecting. If you’re a doctor, you probably are more interested in healing your patients, than running a business. If you own a hair salon, you might care more about creating stylish fashions than crunching profit numbers. But we all know that the bottom line matters. Bottom line! Right? So, the … well… bottom line is that if business owners don’t take time to crunch numbers and determine their revenue requirements, they will not ever see the incredible profits that they are fully capable of achieving.
Let me break is down for you. If you are running a business in boat rentals, for example, you will need to calculate your cash outflow every month (taking into consideration any irregular maintenance costs that need to be factored in) and then from there, you can begin to calculate your cash inflow. Once you know the dollar amount that you need to maintain your desired profit margins on a monthly basis, you can begin to have fun with generating sales and business activity.
This is where your industry knowledge and acumen can combine with my business experience and skills to create a dynamic company that will beat your competition. I like to refer to your sales as a spigot. When you understand how to generate leads and convert those into sales, you are essentially learning how to turn on the water spigot – your source of sales flow. Once you acquire the right communication, marketing and sales tools to achieve a rapid flow of business, then you’ll be basking in the cool waters of success! It’s all about the measurement of your business’s key ratios and statistics. Know your numbers and then you know how to turn on the spigot to make the money and sales flow easily!
Buyers are going goo goo for Lady Gaga! In fact, recently, Amazon.com ran a promotion for the popular pop singer, Lady Gaga. However, the company was not prepared for the wave of consumer response, as customers bombarded the online retailer with interest. The company has actually had to re-release the promotion to accommodate the number of customers whose purchase was backlogged due to the barrage of hits.
According to a recently released article on the Wall Street Journal about this business blooper, “The promotion is part of Amazon’s strategy to win customers from Apple Inc.’s iTunes store, which controls the vast majority of the digital-music market. Amazon offered the Lady Gaga album as part of its daily deal for its online music store. It is losing money on the album, which has a wholesale price of about $9, but hopes to draw more business with such popular deals.”
This is a critical mistake that all businesses can learn from. Imagine that in your business, you have spent significant dollars on your marketing and sales promotions to win buyers. You have invested in advertising, a fancy website, and even profit-losing discounts like Amazon’s, in order to get calls coming in and people walking through your doors. You’ve done all this, and then – WHAT?!?!? Your operation is not prepared to handle the business?
I see this type of mistake happen all the time, and your company does not have to be a victim of a blooper like this. The critical factor is your staff’s ability to carry the torch of your marketing dollars through the sales process. Whether your next business step is an online purchase transaction, or an appointment confirmation, you must ensure that your company is ready to smoothly handle the business that your marketing dollars are generating.
Don’t miss out on sales opportunities from being unprepared! With proper training, your front line staff can learn efficient and effective communication and operation skills for driving your prospects to sales, and for keeping those customers once you have buy-in.
Sales training is critical in today’s dog eat dog business world. Many businesses today fail to turn over business when a prospect calls in because they don’t know what to say. Now… I’m talking to all you business owners when I say this – THAT IS SUCH A WASTE! Imagine money literally flying out of the window of your speeding car, and that’s what your loss looks like. But all is not lost. My desire is to help you by giving you a highly impactful piece of insight on your team’s communication skills. Through my green zone communication and sales training, your front line team can go straight from zero to hero.
By utilizing our innovative training program, you can leverage the money that you’re spending on marketing for good. The calls that come in from that marketing spending will be received with skill instead of untrained response. Your sales and administrative team will have a skilled ability to guide the conversation towards an appointment, presentation or product and service sale. All this improvement will be because of your improved management efforts with your employees, increasing their individual value to you, and ultimately raising your revenues. Cha-ching! That’s what we’re looking for!
On our website, www.greenzonescheduling.com, we say, “take the green pill,” and have results, now! We mean that it’s almost as easy as that! Our sales training sessions are so high impact that our customers come out with hard and fast results that they can use to positively impact their company’s bottom line immediately.
