Everybody’s a Critic — Be an Advocate

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Being critical is advantageous in business. Critically assessing the numbers. Critiquing your competitors to find their weaknesses. A manager being critical of your performance during a review.

All of this is meant to expose weaknesses in your work and make you aware of where to improve.

Being a critic is useful in identifying a problem, not always in providing a solution.

Rarely do we need someone educating us about our weaknesses; chances are we already know. What we need are solutions.

Solutions are important. Solutions present business opportunities. Solutions help people, and provide value.

In determining the best course of action when solving a problem, the critic is sure to alert you of all the reasons something will fail.

It’s easy to be a critic. The critic will:

  1. Say: “we have never done that before”
  2. Say: “that won’t work”
  3. Argue about semantics—not the idea
  4. Create an environment where new ideas are discouraged
  5. Views a glass half empty

Be the opposite of a critic, be an advocate. Understand the great things occurring, and provide solutions to make them better. This will drive value to customers and help more people.

An advocate understands the project, the work, and the solution at hand. An advocate will:

  1. Work to make things better
  2. Provide support for the idea at hand
  3. Find a solution
  4. Encourage new ideas
  5. Understand the big picture

Being an advocate means you want to improve. Advocates are interested in solutions that move the project forward. Maybe they work, maybe they don’t. They have a willingness to try again.

Being a critic has a time and a place. “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” – Maria Popova

But if you’re overly critical and never an advocate, can you provide the most value to your customers and colleagues?

Does you inner critic prevent you from being an advocate?

Good luck and good selling!

3 Ways To Help You Find Your Passion

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Finding passion and purpose in work is difficult.

It isn’t something that is taught in school, and since it is difficult, not many people have sufficiently good advice.

This is why I am constantly looking for people who might have an answer. I don’t have the answer.

I do like what others have to say though, and I have three mentors which have provided what I think is a great perspective on passion. By the way, they don’t actually know they are my mentors.

Recently, I spent some time watching the Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement speech, and I enjoy the James Altucher Podcast. Both provided what I think are three great perspectives on finding passion. Passion, purpose, and how it relates to work.

Steve Jobs, Kevin O’Leary, and James Altucher are far more qualified to discuss passion than I am.

Here are 3 things they have taught me about passion:

Steve Jobs on Finding Your Passion

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

The world doesn’t hand people great work. Great work is created. Two ways to be apart of great work is to either be the creator, or to become part of the team. Which path is correct depends on the person. Neither path is found by settling.

Kevin O’Leary on Finding Your Passion

Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank has good advice when it comes to finding your passion. He believes “You have to try a lot of different things,” before you can truly find something you are passionate about.

Trying many things does not necessarily mean moving companies or not having direction. An environment which allows you to learn about different areas of the business and work in different units, may provide the necessary tools to find your passion. This could mean being proactive and volunteering to working on projects outside of the specific job description.

James Altucher on Finding Your Passion

“You are usually passionate about what you’re good at. So it is best to look for your passion in things you are good at.”

Becoming good at something is a daily practice. The daily practice of showing up. If passion lies in becoming good at something, what do you show up daily to do? Do you believe it is worth it?

As the abundance of wealth in our society grows, I think we can be more selective about work. Life is too short to work for the sake of working, being thankful we just have a job, and being unfulfilled in something which consumes much of our time.

I don’t want to settle, how about you?

Good luck and good selling!

Why Should I Work With You?

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Selling is simple.

Anybody can do it, and everybody should do it.

This is how you “Win Friends and Influence People”.

Selling is not about hoodwinking or pressuring. It is about believing what you posses is of so much value, you have an obligation to present it in the most attractive way to a potential recipient.

Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Growth Hacking. Call it what you want, but the goal is to share what you possess with others.

The simple process is this:

Sell Yourself

People buy from people they trust. Selling yourself is about building trust and educating someone why they should work with you.

The client is asking: “What can you do for me?”

Sell Your Company

Why should someone partner with your company? Is your company innovative? Do they provide excellent customer service?

What is the reason why someone should work with your company. The value proposition.

Sell Your Product

What problem is your product going to solve? Will your product make the clients life easier? Save them money? Generate them more business?

Answering these questions will make it easier to share the value of your product with clients.

After all, taking these steps is not being pushy. If you have something of value, be it a product, skills for a job, or an idea for improvement at work, you have an obligation to sell it.

