What type of a communicator are you?

Are you a good talker, a good listener or a good observer?

Business gurus for years have stated that the most important part in communication is having an understanding what isn’t said. So what is this understanding and how do you get it?

According to a variety of researchers, body language accounts for between 50 and 70 percent of all communication. Understanding body language is important as our bodies are closely connected to how we feel about a situation. The key to remember though is to look at gestures as a group rather than concentrating on a single action.

I’ve read that in 1982 two researchers (Riskind and Gotay) said that when people are slumped over they think less about the issues. Now if you are speaking to someone who is slumped over; do you think that they will respond to the issues you are presenting to them? Of course not!

This is one example about how you need to become more aware of how important body language is in the communication process. If you would like more information on this important issue contact me by e-mail at; timothygibney@symatico.ca

If by chance you don’t want to contact me, what can you do today to improve your attention to body language?

Did you ever hear the story about the family having a meal of bacon and eggs?

This is a classic story about commitment.

The father tells his children that there is a big difference between being involved or making a commitment. He states that eggs came from a chicken that was involved. But the bacon came from a pig that was committed. It is the same with all of us.

Unless a firm commitment is made to a goal or an action, it is really only a vague promise or a hope. You know that hopes never ever get you to what you want!

What can you do today to show your commitment to a particular goal?

How good are you at creating customers?

That’s right you create your own customers by understanding who you want to do business with.

In order to understand who you want to do business with you first need to define what your idea client is. How old are they? Are they married? Where do they live? These are just a few of the questions you need to ask in order to understand who you want to be your customers.

Secondly, once you understand who your customers will be you have to attract them to your business. This is done by the effective use of marketing. As I’ve said before marketing includes advertising, sales and public relations.

When you know who you want your customers to be then you can become very cost effective in where you spend your marketing budget. For example; if you want to focus on the 20 to 30 year old customers would it make sense to be advertising on a radio station that plays the Big Band music from the 1930’s and 40’s? Of course not!

So what are you going to do today to understand who you want your customers to be?

What can you do to improve your method of choosing your marketing paths?

Do you love change or does it drive you crazy?

Most people like change when they implement it themselves. Sadly life doesn’t always happen the way we like it, does it?

So what do you do when life throws you something that is not appreciated? There are two ways to handle these issues. One is to give up. The other is to enjoy the change because you know that it gives you an opportunity to increase your abilities. As Peter Drucker said; “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.”

When are you going to search for change?

How will you respond to this change?

How can you exploit the change to make your business better?

What is your management style?

I know there are many styles, but what is the one that doesn’t work.

First of all, the management styles range from Autocratic, to Paternalistic, to Democratic, to Laissez-faire and finally Management by Walking Around. The styles can be used effectively depending on the circumstances and the type of leader exercising them.

My concern is a management style that is not listed above. It is when leadership makes it difficult for people to work effectively. This happens when the employees don’t know what is expected of them, therefore their passion disappears. This happens when the business leader does not understand how to retain productive and well liked employees. This happens when the company leader does not connect in effective ways with the staff. All of these examples lead to grumbling by employees, which leads to bad publicity about the company.

What is one way that you can make it easier for your staff work together?

Can you implement it today?

Are you innovative enough to survive the instability of business life?

Innovation according to business guru Peter Drucker is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

So let’s look at the word create or creativity. Creativity is the process of bringing something new to the world. To me creativity doesn’t have to be massive or drastic. It just has to be a change that will make what you do stand-out in the marketplace.

Let me give you a few simple ways to become more innovative;

• Be passionate. If you are passionate; your life is all about what you can do to improve people’s lives through your innovation and action.
• Love what you do because if you do you will be subconsciously thinking about new ideas all the time.
• Take action on your ideas. These ideas don’t have to be perfect immediately you can fine-tune them as needed.
• The interesting thing is that when you are passionate and take action the money will chase you.

Remember to become an innovator you need to be looking for ways to improve the status quo.

What can you improve today that will assist you and your business both now and in the future?

What kind of a vision do you have for your business?

This is a question every business leader needs to answer.

I say that because if you lead any business you need to have the vision in order to provide the image of the future that you and your staff can work towards. Without this vision your business will either perish or just exist.

With either ‘perishing’ or ‘just existing’ it does not provide a good picture of your business future. When Steve Jobs died on October 5^th of the following statement was made. "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," read a statement on Apple's website. "Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor."

Wouldn’t you like to be thought of as a business leader that was a visionary, a creative genius or an inspiring mentor?

What can you do today that will take one step in that direction?

What should your advertising do for the prospective client?

I know that it should get people to understand where they are at present and where they could be. But how do you do that? Let me give you an example in regards to women and make-up.