Take it from us – we know what we’re doing, and so can you. Through our cutting edge green zone communication techniques, your prospective clients and customers will be significantly more driven to sign a deal with you instead of your competition. Take advantage of our solutions to build phone rapport, handle objections, prioritize calls and book appointments using our double bind strategy. Stop being a time waster, and start being a money maker. Call us today for your appointment or to order your live audio, calls, certificates and group coaching!
Our business of professional sales coaching and training has brought us in front of a myriad of clients of all different industries, company sizes and experience levels. Yet, one thing we consistently see as a need among our clients is refinement in the area of communication. Before working with our techniques and training tools, many of our client companies would not have the proper communication guidelines to follow in leading a sales conversation in the direction – and at the pace – that is most effective for the customer to arrive at a purchase decision. We’ve seen a huge gap in communication! It doesn’t have to be that way. As I like to say, “Improve your communication skills improve your results. A sale is that simple of a game.” One of the best ways to get those results is by working through an exercise that we call the Undeniable Truth Tree. Let me explain.
The Undeniable Truth Tree is a part of what we call Green Zone communication. It’s critical that in the process of company communication, sales representatives guide their conversation with the client/customer in a direction that adequately addresses all problems and objections that the client might have. Using Undeniable Truth Statements and Undeniable Truth Questions, your sales team should be engaging your prospective clients in conversation that makes it difficult for them to say “no” and opens up the conversation.
Without engaging the client in these questions, your sales team may have never gained an appropriate understanding of why the client might be hesitant to say “yes” to your product or service. Your chances of making the sale improve dramatically by exploring the undeniable truth tree with the prospect, simply because you are unearthing hidden problems that they are otherwise likely to be sorting through in their own head without inviting you in on that conversation.
Think about the questions you could be asking and statements that you could be making that would engage your prospects in an active conversation about the objections they may have against your product or service. Your mission is to ensure that you effectively communicate how your company will fulfill their goals and needs at a level that meets or exceeds the price that they will be paying to you. By going through the Undeniable Truth Problems and Questioning with your prospects, they will be open to discussing how you and your products can help them with their problems. Of course if there is a fit! That, my friends, is a win-win!
You don’t have 10 minutes to make your first impression. In fact, you don’t even have four minutes for that. No, the time you have to impress your prospective clients and customers is less than 60 seconds! It’s less than 30 seconds! You have exactly ½ of a second to win the approval of your prospects. Bam! That’s all you have, whether you’re speaking in person or on the phone. How well do you and your team work within that split second? Are your sales training tactics in place for a successful outcome?
Consider this scenario: you are speaking with someone at an association meeting, and when you approach a prospect after the meeting ends to introduce yourself, you are being judged by that person before you even open your mouth. They are quickly and even subconsciously evaluating whether they get an acceptable vibe from the way you walk, the appearance of your clothes, and your mannerisms. Critiquing you on whether they see a right fit for their needs, they have already measured you up on their judgment of confidence, professionalism and capability… before you’ve even opened your mouth.
Then, you actually do open your mouth, and extend your hand for a greeting. As they grip your handshake, this prospect is simultaneously gauging whether they like the firmness of your handshake as well as listening for a comfortable sound in the tone of your voice. They can tell whether you are nervous, or at ease, just by listening to your vocal steadiness. If you are smiling easily, they have probably concluded that you are friendly and likeable. That split second counts significantly, and you’ve barely even mentioned your name!
Now, consider how much more critical this split-second first impression is when on a phone sales call. Has your sales force training properly covered effective product scripts, to leverage that critical first impression? The business and sales training programs that you choose should absolutely not miss this pivotal point: the .5 second opportunity to make a winning first impression will make or break your sale.
Catch your prospects’ genuine interest with the right approach to the sales process. Call us today for a consultation!
