When to Use a Story “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish Author “My biggest concern is that they won’t apply what they learn in your class. They won’t see how to use it in their every day work.” My customer expressed a very real concern and it was …
21 Inspiring Quotes for Leaders
I’ve always loved the wisdom found in a short statement. In keynote speaker terms, we call these “sticky statements.” If you’re speaking to an audience and you make a statement that causes everyone to write it down, you just gave them a sticky statement. As we’ve brought the first quarter of 2018 to a close …
“Dear Younger Me…” – 5 Things I wish I knew as a young Sales Professional
I was driving and listening to the radio (KLOVE) when a song by Mercy Me started. It gripped me from the opening line. “Dear younger me, where do I start?…”The song itself is powerful and it made a lasting impression on me because it made me think. I’m 30 years out of high school and …
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7 Secrets to Get Your Next Audience to Love You
I knew it wasn’t going to be your normal conference kickoff keynote when I entered the ballroom and found a bongo at every audience seat. I was in the audience that day with about 400 other attendees. We couldn’t help but pick up the bongo, inspect it and experiment with tapping on it. Then one …
Part 3 of 3: How to Turn Your Presence into LEADER Presence
“How is leader presence any different from normal presence?” My student asked this question immediately after I defined the two elements that make up a first impression; your perceived confidence and your approachability. My student persisted with a follow up question before I could even respond, “I mean, isn’t your presence just these two things, …
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Part 2 of 3: FIVE Ways to Develop Leadership Approachability
The conference call went silent for only a second while she was thinking. Then my boss said, “Russ can be there. Set up the meeting.” Well, it looks like I was about to book a flight to Boston from Houston. Without any thought to my personal schedule, my pregnant wife, or my 2-year-old son. I’m …
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Poor presentations in meetings are costing you serious money
How much do poor meetings actually cost an organization? While this number will be different for every company, we looked into the research… and the numbers might surprise you! A study conducted by Bain Capital showed that one Executive Briefing meeting at a Fortune 500 company consumed 300,000 hours of time in a single year. Another …
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Three levels of persuasive conversations
Why does everyone think the best salesperson is always the best “talker?” It’s as if that is the only skill needed to be a good salesperson? In my 18 years of experience in sales and sales management, I have not found that to be true. Some of the successful salespeople I have observed were good talkers, but oftentimes, they were not the best speakers. In fact, the most successful salespeople I have met were not the best talkers at all. They held a much more valuable selling skill, persuasive questioning.