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Practices for Professionals – Meetings Best Practice 2: Effective Scheduling

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StrategyDriven Professional Meeting Best PracticeAs meetings consume significant portions of every professional’s work life, it’s imperative they be conducted in as effective and efficient a manner as possible. The proper handling of meetings begins with their scheduling.
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The Dance Between Cozy Warmth and Burnout at Your Job

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals ArticleI have been spending the last few days in my Canyon Hideaway at the Four Corners. My main heat source in this small house tugged against the Red Rocks is a wood stove. Every time I get here, I’m having problems starting the fire and keeping it going. For me it is always a threshold to cross to a slower pace living.

Clearly I’m lacking patience the first few days. I have thrown too much wood on a fire that just started. I’ve been frequently standing out on the porch to let some fresh air in my smoke filled home. I’m making the same mistake that I help people avoid in my work as business coach & consultant.

After realizing this, I have to laugh at myself. What a great reminder and a powerful metaphor.

What is a simple heat source for me, had a much deeper meaning when people in this area lived in Tepees. The fire was the center of their living space and had to be tended to constantly. During the winter month it was vital for survival. It also marked the center of their circular living space. A reflection of their core belief that everything moves in a natural cycle.

It was said that one who jumps the fire and ignores the circular way and its seasons gets burned. How true that is for our fast paced world. If only they had known that our modern world even found a fancy word for it: Burnout.

This term is widely used for individuals being utterly exhausted. From what I have seen in my work I believe burnout can happen to companies, too. I have seen people of fast growing companies completely drained, which can paralyze a complete organization.

How does one tend to a companies fire?

A spark is not enough – We need to lovingly tend to what we ignite. Be it a company, a new product, a team or a relationship.

Practice patience. A fire needs time to build up, just like trust. It needs a little time before it can bare the weight of a larger log without going up in smoke.

Everything in moderation. How much heat can a team or an organization take? Does all the change have to happen at once? Size new projects realistically. Don’t let your people go up in flames.

Focus on community. A fire was used to gather and share stories. Your company is only as strong as the ties between people. Tend to them constantly, not just once a year during a team event.

Go circular. Respect the natural cycles of planting seeds, growing, harvesting and rejuvenating. We are jumping the fire all too many times by not honoring times to rest and rejuvenate.

Your company is your living space, just like a Tepee. Make sure the fire that is vital for survival is tended to constantly. Make your living space inviting and cozy for those who come to visit.

About the Author

Barbara Wittmann is an IT consultant, leadership coach and a passionate entrepreneur. Her quest for healthy concepts of leadership and growth brought her into the wilderness, where she explored the ancient wisdom of Native American cultures. She integrates their values and rituals, which are still relevant and livable today, into her everyday business life with great success. She lives in Munich, Germany, and frequently travels to wild and untouched places in the US.

For more information visit www.barbarawittmann.com.

Practices for Professionals – Meetings Best Practice 1: Limit Meeting Attendees

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StrategyDriven Professional Meeting PrincipleMeetings provide a unique environment that facilitates collaboration through the provision of robust two-way communications. While other communications mechanisms facilitate information exchange, only meetings provide for the synchronous sharing of ideas – the dynamic interaction that enables groups to rapidly build on each other’s perspectives.

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Back to Basics: Interviewing for Your Next Sales Position

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Throughout a sales career, it’s all about the small things. When to push and when to step back and wait. Following up on time, every time. Being consistent and being reliable. All basic stuff – and that’s the problem. It’s all too easy to forget the basic stuff – in the bustle and complexity of the day-to-day.

So when it comes to applying for a position in sales, or moving up the ladder it is more important than ever to get the basics right – especially when it comes to interview time.

Some of the tips here may seem very obvious, but ignore them at your peril. As in any career, getting the basics right, first time and every time, is crucial to land that new dream job.

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About the Author
Stephen AtkinsonStephen Atkinson is the author of Get a Job in Sales: Your Fast Track to Career Success and Simple Steps to Sales Success: Selling – The Easy Way. Both books offer straight-talking advice on how to get into a sales career and how to be successful once you get there. He is also a sales consultant, owns several diverse businesses, and teaches on the world’s leading online learning platform Udemy.