Imagine you’re attending a conference, and you’ve traveled between 5-6 hours to attend this particular trade show. Perhaps you’re in the medical field and you’ve got an interest in learning a new technology that will advance your practice using today’s best technologies. You attend an education seminar on a particular technology and they lose you at hello. Their presentation is dry, but worse than that, they banter on and on about their company in an endless self-promotion of their product. Your first impression is set in stone and if you haven’t already stood up and walked out, you’ve disengaged, and you’re texting and emailing on your iPhone until the session winds up. You’ve spent a lot of money and time to attend this conference, and you’re disgruntled at the seminar’s useless content.
Now, imagine a different scenario. At the same conference, you attend a seminar with presenters who snag your attention from the start. Their passionate energy holds your attention and their presentation provides meaningful support for the performance of their product. The biggest difference in their content? … They tell interesting and detailed stories and metaphors that capture the imagination of their audience. They use this flexibility of thought as a sales communication technique that invites their audience (prospective clients) to engage in a visual and auditory learning process in which the product is understood via association with a story that makes sense and offers meaning. You leave the seminar, accurately informed on this product’s advantages, and you’re eager to talk with the company further upon your return from the conference.
Flexibility of thought utilizes creativity and comparison and is a critical element of your sales team’s training for success. I call the skill of leveraging stories and metaphors in the sales process, Million Dollar Stories. Why? Because your prospects can connect with those metaphors better than they can your new product. If you were explaining social media for the first time to someone who’s never heard of it, you could use the metaphor of Facebook, since it’s a widely familiar social media site. If your corporate sales team were pitching a daily deal sales tool, your employees could utilize the story of Groupon, one of today’s most popular discount deals published every day.
Stories sell, so learn how to use them to your advantage! Our team ready to boost your company’s communication process today. Call us and we’ll train your team to better your bottom line.
Do you ever have that feeling that talking with some people is easier than communicating with others? Some people just don’t seem to click with you when you’re trying to exchange ideas. And your message certainly doesn’t stick with them after you’ve expressed it. And forget settling on an agreement with each other – you’re often completely on different pages when it comes to that! Well, we have a solution for you. Utilizing some strategic and simple speech techniques, you can bridge the gap between your own thoughts and others’ thoughts and feelings with more crystal clarity than ever before! By using speech that appeals to the primary senses including visual, auditory and kinesthetic, you will click with each other and your message will stick with greater effectiveness than you’ve experienced ever before.
One of the ways we perform effective sales and management training with our clients is to ask them to think about the ways in which they communicate. Are they commonly explaining their ideas using deliberate, sincere and wordy speech (kinesthetic), or by talking quickly and excitedly with filler words (visual/auditory)? Visual people will say “picture this,” while auditory people might describe something to “sound like,” and kinesthetic folks are likely to say “I need to get a grip on…”
In addition to detecting the clear senses that are important to your customers, the best way to effectively express your company’s message to them is break from the product script and use the words that they use. When you customer is talking about what they need from your company and what they are looking for in your firm’s services, really listen to the words that they use. If you are on the phone with this customer, begin writing down the words that they are saying to describe what they need. These are the words that mean something to them. Write them down and incorporate them into your own speech back to them, so they feel comfortable in knowing – on a subconscious level – that you understand their perspective and that you are making your best effort to suit their needs. Use language that will click and your message will stick!
If you are interested in learning more about this communication technique for your sales staff training, visit my website http://thelinklater.com/ and purchase my book, Quick Witted, for a full analysis of your communication style and speech pattern. It’s a great tool to use on clients, friends and even your significant other to improve understanding in conversation.
The sales process is all around us, in many places outside of the business conference room. In fact, sales happen on street corners, on golf courses, over the phone and even across a dinner table. That’s right – selling is a part of both our personal lives as well as our professional lives. Recently, a marketing and sales expert and contributing writer for Forbes Magazine confessed in an article that he learned a large portion of successful sales from a crushing dating experience. That’s right, romance can teach us something about selling!
