Five Tips for Building Better Business Relationships

We’ve all heard that it’s not what you know but who you know that determines your success.

But sales coach Jim Cathcart asks this: ”Who is glad they know you?”

That’s why people do business with others they know and trust. When you offer value to another person, then they have a reason to care about staying connected with you. Cathcart offers these five tips for building better business relationships:

1. Approach each contact as the beginning of a long-term high-value relationship. Expect great things over the long run, and do your part to help both of you achieve your desired outcomes.
2. Plan to be loyal to your customers whether they are loyal to you or not. And be trustworthy, so they will want to be loyal in turn.
3. Continually ask yourself, “What else could I do for them without asking for something else?”
4. Give them the option to occasionally “have a bad day” without becoming upset or judgmental toward them. Nobody is always at their best.
5. Don’t always ask for something, occasionally just give them something or just listen to them without trying to “fix” them or sell to them. Enjoy building long lasting business relationship.

 

How Do You Attract Opportunity into Your Life?

Jim Rohn was often asked this question: “How can I have more opportunities come into my life?”

This is a Good question, but most people did not expect the answer he gives.

Jim Rohn bypassed the obvious (and necessary) points about hard work, persistence and preparation. Most people that asks this question actually were very hard workers. And they had the great attribute of being seekers; they were on the outlook. But Jim know they were missing a very valuable point: attraction. Here is what Jim Rohn shared.

I always thought opportunities and success were something you went after, but then I found out that I needed to turn it around. Opportunities and success are not something you go after necessarily, but something you attract—by becoming an attractive person.

That’s why I teach development of skills. If you can develop your skills—keep refining all the parts of your character and yourself, your health, your relationships, etc., so that you become an attractive person to the marketplace—you’ll attract opportunity. Opportunity will probably seek you out. Your reputation will probably precede you and someone will want to do business with you. All of the possibilities are there by working on the philosophy that success is something you attract.

The key is to continue making yourself a more attractive person by the skills you have, the disciplines you have, the personality you’ve acquired, the character and reputation you have established, the language and speech you use—all of that refinement makes you more attractive to the marketplace.

Personal development is the never-ending chance to improve not only yourself, but also to attract opportunities and affect others.

 

How to be an effective Presenter

I read a series of articles by Darren Hardy about “Be a Rock Star Presenter” I enjoy the content, therefore I am sharing it with you.

Success in today’s world comes down to your ability to share your ideas, expand your influence and involve others into a worthy mission or cause. That means you need to learn to present.

By the way, EVERYBODY is a public speaker. Maybe you’re presenting your ideas at an office meeting, interviewing for a new job, or trying to convince your friends which movie should win the Oscar. Whatever the situation, being able to speak effectively in public is essential to success.

A recent survey conducted by Distinction discovered that, of the executives and entrepreneurs surveyed, more than 86 percent said being able to present effectively has a significant impact on their income and success.

According to most studies, people’s No. 1 fear is public speaking. No. 2 is death. Doesn’t that sound insane? People would rather die than speak in public. That means if you go to a funeral, more people would rather climb into the casket than give the eulogy!

First off, let’s put this into proper perspective: No one has ever died giving a bad presentation.

Someone once said: the reason why there is NO reason to be nervous is that people care far less than you think.

Remember this: People are not judging you as much as you think, because they don’t care as much as you think. If some disaster does happen, something explodes or you trip and fall, at least you know you will have more attention from the audience now than in the 30 seconds before. Now you can use that attention to do something good. Certainly, whatever you say next will be remembered. If nothing else your tragedy will give the audience something fun and funny to share. It’s not a big deal, really. The only one making it so is you. It’s all self-imposed fear conjuring. I think knowing this helps enormously.

No More Jitters
You might find it helpful to know that some of the most successful and famous public speakers have the same issues we all have.

• Mark Twain, who made most of his income from speaking, not writing, said, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”
• Elvis Presley said, “I’ve never gotten over what they call stage fright. I go through it every show.”
• Bono, of U2, claims to get nervous the morning of every one of the thousands of shows he’s performed.
• Thomas Jefferson was so afraid of public speaking that he had some one else read the State of the Union Address. George Washington didn’t like speaking either.
• Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Walters, Johnny Carson, Barbara Streisand have all reported fears of public communication.
• Even Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Jack Welch and James Earl Jones… and as we now know, the former King of England, all had stutters and were nervous speakers at one time in their lives.

