What We Need to Understand About People

When it comes to understanding and working with people there are two principles that we all should keep in mind.

1. Everybody wants to be somebody. Everybody wants to be regarded and valued by others. (John C. Maxwell in Relationships 101)

Mary Kay Ash says it this way: “Imagine that every person you meet is wearing an invisible sign around their neck that says “Make Me Feel Important.” If we can find effective ways of valuing people we make great strides in our relationships.

It is reported that John Dillinger, the famous outlaw from the 1930’s era, once ran into a farm house while being pursued by the local law enforcement officers and said, “I’m John Dillinger. I'm not going to hurt anybody, but I wanted you to know that I'm John Dillinger.”

Even a notorious person such as John Dillinger wanted to feel like somebody I suppose.

The second principle is this.

1. Nobody cares how much you know until he knows how much you care. (John C. Maxwell in Relationships 101)

How can we show that we care? The principles are simple and have endured the ages.
Listen
Show genuine interest in what they are saying
Use Eye Contact
Focus on the Person Speaking
Always believe the best in people
Always expect the best from people
Repeat back significant words and phrases to show understanding and interest

The word above all and in all is this – RESPECT!!!

Top Ten Things Every Great Sales Person Knows

1. Smile. It starts before you greet your customer. Everyone loves a smiling face. Give your customers your best smile and watch what happens. More often than not they will give you a smile in return.

2. Know Your Product. How much do you know about your product line? Are you prepared to compare and contrast your varying products if you sell multiple lines and varieties of items? Can you point out advantages and benefits? Prepare, prepare, prepare!

3. Listen to your customer. Listening skills are critical in the sales process. Your customers will give you all kinds of clues as to exactly what they are seeking and it is your job to listen to what is being said especially to what is said between the lines. When selling mattresses I had to listen between the words for the exact product my customers were seeking. It is a good idea to repeat back to your customer, using their own words, the exact words you heard them use.

4. Use Eye Contact. Appropriate eye contact is critical in selling face to face. If you are serving more than one person, be sure to look each person in the eye at some point during the transaction.

5. Remember their names and say them correctly. Everyone loves the sound of his or her own name. When you remember your customer’s name you just paid them a high compliment. When I encounter an unusual name that is not familiar to me, I’ll often write it down and spell it phonetically so that I can say it back to my customer correctly. Use their name. A person’s name is their most important possession.

6. Know your systems. How well do you know your company policies? What is your return policy? Can you smoothly and quickly process an exchange or refund for a customer? Can you perform a simple ink cartridge change on the credit card machine? Knowing your systems, your computer, and your company policy are some of the most important skills you can develop as a sales person. You efficiency in these areas is just as critical as your ability to ask for and close the sale.

7. Let the customer engage with the products. When you can get a customer touching an item or holding a pair of shoes, your success in selling that product just increased. I watched this happen countless times when I served as a department manager for a large music store in South Carolina. Every time I could put something as simple as a CD into my customer’s hands they would more often than not walk out of our store with that purchase. When I sold choir robes, it was important for the customer to feel the quality of the fabric as I explained the differences in the materials we were comparing. We love to touch and feel. Use it to your advantage in selling.

8. Watch for buying signals. Common buying signals are: tugging on one’s ear, asking about price, asking about delivery, asking about technical data, reviewing facts about the product you covered earlier, asking about warranty, sometimes a quickening of the pulse or a small bead of perspiration on the upper lip, asking how long this price is honored, and more. The secret to successfully closing the sale when you start sensing buying signals is it stop talking, answer only the questions being asked, and otherwise keep your mouth shut. Don’t talk yourself out of a sale.

9. Ask for the sale. There are dozens of books on the market today that offer great tips on closing sales and they all offer their own hot list of closing techniques.

10. Confirm the order, review the receipt and give them your heartiest appreciation for the purchase and for their trust in you.

Good luck and remember, every person you meet is wearing an invisible sign around their neck that says, “MAKE ME FEEL IMPORTANT!”

How Is My Serve?

I once had the reputation of being one of the better ping pong players in my home town. Every summer I would hang out at Little Park on the lower grounds of the county library next to Little Pool and play endless ping pong games. There were only two or three kids and one adult, Coach Shelton, who could usually beat me at my game.