Think about the pursuit of love. You glance across a room, and there she (or he) is. You have your eyes on the prize and you know what you want. It’s the same in business – you have a goal in mind… a desire that burns so strongly that you would go to great lengths to close the “deal” and take your reward. It might be that generously sized corporate client, a talented new hire that would be a great fit for your team, or a project that you are bidding against three competitors. The sales process begins, and the last thing you want to do is blow the deal. Just like the marketing director in Forbes learned the hard way, you know that you can’t just walk across the room to that beautiful lady, interrupt her conversation with the group she’s talking to, and invite her right there to the symphony tomorrow night. No, no, no! You need to have the right approach, including the appropriate questions.
With a sales “courtship,” you have to keep the client’s interests in mind, and be willing to maintain flexibility based on their wants and needs. To begin the process towards closing the deal, you need to gather information from your customer, and beginning by asking quality questions. It’s a discovery process. Asking the right questions builds trust and shows client-focused thinking.
When selling you have to be artfully skilled at asking questions to strategically uncover clients hot buttons and leverage points. You need the client to tell you what the pain points are even if you believe you know the buttons or points. Until you can skillfully do that you will have a tough time closing the deal!
While these ideas do not encompass all the possibilities, they begin to portray a picture of the growing understanding between a sales representative and his/her client that reflects a budding relationship leading towards a sale. Becoming skilled in asking the right questions with the appropriate timing can set you apart from others in this tough economy. Learn to master the art of asking questions, and you’ll increase your sales success exponentially by demonstrating that you are considering the client’s needs first. Contact us today to gain an even more acute understanding with personalized sales success coaching!
Over my career I have worked for some top fortune 500 financial firms. The managers I worked under always wanted the teams I was on to have a consistent message, a simple repeatable story. We always seemed to come up short as a team to develop this message. I even have taken part in boot camps to come up with a core story. My last couple years I spent in the financial sector we were riddled with product changes almost every day that unless you were trained in linguistics you could not help but to struggle developing a message. Denise and I have been calling this script your pitch. We always were good at developing our own messages and as a result we were always successful at selling. We now combine our linguistics training and are able to use what has made us successful with more purpose and clarity to help companies increase their sales by 20%. Here are the top 10 reasons you should be scripted just like great athletes and actors.
Top Ten Reasons to Script Your Pitch:
1. Stop “shoulding” on yourself with the things you should have said
2. Work smarter not harder
3. Turn prospects into clients
4. Bump your closing ratio by 20% or more!
5. Win Big: say what the client wants to hear
6. Increase company reputation
7. Know how to counter attack objections
8. Make the client experience more enjoyable
9. Turn up revenue
10. Of Course: Increase your ROI
Do not lose another sale or client without a simple repeatable core story for your company and employees. The language you use is the difference that makes the difference!
The following 10 secrets to success are adapted from the Investor’s Business Daily. We are bombarded by negative messages every day. Why not have 10 positive reminders by your side. (If you only have a few minutes, read the bold)
1) How you think is everything!
Create self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations.
2) Decide upon your true dreams and goals!
Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to get there.
3) Take Action!
Like Nike – Just do it.
4) Never stop learning!
Read books, take trainings, acquire new skills.
5) Be persistent and work hard!
Have a resilient attitude.
6) Learn to analyze details!
Get all the facts, all the input. Learn from mistakes
7) Focus your time and money!
Don’t let other things or people distract you.
8) Don’t be afraid to innovate; be different!
Following the herd is a sure way to mediocrity.
9) Deal and communicate with people effectively!
No person is an island. Learn to understand and motivate others.
10) Be honest and dependable; take responsibility!
I recently did a keynote presentation for the Farmers Illinois symposium. This presentation was in front of just shy of 300 Farmers Agents and District Managers. One of the topics I discussed is how our decisions lead to our success. Who you are now is a result of all the decisions that you have made in your life up to this point.