Why should people do business with you?

Good luck and good selling!

One Habit Could Change Everything

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I hit the snooze button and slept another half an hour, yet again. That’s the third time this week and its Wednesday. I lost count how many times it has been this month.

The result of my love affair with the snooze button is I am now running through my morning routine. It is not therapeutic, and if I believe everything I read about morning routines, I am not destined for “success”.

I know that if I just wake up early and have the kind of morning routine I could write a book about, I will be successful. In fact, I will probably be the next Steve Jobs.

The building of habits and routines is very difficult. This is where “The Power of Habit” proved to be an excellent and thoroughly worthwhile read. In recently finishing “The Power of Habit”, I thought I would share my greatest take away.

“The Power of Habit” discusses a number of scientific and theoretical approaches to changing and creating habits, which as you read the book, you will dive deep into scientific models. But the one concept I found thoroughly enlightening is the concept of the baseline habit, or the habit that if changed, would transform a number of other habits. So lets put this in real terms.

The habit I currently want to change is my morning routine, or improve it. I want to have enough time in the morning to thoroughly enjoy bacon, eggs, coffee, and a shave. My huge issue though is the alarm clock snooze button. I think this is a common problem.

So as I deconstruct what is infringing on my morning routine, I find that it is this alarm clock snooze button. As I found in the book, I have to go further back into my morning issues and now tackle my alarm clock habit, which is hitting the snooze button. After a bit of research I find myself looking at sleep quality. My sleep regimen is now my next stop on the path to morning routine optimization, and when looking at sleep, it is my evening routine. So in order to change the one habit I want, my morning routine, I have to turn the clock back all the way to my evening routine.

Looking at my key take away from “The Power of Habit”, the one habit that will change other habits is my evening routine. The adjustment to my evening routine will allow me to get enough sleep, which then I will be rested, less likely to hit snooze, and therefore wake up on time.

Whether sleep is a habit you think you should improve, or another habit, “The Power of Habit” is a great book to add to your book list. Examples range from P&G getting customers to use Febreeze, to how making your bed in the morning can help give you a productive day.

Whatever your habits, hopefully you will find this book as enlightening as I did.

Good luck and good selling!

Just Take The Money And Run

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Have you had those meetings, in the middle of a busy week which completely fell through the cracks? The type of meeting you left, forgot to follow up with the customer until about a week later, and at that point the follow up just felt awkward.

Needless to say, this meeting with a potential customer went nowhere. Unfortunate, because who knows, it may have led to a huge sale.

The next situation is the sale with a very difficult customer. The kind you are happy to sell the product to and not have to speak with again. These are the “take the money and run” clients, but we should really take the time to nurture them, although they are difficult.

In both cases, what is missing is the follow up. The art of the follow up can make or break a long standing business relationship. It is better to use this opportunity to make it.

Here are a few ways to follow up with customers:

Email

A quick email following up a meeting, an interaction, or a phone call can be a good way to open a more meaningful conversation. If coming out of a meeting, the email is a great way to convey you heard and understood what was being said. An email after an interaction at an event is a great way to say you would like to do further business. So simple, this opportunity for a follow up should not be overlooked.

Hand Written Note

Although time consuming, a hand written note is a very nice touch. Whether you are thanking a client for an order or for being a longstanding customer, the hand written note conveys that you go the extra mile when it comes to taking care of your clients.

Connect On Social Media

Social media provides an excellent opportunity to stay in touch with colleagues and customers. This provides an opportunity to share items which you think are beneficial to their business. Also, it provides an opportunity for you to show up on their news feed and be fresh in the clients mind. This is beneficial for two reasons: 1) you are warming up a prospect if you have recently met, 2) you can keep existing customers informed of updates within your company.

Provide Follow Up Information

It is bound to happen that there will be a meeting where you do not have all the answers. This is where the follow up can provide you a great opportunity to over deliver on the quality of information you were lacking within the meeting. You can provide detailed insight if you leave the meeting and research the information the client was seeking.

Schedule Your Next Meeting

Turning your follow up into the next sales meeting can be an effective way to close, stay in front of your customer, as well as convey to the customer what you can do for them while you are not together. This is a huge test, which will show how much work you have the ability to do on behalf of your customer in between meetings.

The follow up is so simple, but in a busy day when something may have been forgotten, it is just as simple to forget.

What is your favorite follow up method?

Good luck and good selling!