Current Newsletter
We’ve heard it before… “I am an excellent communicator.” “I am particularly impactful from the stage.” But, do we believe it? Do they believe it? Or is the lack of good communication skills a perceived weakness?
In this month’s Podcast, we speak with Mary-Ellen Drummond, the President of Polished Presentations International. In our prep for the Podcast, Mary-Ellen mentioned that there is one question that has been proven to correlate with one’s business success. The question? “Are you willing to stand-up, right now, and give a presentation?” How you answer that question tells a great deal about your future success in business. The statistics show that if you answer “Yes”, you are much more likely to be successful at a variety of business pursuits. Let’s be honest with ourselves, if we did not know the potential outcome on our future success, most of us would answer, “Thanks, but no thanks!”
So, if that “Thanks, but no thanks” answer feels familiar, even a bit comfortable, and certainly a LOT better than making a presentation “off the cuff”, we just may be impacting our future growth potential. How can we get to the point where you are comfortable saying, “Sure, what topic would you like me to speak on?” Let’s see how Mary-Ellen did it.
Many years ago, Mary-Ellen was video-taped when she was a pharmaceutical rep, giving a presentation. As she says, “It wasn’t a pretty picture!” At that moment, and during the review with her manager, it was suggested that if she wanted to become an even more successful business person, she was going to have to get much better at speaking. Now, don’t get me wrong, Mary-Ellen was already one of the very best reps the organization had, but she set her sights on being even better.
Now, many of us may have been faced with the same situation, but I doubt if many of us jumped in to improve our skills with the energy that Mary-Ellen did. It was recommended that she join Toastmasters (a fabulous organization, by the way, www.toastmasters.org) to sharpen her presentation skills. Well, it would have been nice, if there were any around, but there weren’t. So what did she do? She started her own club! And, not just one, but several!
You see, Mary-Ellen not only knew she needed to get better, but she was driven to get better. This type of drive is common in so many successful people. Would you have done the same? Started a club in an area of your documented weakness? Now THAT’S guts.
When you listen to this month’s Podcast, you will hear about this and more from one of the country’s best public speakers. You can find this month’s Podcast here
This month I have personally witnessed some of the absolute worst in customer service. I don’t know if it is just a run of bad-luck, or whether I am simply more sensitive to it.
The most impactful occurrence was at a local store that simply chose not to return an un-used item that was purchased accidently. No, it wasn’t used…was still able to be sold exactly like we had seen it…and it wasn’t a food product. It was a piece of steel!
During the discussion, the proprietor asked, “What do you think we are, Wal-Mart?” Well, boy, did that open the door! I was quick to point-out that no one in their right mind would ever confuse his shop with Wal-Mart, because Wal-Mart HAS customer service! And why is customer service so important? Here are the figures around why customers leave:
Death 1%, Move 3%, Friends in a competitive business 4%, Go to a competitor 9%, Product dissatisfaction 14%, and (drum roll please) 68% leave because of an employee attitude of indifference.
So, what have you done to improve your customer service to make your customer feel appreciated? If this is not easy to answer, then you have some work ahead.
Could those of you that have been through some type of personality profiling please raise your hand? I thought so, some of you, but not all.
Let me tell you, from personal experience, when I first went through a personality “styles” assessment it was a real eye opener. We have all heard the maxim that we are who we believe we are, we are what others believe us to be, and there is a portion of our personality that is unknown or hidden from all. Well, I went through the assessment and learned that I am a driver (obviously!) and also an introvert! What? That has to be wrong, I’ve been leading large teams and sales forces for years… so how could I be an introvert? Well, what I learned is that whether you are an extrovert, introvert, driver, or anything else, doesn’t really matter. What matters is how you understand your natural tendencies and harness them to become more effective.
As a driver, I have to often pull myself back, to listen more carefully before running off with my hair on fire. Driver isn’t good or bad, it just has some typical traits that I need to be aware of. And the list goes on around different traits, and how to best self-manage them.
What is even more important is that you also need to learn to observe and assess those you are communicating to, and working with so you can more fully understand how to best communicate with them. Two drivers can solve most of the problems in the world in about 6 minutes, and they both run-off with their hair on fire. If, by chance, you are communicating with a more conscientious personality profile or a more steady individual, you will need to adjust how you communicate, and what you expect. No, they probably won’t run out the door with you to save the world, yes, with their hair on fire, but they may provide some real valuable insights on how to save the world. They will tend to think through the issue(s) more fully, with greater attention to detail. Or, they may be more supporting of the cause, but they typically won’t be as fired-up as you.
It is through the combination of these personality styles that you can harness success in a high-performance team. If you learn how to understand the different natural styles, and you work on how to best communicate across a variety of styles, you are well on your way to enhanced team performance. And who knows, you may just save the world while you’re at it!
- The four cornerstones of team performance:
Communication
Process
Goals
Skills - Did you know Facebook is still a privately held company? Why? To be less beholding to financial performance and more focused upon delivering innovation and communication solutions.
- This month’s Read: “Drive” by Daniel Pink
- The typical bee-hive will contain more than 60,000 bees, each focused upon their own job. Talk about teamwork!
- People are more afraid of giving a presentation than dying!
- Number of Facebook users: 400 million
- Q3 2006: over 12 Billion texts on AT&T’s network, alone!
- Quote: Optimism supplies the basic energy of civilization. Optimism doesn’t wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.
-Norman Cousins