When I was in college I played two years of football. During my two years of football I sustained a knee injury that I did not fully recover from, therefore my playing days were over. In my last two years I had the opportunity to coach at Western Illinois University. At WIU I coached under one of the most successful coaches in 1AA history, Randy Ball. The first year we were ranked number 2 in the country and made it to the semifinal game of the playoffs. The great story about Randy that sticks in my head is what he used to say to the team before every game. Randy would come in and say this is the toughest game you are going to play in your career. The funny thing is that you believed him every time. He then went on to say today we are going to play about 140 plays and this game is going to be decided by 3 or 4 of those plays. The thing is you do not know which 3 or 4 plays are going to decide the game. That means whether you are on offense, defense or special teams you have to play every play like it is the play that is going to decide the game. When that play comes you want to be the victor not the victim.
See I believe life is a lot like that metaphor. When you look back on your life you will see that your life ultimately was decided by 3 or 4 decisions. The thing is you do not know which 3 or 4 decision. Therefore, you have to play hard and stay focused each and every day to make sure you come out victorious.
Prigogine’s Postulate states that all of life’s big decisions are made at what he calls a bifurcation point. Prigogine states that we walk through life with all our body’s biochemistry supporting us in good order. Then entropy sets in. As entropy sets in we approach a bifurcation point. At this point we either elect to carry on to more entropy or we select a new order.
A couple years ago my position was eliminated at AXA. At the time unemployment for my type of job was moving toward 40%. I had a conversation with one of my bosses at the time Mike McCarthy. Mike stated that if I am as good as I think and as good as he thinks there will always be a job out there for me. See I could have pulled the covers over my head and went on to more entropy, but I decided to heed is advice and carry on to new order. The last couple months of ’08 and the first couple months ’09 I had 4 interviews. Two of the interviewers I had to sell over the phone to even see me. I went on to get an offer at two of those companies, while 40% of my buddies were sitting on the sideline. The only difference between me and them is I made a decision that I was not going to be a victim of circumstance. Are you ready for when your life’s biforcation points arrive? Play each day like it is the day that is going to decide the outcome of your life.
John Wooden is the best! Here is a great 20 min video of Wooden. If you have only a little time listen to the first 5 min. I love what his pops told him about success. Never try to be better than others, always learn from others, never cease to be the best you can be that’s what you have control over….
How do you make a presentation interesting? You have great information, but you do not want to bore them with too much. You also do not want to be so abstract that you give them nothing. You need to find the right logical level of a global perspective to make it interesting while giving them enough specifics to give them actionable ideas. Be more flexible with your thought! Quick Witted gives you the techniques to be able to instantly go from a global perspective down to the specifics. Myers Briggs calls this intuitors (Global) and sensors (details). Successful people are great at thinking intuitively or global and brining the ideas down to the practical. The best presentations and trainings are ones that find the right level for the most effectiveness. The easiest way to start getting more flexible is to practice the simple ideas of chunking up, down and laterally with your thought (techniques from Quick Witted).
Analogies. Comparisons. Parallel associations that bring out meaning through an easily understandable story. I’m talking about metaphors: a tool of communication that helps others to see, hear and/or feel something for a better understanding of something that they may not have understood before. It’s a tool of breakthrough for the person or people that you are interacting with, where you are able to change something complex into something simple. Let me give a business example, to explain how this can be leveraged for corporate success.
Chick-fil-a’s June 2010 roll-out Spicy Chicken Sandwich is somewhat of a revolution for the company’s trustworthy line of low-spice mealtime favorites. The sandwich, in development since 2008, is the first new menu item on the fast food restaurant’s menu boards since the 1989 Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich. That coupled with the company’s reliable history since its incorporation in 1964 makes big changes especially monumental for the company. The problem was… while the company’s marketing research showed that the customers were demanding a spicier product, they still had the challenge of ensuring that the new product roll-out was successful with gaining new customers as well. Rather than going to another restaurant when in the mood for a spicy chicken lunch, Chick-fil-a had to significantly alter the minds of their customers to ensure that people associate the restaurant with regular and spicy chicken sandwich options. How did they do it?