For women it will talk about how aging has changed their beauty (maybe more lines on her face). Then it will show them how they could look if they used a particular type of makeup. In fact what it did was create what I call ‘a tension for change’. This tension is all about creating an unpleasant thought in the mind of the woman about how much better she could look if she bought their product.

Can you create a ‘tension for change’ with your advertising, and then provide hope for a better future for the readers of your ads?

If not, why are you advertising?

How good are you at predicting the next phase of your business competitiveness?

Is the competition going to be based on price or something else?

Recently I read an article about how the cell phone business has changed over the years. It has shifted from price to network to design, then branding and now applications. This is a challenge for any business! If you are not able to predict the next competitive phase; you and your business will be in the catch-up mode.

When you are in the catch-up mode you are in a losing battle. You are never able to exploit your benefits or features or advantages and thus you or your industry goes into a downfall.

I say that because if you aren’t leading the new wave of competitiveness it is like you are walking around with a blind-fold on. You are bumping into objects and are not able to get to where you want to go.

To conclude I have a question for you.

What can you do today to re-invent the competitive edge in your industry so you are a leader not a follower?

Why aren’t you on Twitter?

This is a very interesting question that I hopes leads to a very revealing answer.

While I believe that technology is very important in business today, I also believe that we have to make decisions that fit with how we want to assist potential clients like you.

Twitter is great if;

·        You are into what is called micro-blogging, and

·        If you are into giving short answers.

As those who have read my blog will know my answers do not fit into micro-blogging or short answers. This is because I want to give enough information to you so that you can take action and move your business forward. As you know a Tweet is any message with fewer than 140 characters. As of now this message has over 500 characters. It would be nice to be able to solid marketing advice or information in less than 140 characters but it doesn’t meet my criteria for assisting readers like you.

Does this make sense?

Are you the one who started your business?

If you were, you do have some very unique challenges.

The founder of any business has been the ‘doer’ for some time. He or she may not be able to change from their original role in the company as it grows. When I write change I mean a total change in the involvement with the business he or she started. This is ‘their baby’ and they are not going to change their role in the company. Sadly if they don’t commit to making them selves obsolete, their company will not grow to the capacity that it could; if they let go.

When you let go – you create a new and exciting era for your business. You are saying to your staff that you trust them and what they can do with their new ideas and concepts. By showing trust, they will respect you and all the work you’ve done and make sure that their actions are actions for growth. You will become the mentor to a staff and you will be looked upon for insight.

Wouldn’t that be a great way to live your business life?

So what's keeping you up at night?

If you are in sales, and we all are to some degree, this may be a concern for you. But I want to address this question differently.

I got this idea from an article in the Harvard Business Review by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson.

When we are trying to help someone we tend to ask a lot on questions. These questions can cause the prospect to feel the pain of their situation. The question “So what is keeping you up at night?’ is a toxic one to ask because it can also lead to an area that you can’t help them with. So why bring up that type of a situation?

The key to becoming a better ‘client helper’ is to;

• Focus on ways you can help your client with products or services that only you can do,
• Then key in on identifying the cost savings their purchase of your product will achieve

This is the type of a discussion that is relaxed and client focused.

Isn’t this the way clients would like to be helped?

Is what you are doing something that is ‘Significant Enough to Make an Impact‘(SEMI)?

If you are curious enough continue reading.

To make your offering SEMI, evaluate your business by using the following questions;

• Is what I sell obviously different?
• Do I promote it by taking big risks?
• Have I made at least one innovation in the past 4 months?
• Does what I do appeal to a select type of clientele?
• Will my product or service make such an impression on the buyer that they will tell other people?
• Are my promotional claims believable?
• Does the sales/marketing staff have enormous enthusiasm towards what they are offering?
• Do you have a specific series of steps that everyone follows in the sales process?
• Is our image different than our competitors?

If you answered ‘yes’ to each one of those questions you are doing something that is ‘significant enough to make an impact'.

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Have you ever noticed how many times you say ‘but’ in a conversation?

Many years ago I took a course on influencing and the instructor advised all of us that the word ‘but’ is a influence killer.

The reason for this is that when you say the word ‘but’, what people are hearing is ‘but you are wrong’. When you are having any discussion or negotiation with a person and you contradict what they have just said, how do you think this discussion is going to end up?

So is there a word that could improve the situation? Thankfully yes! The word is a small word, the word is ‘and’. The word ‘and’ is an inclusive word. Let me give you an example.

You are discussing some ideas with a person. Your discussion partner says “I know that we should do this, this and this.” You have two options to your response;

• You can say, “But what about this.” or
• You can say “I know what you mean, and ...”

By saying the word ‘and’ you have not degraded what they have said you have brought up a point from your perspective. This type of communication will build rapport and create win/win solutions.

Isn’t that a more favorable way to work with others?

Do all the employees in your business need to have a sense of unity?