So, hey, if you are a bit nervous, you are in good company… and there is a great chance you can still be stellar at it.

Who Do You Think You Are, Anyway?
Here’s another tip someone shared with me about being nervous before speaking. If you are nervous that means you are being an egotist—making yourself way too important. Instead you should be making this about the audience. Think about them, their hopes, dreams and ambitions. You are there only to serve them. The spotlight should be on them, not you. When you take the spotlight off yourself and make what you are there for about them, not only does your nervousness go away, but you also empathize and connect with your audience better.

“No one cares about your product; they only care about themselves.”

Principle No. 1:

“What matters to you, doesn’t necessarily matter to them.” Don’t look at your presentation from the viewpoint of what you want to tell them. Instead throw all that out and ask yourself: What do THEY want to hear? What’s important to them? What problems, concerns, worries, frustrations, needs or desires do they have? What is going to give them hope, comfort, security, meaning and be exciting to THEM?

Principle No. 2:

“People don’t remember what you say; they only remember how you make them feel.” Now what you say is important, but it needs to be on point with the ultimate feeling you are trying to lead them to.  Determine what matters to them and how you want them to feel, then craft your ideas into moving stories, analogies and metaphors to give them a memorable experience.

 

3 Traits of Great Leaders

John Maxwell’s 3 Characteristics of a Leader Leadership expert John Maxwell told SUCCESS in April 2009, “Ego and insecurity are the two greatest land mines of leadership. Ego creeps in when you start not to value other people—when you begin to look at people as what can they do for you instead ofwhat you can do for them.” He says there are three characteristics needed to become a successful leader.

1. Build consensus. Abraham Lincoln was great at bringing together the people around him to help make up for his weaknesses. “The fallacy of leadership is thinking if you can lead in one area, you can lead in all areas,” Maxwell says. Value the opinionof others before making a decision.

2. Practice humility. Instead of talking about their own accomplishments, leaders look to give the team the credit.

3. Take risks. Leaders are not afraid to step out and say this is what needs to be done. Winston Churchill, for example, stood alone against Parliament in his opposition to Nazism. “Churchill had the courage to do what he felt was right even in the midst of  severe opposition,”

We do see the characters of true great leaders are very different from what the world is portraying. A true leader is always looking for long term benefit. That is what needs to brought back into the leadership in the companies and government and our country.

 

Servant Leadership What is it?

The phrase “Servant Leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf. ”The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.’

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

To put it plainly, Greenleaf is stating that a servant-leader is much less concerned about themselves and much more concerned about the happiness and well-being of others on his/her team. The servant leader takes the time to ask the questions that can determine whether every person on that team is best equipped to get the job done.

More often than not, leadership positions are used for personal gain rather than to serve others and bring out the best in them. Servant Leadership emphasizes trust, empathy, and collaboration between a team and it’s leader. Now, can you honestly point me to one leader that wouldn’t want more trust, empathy or collaboration in their team environment? I sure can’t.

Servant leaders are typically more in-tune to their company’s mission. A servant leader will work to align themselves and their team with the mission and goals of the company instead of always striving for their own wealth, power or fame.

Servant leadership even goes beyond personal interactions within a company. “In business [practicing servant leadership] would start with your customers and ultimately [involve] serving society through the good work you’re doing on behalf of your customers,”says Bill George, a professor of management at Harvard Business School and the former CEO of Medtronic, a large medical technology company.

It seems that because servant leadership is such a great idea, we might be hearing about more people practicing it, right? No necessarily. There are a lot of companies out there practicing servant leadership, but they just might not be using the word for it. In fact, on Saturday, Carol was able to think of a number of large corporations who have practiced servant leadership, including Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and FedEx.

What would this world look like if we all took a serving approach to our leadership? And not just in our daily jobs, but what about even at home or in our communities. How do you think this world might be different?