The company’s Vice President of brand strategy and design, William F. “Woody” Faulk, worked within the company’s already-lighthearted marketing approach and used fun metaphors of fire and firefighters to convey the message that their menu has really “heated up” with the new item. Easily recognizable Chick-fil-a cows were designed in printed marketing pieces like promotional signs and billboards, wearing fire fighter hats to encourage safety when eating a “fired up” Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Product packaging was designed with light hearted message warning customers that their lunch “may start mouth fires”. Restaurant table toppers showcase a pretend fire alarm lever for putting out those “dangerous” mouth fires. The marketing metaphors changed the product associations in the minds of the company’s customers.
You see, with metaphors, you’re able to resolve a problem with an easily digestible and comprehensible solution. (notice the metaphor: problems cannot be literally “digested” in our stomachs like Chick-fil-a Spicy Chicken Sandwiches can, but similarly, problems can be broken down in our minds into smaller pieces so that we can process them and come to a solution more quickly).
By utilizing fun-filled marketing metaphors for fire-starting flavor innovations, Chick-fil-a has solved a new product sales problem by successfully revolutionizing its customers’ thinking to associate the company’s product offering with a newly diverse range of spicy and non-spicy options. I encourage you to think about how you can leverage the marketing and communication technique of metaphors in your business to simplify sales problems!
The Gordian Knot is a legend of Phrygian Gordium associated with Alexander the Great. It is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem, solved by a bold stroke (“cutting the Gordian knot”):
At one time the Phrygians were without a king. An oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Phrygia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. This man was a poor peasant, Gordias, who drove into town on his ox-cart. He was declared king by the priests. This had been predicted in a second way by a sign of the gods, when an eagle had landed on that ox-cart. In gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios (whom the Greeks identified with Zeus) and either tied it to a post or tied its shaft with an intricate knot of cornel (Cornus mas) bark. The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordium in the fourth century BC when Alexander arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire.
In 333 BC, while wintering at Gordium, Alexander the Great attempted to untie the knot. When he could not find the end to the knot to unbind it, he sliced it in half with a stroke of his sword, producing the required ends (the so-called “Alexandrian solution”). That night there was a violent thunderstorm. The prophets took this as a sign that Zeus was pleased and would grant Alexander many victories. Once Alexander had sliced the knot with a sword-stroke, his biographers claimed in retrospect that an oracle further prophesied that the one to untie the knot would become the king of Asia.
We all cannot do what Alexander the Great did and walk around waving a sword at our problems. The great thing is that you have “Quick Witted”! QW gives you the techniques to become more flexible in your thinking and become a better lateral thinker and problem solver. Just like Alexander the Great walked with a sword to slice through his problems, so can you. Put “Quick Witted” by your side to slice your problems.
A couple of years ago I had the great opportunity to hike the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in Yosemite National Park. The hike was to the peak of Half Dome. Half Dome is a 4,737 foot / 17 mile hike. This piece of the Sierra Nevada’s was deemed “perfectly inaccessible” in the early 1870’s. Then in 1875 a man by the name of George G. Anderson accomplished this “perfectly inaccessible” feat. Anderson was followed by, a novice hiker in 2008, by the name of Matt Linklater.
We started the hike at 9am. The first leg was a thigh burning mile walk on a paved path. Next was a stair like climb up The Mist (is a vigorous flowing waterfall). The stair like climb was more like a rugged boulder suicide staircase. That capped off the first 4 miles. The next 2.5 miles was not all that bad. It was a flat walk through sand. The sand instantly began to fill my shoes. The sand walk was followed by another 1 mile leg burning uphill dirt hike. Finally the end was in site. The final mile up was a switchback rock stair case climb. The last 400 feet was a straight up climb along a flat rock surface. To help us to the top were two cables bolted into the rock for us to pull ourselves up. Finally, at about 2 pm we made it to the top of Half Dome. A sense of accomplishment and relief swept over me. That feeling was short lived because I realized that I had to hike the 8.5 miles back down to the base. 3 hours later I was finally at that base. I immediately went to the bar and started to self medicate my aching body.