This is not a resolution, it’s an ALL OUT resolve!

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Whatever your age, you’ve made resolutions, you’ve made goals, and often fall short of the stated objective, desire and/or objective.

Drop resolutions, they’re always painful.
Drop goals, they’re often unmet.

Refer to whatever it is that you want as: “my intended and expected achievement” and add a few lines about your intentions and desires. Your outcome.

Not just what the expected achievement is, but how you intend to make it happen.

Not just focus, but genuine drive and the allocation of time to make it happen.

Whether it’s lose 10 (or 20) pounds, make 10 sales a month, or be a better dad, there has to be something specific that tells WHAT you want. HOW you plan to make it your reality. And WHEN you believe it will become reality.

There are fundamentals to follow. But the secret to achievement of what you call goals and resolutions, are the unspoken aspects of your process and your present situation BEFORE you begin the achievement process:

  • Happy about yourself.
  • Happy about your life.
  • Happy about your relationships.
  • Proud of what you’re doing.
  • Love of what you’re doing.
  • Love who you’re doing it with.
  • Desire to be the BEST at what you’re doing.
  • Purpose behind what you’re doing (your REAL WHY).

Here are a few things to consider as you look to “put” HAPPINESS, and “be” HAPPY in the new year.

IDEA: Maybe if I tell you SOME of the things I plan to do, it will inspire you to do more than you were thinking, and in a different way. Here are my objectives for the first 100 days of 2016. Not all will be completed in that timeframe, but all will be implemented and in full motion.

  • All out sales campaign. Contact every customer we have ever done business with – offer them help, ask them where the most help is needed, and ask them for more business. I have a year long series of webinars planned (jeffreygitomer.com/gold)
  • All out improvement of customer service. Faster shipping, faster turnaround of training modules, faster response to needs and questions, and memorable recovery for the rare mistakes we make. More proactive customer communications – thank you’s and confirmations for your order. Every day.
  • All out branding. My writing, column, my ezine, my website, my podcasts, and all my promotions will reflect the value that my customer relates to, and wants more of. New ideas and names like “Gitomer Gold” and “The Year of The Sale.”
  • All out relationship building. “Value first” is the key. I have been successful with that philosophy for 25 years. Consistent communication is the secret. Increase the value of my website, gitomer.com, and my 14 year old weekly ezine, Sales Caffeine.
  • All out internal education with a focus on attitude and trust. This shoemaker’s daughter will wear shoes FIRST. In order to offer the best of everything, my team (actually my family) will have to be their best. I have hundreds of hours of sales, customer loyalty, attitude, trust, and personal development training available, (GitomerLearningAcademy.com) and my inside team will be the first to take advantage of it.
  • All out better student. Read more. Study the history of sales and personal development more. Write more philosophical discoveries and understandings.
  • All out work my hardest. I will complete three books this year. I will give less presentations (they only last a day) and devote more time to writing and recording (it lasts a lifetime). I will make certain all my content, whether online, in books or in seminars, is the most relevant, real-world, and transferable as I am physically and mentally able.
  • All out work my best. Own my time. Invest my time. Be more organized and more productive in my early hours of the day.
  • All out be my best. Increase focus on personal health and excellence, both physical and mental, both at work, and at home. Be the best dad, the best granddad, the best friend, the best boss, the best person I can be.

The key words are “all out.”

This is not a time for waiting. This is a time for DOING.

What are you going to be DOING all out?

What are you going “all out” to achieve this year?

And what does “all out” mean to you?

IS THIS YOU?: Most people at this time of year write down a few namby-pamby resolutions or goals. Lose ten pounds, read more books, exercise more, join a health club, keep a clean desk, and other dead-end wishes that will fade in less than a month. Don’t let this be you – especially this year.

Why not add “all out” to whatever you write down so that you are determined to take some real action, and commit to an all out effort to achieve for yourself? Seems pretty simple – challenge yourself to become better, and in some cases, become best.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].