I know the answer to this question is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

The reason I say ‘yes’ is because once the business has committed to a mission or focus, everyone needs to march to the beat of the same drummer. The reason I say ‘no’ is because if you do not have variety of opinion, business life can be very boring.

It is very important that varieties of opinions are able to be voiced and discussed. It is because of the varieties of opinions that new concepts can be developed into new ideas for the future strength of your business.

So how are you going to renew your business to have both unity and variety?

If nothing happens until a sale is made, how come we don’t develop a passionate sales mindset?

I came across the following article the other day and I thought it would be helpful for you.

It is written by Harvey MacKay. Harvey is a very successful business man and has written many books including ‘Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive’ and ‘Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty’.

The article which explains the 13 simple rules to be a sales super star, it is an adapted excerpt from The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World by Harvey Mackay (Portfolio Penguin, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2011). The link follows;

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220658

So what is the key to success for a young business entrepreneur?

Recently I read an article about a woman that started a restaurant business in Canada in 1987. She is Cora Tsouflidou and is the founder of Chez Cora and Cora’s Breakfast & Lunch Restaurants. They now have over 100 stores in Canada and are looking at further growth.

In the article she stated that young entrepreneurs should be dreaming less and have more discipline in their business. So what is the discipline that she speaks of?

Discipline by definition is controlled behavior or self-control. That means having a plan or a way of executing all aspects of your business. It is not flying by the seat of your pants and hoping that things work out right.

How do you get this discipline? It starts in the training or orientation process. Let me give you an example. Have you ever baked a cake? Let’s say if the recipe stated that you put 1 tablespoon of baking soda and you put in 1/2 of a tablespoon? What would be the result? According to my spouse the cake wouldn’t rise. It is the same when you do inappropriate things at the wrong time in your work. So discipline is needed. It is so important that an Operations Manual must be developed for all aspects of your business.

What actions can you take today to become a more disciplined business?

What is holding you and your business back?

Venture capitalist Geoffrey Moore believes that it is your operating plan and the ideas in it.

That sounds pretty harsh considering that you are very pleased with your progress, doesn’t it?

Let me explain that if you are working in your business, you are guaranteed to like the progress you are making. Although if you are working on your business you will never be satisfied with what you did last week never mind last year. This is because you know that if continue to do what you’ve always done, you will be out-paced by some new company or new idea.

Being aware of the competition is very important as if you aren’t aware of them, they will knock you for a loop. To become a better competitor you need to follow what marathon runners do;

1. Endure, that is remember that you are in it for the long-term, the entire contest.
2. Be prepared, you can’t run the race if you haven’t trained and improved on a consistent basis.
3. Improve your health and diet as if you don’t feel good how do you expect to have the energy to do all you need to do.
4. Emphasize and use your strengths during the event.
5. Stick to the fundamentals in your preparation and while running the race.

Can you see what is holding you back?

Do you have balance in your life?

When one area of your life is in disarray do you feel ‘out of control’?

If you feel challenged that is a good thing. I say that because it is your inner being telling you that you don’t have balance in your life. There are 7 areas of your life and you need to be experiencing life through all of these parts in order to be fulfilled;

• Work
• Learning
• Financial
• Physical
• Social
• Family and
• Spiritual

By becoming a more balanced person you will be less stressed and feel better about your life. This is because if one area of your life is ‘out of control’, when you view the other areas of your life and they are good, you can have a more relaxed attitude to life. By being more relaxed, you will also be more effective.

My question to you is; would today be the right day to start to view your life in a more encompassing way?

Have you differentiated your business in your advertising?

Creating an ad is just more than putting your name on it, isn’t it?

The other day I was looking at a publication and noticed that each company’s advertising had great pictures and a few slogans. The ads were so similar that one logo or company name could have been substituted for another. The problem with these ads was that they didn’t identify anything special about any of the companies.

Copy differentiates one company from the other. You probably think that people don’t read copy in advertising. Well research has proven that if an ad is done effectively, the copy is read. In order to get people to read your ad in it’s entirety you need to grab their attention with a headline then expand on the headline with copy. This copy is a full explanation about what the headline offers and what makes you distinctive.

If you aren’t doing that, contact me today at 519-539-2267.

What insights do you have about you customers?

Recently I read about a very large national company that stated they lacked clear data about their customers. This type of admission should be an eye opener to all business owners or managers.

The reason I say that is because how do you expect to make good business decisions with very few customer insights? How in the world do you expect to be marketing effectively if you don’t understand who your regular clients are?

Here are some questions you need to ask your clients;

• What was the most appealing part of the service we provided?
• How could we have improved? (if they say nothing could be improved don’t believe it, instead ask)
• We know we are not perfect, so if there was one thing we could have done better what is it?

If you do this, you will begin to understand your clients and in-turn understand how your service is perceived.

You know this is important, so when can you start this?