Although, this climb in hindsight was a great experience, doing it was a little bit of a different matter. The emotional rollercoaster was tougher than the actual task. The uphill climbs, followed by short downhill walks, knowing I will have to only walk back up. I thought of Anderson back in 1875. I doubt he had state of the art hiking boots. I doubt he had a camel back with 3 liters of water connected to a straw inches from his mouth. I doubt he had power bars packed with nutrition. Lastly, I doubt he had cables to ascend the final 400 feet.
This account is how the attainment of any worthwhile goal feels. The greatest joy is the completion of a goal that literally and metaphorically seems to be so far off in the distance. Set the goal, surrender the goal, and take action. With every piece of action and triumph along your journey keep your clearly defined goals in the background. Stop dreaming about your goals and start living your dreams!
Two weeks ago my fiancé and I hiked Mt. Whitney in California. The hike was 22 miles round trip, 6000 feet in elevation and peaked at 14,600 feet. The hike was as exhilarating as it was difficult. Along the way you have many thoughts as you can imagine. One of the things I noticed was the great mountain seemed to form perfect grooves and pathways from water, snow and glaciers traveling down the mountain for thousands of years. The interesting thing is that with grooves that vast, the water must travel in the same way time after time. As I hiked I began to think that we emulate those mass grooves with our nuero pathways. We have such vast nuero pathways inside of us that operate exactly like the mountains pathways have developed. The same way the water travels repeatedly down the same pathways, so do our behaviors. We often wonder why our results in our lives do not change. We wonder how we get stuck in the same circumstances. We may have even ramped up to relative success, and we cannot break through to the next level.
The reason is deductive versus inductive thinking. The reason our results never seem to change is we get caught in our own heads and our own version of how the world works. We always think we have the right way and resist change. I believe it was Einstein that said, “Absolute certitude, absolute exactness, final truth, and so on are figments of the imagination!” This statement is the basis of Quantum Physics. So how do go from deductive thinking and trying to make everything fit so nicely inside your box (your head) to more inductive ways of thinking to create new nuero pathways? Therefore, you can create bigger and better results for your life.
The Placebo effect in medicine is the increase of one’s health not due to any treatment, but due to one’s own beliefs. The nocebo effect is the decrease in one’s health due to one’s own negative beliefs. The Placebo effect is said to be over 40% effective. What do you believe inside your own head each and every day and how is that relating to the results that you are getting or not getting?
In a 2002 article in the American Psychological Associations’ Prevention & Treatment, “The Emperor’s New Drugs,” University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch found that 80% of the effect of antidepressants, as measured in clinical trials, could be attributed to the placebo effect. The Food and Drug Administration information shows that in more than 50% of the clinical trials for the 6 leading antidepressants, the drugs did not outperform placebo, sugar pills. Studies even have suggested that when people know they are not getting a drug, the placebo pills still work. Your magic pill is all in your head and to think I wasted all this time looking for it outside.
A gentleman by the name of Tim Perez, who went from walking with a cane to playing basketball as a result of the placebo effect, said on the Discovery health channel, “In this world anything is possible when you put your mind to it. I know that your mind can work miracles.” Work miracles for yourself!
If a positive belief in health works with over a 40% accuracy and success rate, what implications do your beliefs and attitudes have on your success in all areas of your life? Your message is already said and heard before you walk through your prospects door. They can sense your true belief and conviction at an unconscious level. Your beliefs control your outcomes.
Around1972 a small coffee maker in Seattle, Washington named Starbucks was trying to increase the company’s sales with an extremely limited marketing budget.
At the time they served just a limited menu of drinks, all served in either a tall or venti size cup. The tall was their number one seller. Most customers just couldn’t fathom drinking an entire venti. The venti appeared to be way too much coffee when positioned next to the tall.
With a limited marketing budget, Starbucks had the idea to implement the grande size drink as an attempt to increase coffee sales and consumption.