Somewhere along the way I learned how to serve a great dancing curve ball that only the experienced players could handle. At times, I could predict with great accuracy exactly where their return shot would land on the table, if it landed on the table at all. What fun that was.

When one of the better players came along who could handle my serve, I would then change my tactics with short shots, right hand corner, left hand corner, inside spin and anything else I could think of to give me the advantage.

But it always came back down to the serve.

So, how is your serve? How is my serve?

Here’s the application.

The question is not “what can you do for me?” It is “What can I do for you?” I constantly ask myself: “How can I serve others better? What can I possibly write about that will encourage and inspire and offer someone hope today?”

Do I value people? Do I cherish and guard the divine within each person I meet? Do I hold out the possibility for greatness to exist in every individual?

Everyone is great at something. Sometimes we have to dig a little to discover exactly what that greatness looks like.

How is my serve?

Am I serving you in a way that betters your life, encourages you, and lifts your spirits? Do I cause you to see your own uniqueness and the possibilities that are inside of you? Do I act in a way to lift you up and cause you to like yourself, or do I point out your faults, your short comings and your inadequacies?

How is my serve?

Do I communicate clearly with you?

Do I speak to you as an equal or do I use a tone and demeanor that puts you down, causes you to feel less than respected or small and inadequate?

Do I look you in the eye when we talk? Do I allow you an equal share in our conversation, or do I over-talk you?

How is my serve?

Do I respect you enough to show up on time for our set appointments? Do I return your phone calls? Do I send notes of thanks and appreciation just because? Do I honor you by recognizing you as a fellow human being with wants, desires and needs as well? Do I see that you simply want to be recognized and made to feel important?

Do I nurture your nature? Do I esteem you? Do I allow your uniqueness to come out, or do I try to make you conform to my way of thinking, acting and living?

John C. Maxwell offers a quote in The 21 Indispensible Laws of Leadership that I really love.

John’s original quote is: “You’ve got to love your people more than your position.” My revision is “You’ve got to love your people more than yourself and more than your idea of what they should be, do, or become.”

John goes on to say, “The truth is that the best leaders desire to serve others, not themselves.”

There is a Bible verse in Mark 9:35 that states, “he who would be great must be like the least and the servant of all.”

Wow! What a nice serve.

Now, let’s go grab a cup of coffee and mull some of this over?

By the way, I’ll buy.

To Shine or Not to Shine

Kim Zoller at Image Dynamics
// http://jobsearch.about.com/od/interviewsnetworking/a/dressforsuccess.htm, says 55% of another person's perception of you is based on how you look. And this includes your shoes.

Every time I polish my shoes I feel better about myself, about the image I portray and I seem to walk a bit taller and with a more assured step in my gait.

When people meet you for the first time, whether just in passing on the street or in a face-to-face relational experience, the other person is taking in everything, and I mean every thing, about you. They are judging you on your smile, the cleanness of your clothes, the lack of wrinkles, do your clothes match and make sense from a style standpoint, and a myriad other tell-tell factors you may have never thought of.

So, how shined are your shoes? Does this matter to you? Why or why not? My friend and co-worker Steve always came to work with his shoes highly shined. That has so impressed me and I still remember even though we haven’t worked together for 25 years. Knowing Steve, this is still a key element in preparing for his day.

Some professionals in the dress-for-success mindset say that if your shoes can’t be shined then you are wearing the wrong shoes. What is the norm in your business environment? What should you do about the norm? Are you going to go along with this mindset, or are you going to raise the bar a notch and begin wearing a more appropriate footwear?

It’s all about presentation – image.

Clean them. Wipe them down. Shine them if possible.

The Power of "Thank You!"

In Germany the word is “Danke” or “Danke Schön”.
In Spanish it is “Gracias”.
The French say “Merci Beaucop”.
Italians say, “Gracie”.
Our Japanese friends respond with “Kanji”.

In any language, for any small act of kindness, the words “thank you” are acceptable and pleasing to any ear and show good graces and great manners.

So, why do we fail to hear these simple words more in everyday life?  That is a question to ponder yet one for which there is no readily available answer.

I was preparing to speak for a group of people on a military base a few years ago, and I stepped out into the hallway a few minutes prior to my speech to catch a breath of fresh air. While standing just inside the doors leading to the outside, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see a parade of seven individuals headed my way. Being the courteous southern gentleman that I am, I opened the door for this group of people.

