Business

My twitter rules of engagement

Before reading this, please be aware that I possess a sharp sense of fun and am learning as I blunder through life 🙂

I got some good advice today after seeking out an expert in this field as a result of encountering a situation which I was puzzled by. So here I am setting out for peeps how I engage and whom I choose to follow and why. Also some of the things you can expect from me and those you probably shouldn’t expect.

Clear? Good

So why am I using twitter? I am embracing the social media/social networking wave and use many different platforms to connect with new people as well as develop existing friendships and relationships. I actually have no particular END GAME just to connect, share, learn and be part of what the internet has enabled. Through embracing the connectedness that social networking has enabled, I have made new friendships, business contacts and learnt many new things. In fact my INLPTA diplomas in sales, coaching and leadership were all as a direct result of using social networking.

So, to my rules of engagement: (in no particular order) 🙂

>I am here to share, learn, meet new people, converse, help people, collaborate, and have some fun.

>I follow people based upon what I read, how I see people operating, what their stated aims might be, how aligned or different I see us- and many other random factors.

>I do NOT follow people because you ask me too? I am however always delighted to listen to recommendations with a reason, but do not practice I follow you because you follow me. I may well follow you, but it’s not a “given”.

>I also do not expect you to follow me back just because I have chosen to follow you- I am an adult able to make my own independant decisions and choices for which I hold only myself accountable 🙂

>I do reply and engage with people, if I’m on-line, in real-time, otherwise when I can.

>I will retweet interesting items, important information, and notices. Happy to RT if asked and providing it isn’t offensive and isn’t at odds with my values or beliefs.

>I will ONLY recommend you if I have a personal reason to do so, and not because you have asked me to, or because you have recommended me. Why? how can I possibly be expected to recommend you unless I really believe you have something of interest to people… I do not recommend anyone unless I have good reason to – a personal positive experience for example. I expect the same treatment in return and will not ask for a recommendation, but am always grateful for them if deserved.

I do hope this is read by you with the good spirit I have written it with, to provide clarity and assurance of my intent. Also to serve in setting expectations. And feedback of course welcome.

Business, Leadership, Personal Management, Social, training

Vitamins for the Mind : Jim Rohn International

Vitamins for the Mind – Jim Rohn an INSPIRATION

via Vitamins for the Mind : Jim Rohn International.

Business, Personal Management, Social

Whom do you admire? Who is your hero?

This is a question that I have heard asked on many occasions in interviews for jobs, or of celebrities in TV interviews and many times I have listened to the answers without much reflection. There are always the perhaps more predictable responses – famous historic figures and others in the public eye, but the ones that carry most weight for me are the ones where people quote “real” people that they know – especially family members. Having said this, I rarely think much about this. Until now that is – I was just relaxing in my bath and my thoughts turned to recent conversations and the person in mind I started to remember interviewing him for a position in the company I worked for perhaps 10 years ago. I started to recall that I asked him this very question and his response needed no thought – it was his father who turned out to be a man of the church. So why am I blogging about this? The simple answer is that I have often reflected on people I admire and (sadly) for the first time I thought about my parents in this light….and I thought and thought, and you know what I AM absolutely proud and full of admiration for my parents. They brought my brother and I up incredibly successfully – we always had the essentials and were always loved and cared for. Both of my parents had to work to “make ends meet” and there were occasions when things were difficult, but they made sacrifices and made sure my brother and I always had what was needed. They are definitely my heroes, and you can be sure that I will tell them to their faces when I next see them 🙂

Business, remote working, working from home

Is your web traffic secure at a hotspot? Don’t know – BBC watchdog does!

It’s not so easy to sit comfortably over a coffee while reading emails or browsing websites in places like Starbucks since Watchdog pointed out how easy it is for fraudsters to hack into your laptop. The convenience of these wifi hotspots has become such a normal part of our everyday lives that it’s hard to give up, so it’s tempting to trust the computer firewall and lapse into a false sense of security again. Read more at BBC web site and http://www.geid.co.uk

Business, Personal Management

When is the right time to invest in training?

The Telecom industry is under-invested in training as a whole. This was the general feedback and view of many attendees of the recent Convergence Summit held at Sandown Park during a panel debate session. So why is this so? Do people generally feel that there is no need to invest in training because they already have all the skills they need to have? I’m sure that most of us need training and do generally welcome it, so why is this the case? Perhaps it’s as simple as not having sufficient training available to them… I’d be interested to know what holds us back in this area, because I know from first hand experience how valuable training is.

Leadership, Personal Management, Social

Are you taking the turn?

There’s a great motivational poster that deals with CHANGE. It says that a bend in the road is not the end of the road UNLESS you fail to make the turn! And boy are there some bends in the road just now! If you are a difference person and therefore change oriented, then all is well, but what about the poor sameness person who likes things pretty much the way they’ve always been? It can be tough, but I offer this for those facing change. It’s not what happens to us, but what you do about it…watch this inspiring video and you’ll see what I mean ...W Mitchell

Business, channel, partnership, Sales, Selling

Building a channel – a simplistic view

What’s in it for me? And What are you going to do to help me? These are just two of the key questions any potential channel partner will be asking, presupposing that you can get an invitation to meet in the first place. How quickly can the new partner generate profitable revenues, and who will assist them to price, win and implement their initial sales? Next steps are to really build a significant revenue stream together and manage the support issues and obvious cash management challenges, notwithstanding the “hygiene” factors of ongoing training and relationship- building ongoing trust and goodwill. It is a worthwhile journey if you are committed to this path. One word of caution- don’t do this if investing is something you are trying to avoid – you can’t build success by “allowing” partners just to have access to your offering. You may make a few opportunistic sales, but you won’t build a business.

Business

What matters to your customers?

So- you are a sales professional, and you have an in depth
understanding of your product or solution offering? Could you explain to your grandma what your product does or more importantly what problems your product solves for your customers? I fear that for many sales people today the answer is no (if we are being 100% honest and not just giving the answer you think should be given). This is an opportunity though if you can revisit and get to the problem or problems you solve. Think how much more powerful your proposition is if it’s framed this way.

Business

Transferable skills?

Like me, you may sometimes wonder why people make the decisions that they do, and I think the well known NLP presupposition covers this incredibly well – The map is not the territory. Essentially, our own internalised perception of the World is only the way we have recorded a situation and need not be the same as somebody else’s recollection. I think this helps to at least begin to explain the initial assertion of the decisions we see being made that perhaps don’t always make sense to us.

What prompted this thinking is the fact that the sales arena is a very complex one – often onlookers would say that selling is selling! However, there is much more to sales than might at first glance appear to be the case, but is this just my MAP?

It is really easy to become drawn into making sweeping statements about people who come from a certain background in sales as being unsuitable for a new and apparently different role – for example, a sales person who has spent a long time in a small company might be overlooked for a sales job in a large corporate organisation, and of course vice versa. This does not necessarily need to be the case. In fact in my experience I have witnessed many successful transitions from small business direct sales to large corporate indirect sales and the same in reverse.

So why does this occur? That’s difficult to say, other than to suppose that experiences have dictated for some people that the experience has been unsuccessful. Perhaps a deeper investigation into the individual’s skills and flexibility, through objective assessments may have uncovered this, and the mistakes may have been avoided and the perception changed.

Business

Training- I haven’t got time!

Amazing that this is probably one of the most frequent reasons sales people give for not investing in training. Got customers to see and deals to close is the cry, yet isn’t it the case that World Class athletes, sportsmen and women all participate in training and coaching regularly. I would suggest that taking time for regular, planned training is a fundamental component of success- wouldn’t you agree?