Self-leadership has many applications including the ability to influence and therefore to sell. As a Self-leader you know what’s important to you and so can sell with the intention to add-value to your customers or clients.
I shall shortly be giving a presentation to a group of private and investment bankers in Singapore. You can view the slides from my presentation here. In this presentation I highlight a few key strategies to be successful at selling value and these are as follows:
According to Heiman – “Selling is a professional, interactive process directed toward demonstrating to all your buyers how your product or service serves their self interest, and will enhance their lives.” It is therefore important that we behave as professionals and get good at selling value.
Consumers are getting smarter and with access to the internet are likely to be familiar with your competitors products and pricing. You must therefore influence them to buy from you.
To influence effectively requires trust. You can generate trust by exercising Self-leadership and by your intentionality you become an electromagnet.
According to Aristotle you must demonstrate, Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Just having a logical argument is not enough, you must be ethical and show empathy. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
You must be an excellent listener for if you will fail to meet your sales numbers if you are unable to identify & effectively communicate unique value contribution by understanding, prioritizing, and matching to customer needs.
To find out what the client needs, you must be adept at asking the, “What’s important to you about that?” question.
People’s needs and values generally fall into the categories of; Security, Performance, Appearance, Convenience, Economy or Durability.
You can ‘frame’ you sale by pacing the client’s needs and values and connecting these to your product or service – providing there is an ethical fit.
Remember to apply the Law of Reciprocity – if you want to create success for yourself, help someone else become successful.
Of course there are other strategies and I can only share so much in a blog post. Feel free to add your ideas and techniques in the comments section.
Women often complain that, ” Men Don’t Listen”. They may be correct, some men and for that matter, some women don’t listen. What is perhaps closer to the truth is that men ‘listen’ for the things that are important to them that are phrased in a way that they understand.
I live by the maxim, “The meaning of communication is the response you get”, which puts the onus on the communicator to be flexible in their communication style to get their meaning across.
Today I spoke on this topic at the Women’s Leadership Forum 2011, “Gender Diversity for Success” on November 3, 2012 in Singapore. If you attended please give feedback in the comments section and you can view the slide deck here.
I was coaching an IT Director of an international bank and we were discussing the challenges of getting consensus decisions in a large organization. He was frustrated and described his approach thus; “When everybody is trying to decide what color to paint the wall, I throw red paint balls at it and then the decision about what color it should be is passed and we can get on with finishing the painting!”
With the sad passing of Steve Jobs today I wanted to make the point that he was a leader who threw lots of red paint balls. Steve did not conduct customer focus groups or ask other people for their opinion; he trusted his aesthetic sense and gut feel. Steve will not be remembered as a great people manager or collaborative team member but as an inspirational innovator who redefined the way we view and use technology.
Steve Jobs was a Self-leader; fully aware of his strengths and unapologetically used them to pursue his vision. He was often compared to a modern day Thomas Edison and I think you could also compare him to Galileo who similarly challenged authority and gave us a new way of looking at science rather than hanging on to outdated models. Continue Reading »
A friend of mine is an Asia Pacific Managing Director for a global firm. We were chatting over lunch and I was sharing the need for a longer term approach to developing leaders; “I agree”, he said, “but my company would never sign up for something like that.” When I inquired as to why not, he explained that any commitment to learning and development would be viewed by quarter, because, with the uncertain future in 2012 they would want to be able to cut back on any non-essential expenditure!
This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?
Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback. Continue Reading »
A leader who wishes to bypass resistance, prepare hearts and minds and facilitate lasting changes for his or her organisation must understand and be able to use the power of story and metaphor. In a previous post I shared about the construction of metaphors and wanted to expand on this with specific relevance to leadership in today’s challenging environment.
What stories are you telling your people? Do you know what stories are you telling yourself? Continue Reading »
As we watch scenes of wanton distruction and looting in London we must ask ourselves, is there any situation or circumstance that warrants this kind of behaviour? Just before I wrote this blog I was listening to the BBC World Service and heard someone say that we have created a culture of Self and Self-interest and that this was the cause. I don’t subcribe to simplistic cause-effect statements and don’t believe the London riot is the result of one problem or one group of people but I would like to comment on why this kind of selfish behaviour is NOT Self-leadership. Continue Reading »
As a leadership consultant and executive coach I am often asked by my clients to help them understand and navigate organisational politics.
Most people I speak to have a negative perspective of politics, they associate it with backstabbing and pushing your own agenda at a cost to others. I have a different perspective; my experience is that business politics is about human nature and to ignore it is to ignore reality. In a perfect world the best workers would be promoted on merit alone and the best ideas would be adopted regardless of personal interest – but we do not live in Utopia we live in the real world. If you want to survive and prosper in the real world you need to combine good work with smart politics.
The term ‘Machiavellian’ is often used to negatively label those who have mastered the Art of Politics in Businesss but this may be paying a disservice to Nicolo Machievelli ( 1469 -1527) who wrote a handbook for politics and human nature called “The Prince”. I read The Prince as a young man but I recommend that my coaching clients read “The New Machievelli” by Alistair McAlpine. Continue Reading »
As well as researching, writing about and coaching about Self-leadership I often give keynote speeches.
Recently I gave a presentation to a company who wanted to inspire their people to live their value ‘Do What’s Right’. You can watch 4 minutes of it right here.
…the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and behaviors to achieve your objective.
Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, can make decisions, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity.
Some of the intentional behaviours that characterise Self-leadership are; self-awareness, self-goal setting, self-motivation, positive self-talk, assertive communication and the ability to receive and act on feedback.
Becoming a Self-leader and maintaining Self-leadership is a self-development activity; but organizations that encourage Self-leadership reap the benefit.
I was recently inteviewed about Self-leadership on Singaore’s 938Live radio program. I have saved 3 audio files here so you can listen as a Podcast.
What is Self-leadership?
Self-leadership is about intentionally influencing yourself to achieve your objectives. Self-leaders have the drive for autonomy and so can make thier own descions. Self-leadership Part 1
Self-leadership has many applications including the ability to influence and therefore to sell. As a Self-leader you know what’s important to you and so can sell with the intention to add-value to your customers or clients. 