Not one person in that group bothered to say a simple “Thank you” to me for opening the door. I was disappointed in their inconsiderate manners. You and I would have shown proper cultural upbringing and expressed this simple response.

“Thank You” is such a simple expression, yet I find few people willing to express it, whether it is a simple act as in holding a door open for someone, for good customer service, or for a myriad of other small acts of kindness rendered in everyday life.

In the course of our days we could utter these encouraging words dozens of times for dozens of reasons.
“Thanks for that great meal honey.”
“You gave great service. Thank you.
“Thank you for stopping by our store.”
“Thank you Mailman. You are always on time.”
“Thanks for your expert knowledge. You really helped us make a smart purchase.”
“Thanks for cleaning up after yourself.”
“That report really was right on target. Thanks so much.”
“Thanks for the improvement I see in your work lately.”
“Thanks for cleaning your room.”
“Thanks for those clear directions.”
“Thanks for holding the door for us.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
“Thanks for not smoking.”
“Thanks for making my life easier.”
“You emptied the trash cans. Thanks so much.”

This is just a sampling of hundreds of things for which we could express our thanks and appreciation.

Being able to express the words “thank you” is more than just a good social skill. It is a sign of a person in touch with themselves and one with an understanding of good social graces. Some wise person once said, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

When someone says “thank you” to me I immediately note several traits about that person and about myself.
1. They have good manners
2. Their level of intelligence seems to grow in my estimation.
3. They become more likeable.
4. I feel better about myself.
5. I am more inclined to pass along my own “thank you” as soon as convenient and appropriate.
6. They become memorable for having said “thank you”.

Never underestimate the power of “Thank You!”

Judging Others

I made a $6500 sale not too long ago. Yes, you read correctly. $6500! He didn’t look very prosperous. He smelled strongly of tobacco, his clothes weren’t the neatest or the cleanest, but he bought my most expensive bed in our store and he paid cash!

I must confess that when he first came in he didn’t impress me. Yes, I was guilty of “judging a book by its cover.”

This wasn’t the first time I have had to learn that lesson.

Remember Susan Boyle, the Scottish singing sensation? She doesn’t look like a singer, but my goodness, wait until she opens her mouth. What a clear, musical, lyrical sound she produces. She is a true song-bird and she has taken the world by storm. In a lineup, would we have chosen her as the one most likely to sing her way into our hearts? Probably not.

How often do we judge others, and miss fantastic opportunities to know someone marvelous and wonderful? Not only do we miss opportunities in sales situations when we misjudge customers, we misjudge meeting and befriending interesting people just because we judge them based on their dress, their skin color, their social standing, their nationality and a myriad of other judgments we dish out at will.

According to Wikipedia, the very common phrase “don't judge a book by its cover" is a metaphorical phrase which means "don't determine the worth of something based on its appearance”. It is probably the most common expression used in English to convey vanity.

There are very valuable individuals sitting out there behind desks, walking into our retail establishments, and in those offices. They need your goods and services. Find ways to win their friendship, and above all else, Never Judge a Book by Its Cover!

The Law of Cause and Effect

Brian Tracy, in his book Million Dollar Habits, reminds us of this law:

"The Law of Cause and Effect says that if you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the same results other successful people get. This is a universal law. The law itself is neutral. It works for everybody, everywhere." Pg 55 Brian Tracy

So what do we need to begin doing that other successful people do in order to increase our value and improve our successes in life?

The reverse is – what do we need to stop doing?

Great questions!

I constantly analyze my sales and productivity in terms of others whom I consider to be better than I. What do they do verses my own interpretation of what I do, and why is it better or more successful?

While reading, I notice certain phrases and expressions used and the layout and style of certain authors. I pay attention to the “feel” that is coming through other writers’ works and then seek ways that I might adapt some of what I see and experience.

Do you study others in your profession? If they are successful, they bear close observation. In sales, I’ve seen all dimensions of the good, the bad and the ugly. (Thanks Clint Eastwood.) From the good, I learned more acute listening skills, and some quality body language skills.

How about this: let’s find good role models, people we trust, people who are successful. Study them, learn from them, copy them, analyze them and then reproduce their good character traits and skill sets and see how it impact our lives.

Remember Brian’s quote above:  If you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the same results other successful people get.

I’m going for it!