Focus – Personal Tuning
It’s not counselling but people go away feeling more confident
It’s not career coaching but people feel motivated and know what they want to do
It’s not interview training but people get offered jobs
It’s not fortune telling but people leave with a vision of their future
It’s not psychiatry but it clears people's minds
It’s not a performance appraisal but people feel energised and know how to get back on track
It’s not marriage guidance but people find working relationships easier
To find out what it is...
www.personal-tuner.co.uk
Open Courses
Presentation Power - Wed 12 and Thur 13 May, Green Park, Reading
www.presentation-training.com for details.
If you can’t make this date or would like to run a course in-house, please get in touch
Free Seminar
"What Do People Think of You?"
Everyone has people they find a little challenging to work with. Why is this the case - is it them or is it you? Find out how to turn them into opportunities.
Weds 26 May, 8.00am
London Bridge
Voluntary donations to BLESMA, The British Limbless Ex Servicemen Association. Click here to book your place.
If you've got a question or some feedback I'd love to hear from you.
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In this issue we’ll be looking at the opening dialogue with potential customers and just what an influence this can have.
Enjoyable reading.
Sales Coach and Personal Tuner
Best Foot Forward
Last week Sandra (my wife) and I visited her parents and they’d had a bit of a clear-out. Waiting for us on the coffee table was Sandra’s school report, age 9.5, and one of those school photos in the cardboard frame - sweeeet. All looked good on the report until the last item. Physical Activities: "Fair but lacks exuberance out of doors". If you know her you’ll realise that’s quite amusing and quite accurate, although she claims it was a little harsh.
The next day, clearly trying to shake off the injustice of her "stupid" PE teacher’s comments she arranged to go for a walk (yes, out of doors) with a couple of friends. It was a beautiful day (that helped). Val "I don’t do hills" had cut out details of a flat, 5 mile walk from The Times and so they set off for the wilderness of the village of Rotherwick equipped with: newspaper cutting with map (check), Ordnance Survey map (check), water (check), lipstick for Kate (check).
"Lovely walk" said Sandra on her return, "but not the walk we had set out to do". "Why what happened?" I replied. Chastising herself: "I just can’t believe how useless we are - we’ve decided you have to take us out for a map-reading lesson. After only 15 minutes we were already struggling to find a turning and work out where we were on the OS map. We asked a couple of people walking their dogs if we were near Black Wood and we were already two miles off course! How is that possible?"
On arrival in Rotherwick they had parked the car outside the pub, clearly marked on the OS map and in accordance with the newspaper cutting. Crossing over the road they spotted a Waymarker path sign and off they marched, exuberantly. The schoolgirl error they’d made was setting off on the first path they chanced across. If they’d looked closer at the map they would have seen to turn left on the road, go past the church (also shown on the OS map) and then start on that path. The paths were only 100m apart, but it didn’t start them off Best Foot Forward. So near and yet so far.
With my ‘map spotter’ head on I reassured her that the start of a walk is often the hardest part - it’s also the easiest part to get wrong if you’re not clear what you’re looking for. The right start is important, you can look and look at a map but get the start wrong and it’s much harder to orientate yourself afterwards and get back on track.
We've all heard about the importance of first impressions and how people make decisions about us and our presentations in seconds, but let's look at this from a different perspective. What you talk about in the first few moments to customers has the potential to set the tone for a long time, and just like Sandra's walk it may be difficult to get back to where you want to be. If you start by talking about products you'll be known as the person who talks products. On the other hand if you talk about mitigating risk you'll be seen as the person who talks about issues close to the customer’s business.
Doing something about it may take some investment but it's worth it. A great example is a client I've just started working with. They want to develop closer commercial partnerships with customers. Over the last 18 months they have invested hugely and developed a product range that is so well received by customers it would be easy to open with talking about it. But this wouldn't help develop commercial partnerships.
They realised customers are interested in conversion rates, maximum return from investing in display kit and creative commercials. Using these subjects in the very next call resulted in a meeting with a potential customer, who opened that meeting with: "Before we start I'd just like to say something. Your call was very different. Most people ask if they can come to show their product range. You talked about three things that are vital to the success of our business". You could say they got off on the right foot!
...and now for something a bit different
The definition of the phrase “he is still setting the best foot forward”, first recorded circa 1613, is to embark on a journey or task with purpose and gusto. How much purpose and gusto do you bring to/get from your role? If it’s not what you’d like it to be click here
Update: Thanks to everyone who responded to last issue’s tandem request. Tony Clarke put us in touch with Anna and Kevin Jenkins and they have very kindly lent us their rather gorgeous Cannondale tandem, which Graeme and I are now regularly cycling round the country lanes of Hampshire.
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