…the first question you should be able to answer for someone…

What you learn today: Face it, you want someone’s help? What’s in it for them? Never ask for anything without thinking about this first…

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Before I get cynical on man-kind, let me start by saying that there are many people in the world still who will help with nothing in mind (for the pure joy of helping).

However, even for THEM, if you can create a “win-win” situation, you’re going to succeed far faster than one who does not.

Let me take a personal example. I have a great mentor who has coached me for the last 3 years on all areas of my life from personal to professional. He has been there for me anytime I have needed him and has really pulled me out of binds.

He has NEVER asked for a single thing in return. It’s because of that that I’d probably step in front of a moving bus for him.

So, did I just keep using and using?

Nope. Last year, when I was in position to reward him for his great advice, I did. I made it equitable for him to help me. Now every time he helps me, he gets something out of it too. He never asked me, but the result is just human nature. He feels appreciated and rewarded – that alone makes him that much more likely to help me and continue working with me.

Being selfish will kill you in this game…

A true fighter knows that he/she needs many soldiers on their side. Sure, your “army” may keep giving to you, they’ll be loyal and stand by your side day in and day out.

However, let me promise you this…

EVENTUALLY, if you’re always the one asking and never giving, that loyalty will seize to exist. 

Lesson: EVERY decision you make, EVERY action you take – think about how it impacts those around you. Even if it means doing something that means a BIT less for you, but then something for everyone around you – do it.

Give a little and you’ll be amazed at the results, it all comes back 10 fold (maybe it’s karma)?

Popularity: 2% [?]

What You’re About To Learn: Why asking for advice from “anyone” is not as helpful as you may think…

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When I was first looking to start a business I remember all the negativity. I was only 19 and everyone told me I couldn’t do it, not possible, I had no experience, no money, blah blah blah.

Needless to say, I was pretty deflated.

It was then that I heard someone say “take the advice of those who are where you want to be…not anyone and everyone who decides to offer it.”

Here’s what I mean…

Let’s say you want to learn how to fly, would you ask someone who has never flown to teach you?

NO!

Then why do you run around asking people for advice who are obviously not fit to provide it.

Before you ask anyone for advice, ask yourself – is this person where I want to be in my life? For example, is this person a pilot?

If the answer is no, keep your mouth shut and move on to someone else more qualified to give advice on that topic.

The more I live my life, I’m finding that “advice” is pretty useless most of the time. Those who are truly qualified to give advice (true mentors) are usually smart enough to only GUIDE you and never tell you what to do. My first warning sign now for bad advice is when someone tells me what to do rather than just try to guide me (even if they are or have been where I want to go).

** Please don’t get me wrong, if it was not for good advice, I would not be who I am today. But for every piece of GOOD advice I get, I usually end up also getting 10 pieces of useless advice. You need to learn to hear through the noise…

Popularity: 2% [?]

They like their own…

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What You’re About To Learn: Learn how to present your ideas to others so it gets accepted. If you present it as YOUR idea, most won’t like the idea right off the bat.

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A very interesting lesson I’m learning the more I dive into the “sales” role in our company has been how to position my sales pitch. I’m using these strategies to close “corporate accounts” but the strategies are not different for your everyday life (I use these new findings with my friends and family all the time).

The basic lesson is that when you want someone to do something, it’s your idea, not theirs, right? Your natural instinct is to go in and “convince” people, to make a case for why they should agree with you.

You’re going about it the wrong way, just like I always did…

I’ve since learned the art of “leading people into my own decisions…”

Don’t Convince Someone, Lead Someone…

Think of it this way, how likely are you to buy something when it’s YOUR own idea rather than if it’s someone else hounding on you to buy it.

Or, how likely are you to “start exercising” because you have yourself decided you need to lose weight, rather than having your friend tell you that you’re fat. You’ll actually resent your friend rather than listen to them.

Same goes with every other decision you need someone to make – ESPECIALLY at work. Are you trying to convince your boss to do something? Well, good luck, you’ll likely have very little success.

The art of getting your ideas accepted…

Don’t come right out and present your idea and start defending it. Do the opposite. Ask probing questions, questions that lead to answers which obviously lead to your idea.

Great sales people are the masters at doing this with Yes/No questions.

Let’s Assume You’re Trying To Sell Someone Something…

Let’s say it’s a “sales team management” software. You call a client and want to initiate a sale. Instinct would be to start telling them about all the great features and all the problems it solves, right?

Try this instead…

Start the call by asking them questions…

Background Information:

-> How many sales agents do you have?
-> What do they currently do the manage their leads?
-> etc…

PROBING Questions:

-> Wouldn’t you agree that “managing your follow-up calls” is a big problem John?
* Notice how I didn’t ask “what are your problems” but am leading John towards talking about a problem I have a solution for.