Quickly thereafter the grande became the number one seller, taking over the tall size’s popularity. The venti stepped in and took the number two spot.
The reality is that when an individual is confronted with three choices, they will almost always pick the middle, or the perceived middle, which in this case is the grande. In conjunction, suddenly the venti did not seem so large anymore when positioned next to the grande. Thus the grande became the best seller and the venti became the number two best seller. With that result Starbucks was able to increase their sales. It was a small change that yielded big results.
The following is a story is taken from Matt Linklater’s new book “QUICK WITTED”.
A few years ago, I took a four-day trip to South Beach. The weather was fantastic. It was sunny and 80 degrees every day. I had intentions of just relaxing and hanging out by the pool, but one day I decided to plan an excursion, and selected an enjoyable snorkeling trip—or so I thought.
The day started out great. I boarded the boat and had a relaxing ride. The sun was beating down on my face and the wind was in my hair.
Then, the terror began.
The boat stopped and began to rock back and forth so violently that when the right side came up you couldn’t see the shore, and when the left side rocked up you couldn’t see the horizon. I started to get ill.
To add insult to injury, the skipper happened to be a guy I played football against in college. Not only did he beat me on the field, but now I was getting sick on his boat!
In the end, I was so ill that I couldn’t snorkel and I had to just sit on the boat in misery until the expedition was done. They told me that if I looked at the horizon or the shore that it would help me feel better. This proved not to be 100 percent true. What really helped was staring at the shore knowing that in just an hour I would be back safely on dry land. Finally, we arrived back on the shore, eventually my stomach calmed down and I was able to enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of my vacation.
This experience is what most of face from time to time, whether in business or our personal lives. We all have goals and aspirations—but we often hit rough waters. Do not focus on the rough patch, but focus on your clearly defined goals, your horizon.
The reality is that we have all been in rough waters from time to time. We may have had some rough times in the economy over the past two years. I know I have not been immune to the tough times. In the past two years, my fiance and I, have had an immediate family member pass away, a serious illness with an immediate family member, we both have been laid off, she moved across the country, the list goes on. We have found the horizon for us are clearly defined goals. The more we push towards our dreams, desires and vision, the less we wallow in the rough waters.
My best friend Ernie called me today about a presentation he is doing this evening. Ernie is speaking in front of Ameriprise Financial Advisors as I am writing this. Ernie wanted a good opening story for his presentation. I gave him the following story directly from my new book “QUICK WITTED”.
Jack Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time. In his 25-year career, he accumulated a record 18 professional major wins and in addition, he won eight majors on the senior tour.
Several years ago, Jack was asked by the King of Saudi Arabia to come play golf. After declining many invitations, Jack finally said yes.
The King sent his private jet to the states to fly Jack over to Saudi Arabia, where he stayed with the King for a week. They spent each day playing 36 holes of golf. During the week Jack ate and lived, well, like a king.
At the end of the week, the King asked him, “Jack, you came and played golf with me. I greatly appreciate you taking the time. Is there anything in the world that I can possibly do for you?”
As all of us would do, Jack declined. He said, “I couldn’t possibly. We played golf. I ate and drank like a king. There is nothing I could possibly ask for.” The King persisted. Finally, Jack said, “You know what? I collect golf clubs. Buy me a golf club.” The King replied, “Great!”
On the way back to the states, Jack was again on the King’s private plane. The King’s jet was gaudier than anything that Donald Trump could even imagine, decked out in gold and jewels.
Jack started to fantasize about the golf club that the King would send him. He thought it might be diamond-encrusted, jewel-encrusted or possibly solid gold.
Jack returned home, a few months passed, and he had forgotten about the golf club. But after three months, Jack received a certified letter in the mail from the King. He opened up the letter and inside was a deed for a 500-ACRE GOLF CLUB!
The moral of the story is that the King thinks bigger than Jack. Jack was thinking a golf club and the king was thinking GOLF CLUB!