* I’d like ask some follow-up probing questions to his answer based on his reply – always keeping the conversation pointing towards problems my software solves.

-> John, you’re saying that you your inefficiencies probably mean you forget to follow-up with 30% of your customers right? If you even closed 10% of those, that means you’re missing out on 3% of overall sales – I guess that amounts to about $100,000 in revenue PER sales agent?

Wow, really sorry to hear that, that’s definitely a problem and I can see why it hurts so much!

* Notice how I’m starting to get John to really THINK about the problem and how bit it really is in the sense of lost revenue.

-> John, you’re probably also having multiple agents calling the same people right?

* Leads to another feature of the software…

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Anyways, you get the point. The above questions are all LEADING to John thinking up his OWN solution. John will probably come out of this thinking – “Yea! Wow, if someone could just create some automated solution for this, I’d save so much money!”

Congratulations! You’ve officially GIVEN YOUR idea to John and he just sold HIMSELF.

I know I just used a business example, but think about it – you can use things like this anywhere with anyone.

The basic idea is to always “LEAD people into a decision that you want” rather than to ask them to “MAKE a decision on that you want…”

Being a fighter means having full control on the situations around you and being able to fight for your own ideas is a huge part of it.

Popularity: 3% [?]

What you learn today: The best way to improve your listening skills almost immediately & it’s not really “active listening.”

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“Active listening” is not really “good” listening - it’s more like “regurgitation” of what someone says. Active listening says that you should re-cap what someone says after they say it.

Not only is that awkward and annoying in conversation, just repeating someone’s words does not mean you heard them.

A good listener understands the meaning behind those words, the implications and the entire scope of the message that is being delivered. A good listener doesn’t just LISTEN, but he/she watches for body movements, facial reactions and everything else.

You combine all your senses and create a full picture of what is being said – THAT is “good listening” – ironically, 50% of good listening has nothing to do with your ears.

Forget All This, Go Back To K.I.S.S – Keeping It Simple Stupid

Today, I’m not going to tell you that you should immediately start understanding people better just by watching and listening to them. This skill does not come over night, it’s far more complicated than you think.

My goal is to give you a SIMPLE tip that you can put into place immediately and start IMPROVING your listening skills (rather than solving them over night)…

The Best Way To Start Improving Your Listening Skills…

Start with this simple exercise and just work on this for an entire month. It may be simple, but it’s not easy.

Some background: By default, as humans we have an inclination to want to speak. We want to share our thoughts/feelings. Most of us are never “listening” to anyone, we’re busy getting our responses together.

Think about it, you’ll agree – observe yourself during your next conversation. I bet you spend at least 80% of the conversation making evaluations and gathering your thoughts for a response.

Simple But Not Easy Exercise – Start NOW…

Let someone finish.

That’s it, I know it sounds simple, but try it – it’ll almost hurt the first time.

Make it a point to not say a THING at all until the other party is completely finished. I mean COMPLETELY finished, not a “pause.” Heck, maybe even wait for them to say “so…why are you so quiet? what do you think about this!”

Try not to doze off during this period, but for now, even if you do – fine. The goal right now is that you should just stop interrupting and butting in. Get yourself to stop wanting to hear yourself talk.

There you go – your assignment today, every conversation you have – walk away from it having said the LEAST you can and NEVER interrupt anyone (even during a pause), let them finish.

Popularity: 8% [?]

This comes from page 126 of “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (not my affiliate link yet, waiting to get approved by Amazon)!

The next time you need to tell someone they are wrong, stop.

Mr. Carnegie makes an amazing point that we should never tell anyone they are wrong – it never evokes a helpful response – no one wants to be wrong (do you?)…

Instead, tell them how what they did made you feel. It will have a profound impact. Obviously if what they did made you feel bad, they were wrong But let them come to this decision on their own.

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Perfect Example
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Without naming names, something drastic happened in my life a few years back and I was very upset with someone close to me. I felt that they were not there for me at all and it shocked me, upset me and greatly saddened me.

For quite some time, I held a grudge and did not speak with them. However, pretty soon the negativity began to spread – others around me soaked it in and began to mis-treat this one individual on account of what had happened with me.

Eventually it BLEW up – but rather than it blowing up with me and this person, it was someone else close to me and that person. Naturally I felt horrible.

I quickly recognized that the situation needed a resolution and so I took action. I decided to meet with the person who I felt wronged by and talk to them about this face to face.

My tactic? Tell them how it made me feel (to my credit this was before I read it in the book : ) …

I sat down at a local Starbucks and found that the opposing person was baffled at why I had “shut them out” and that they felt they had been there for me all the way.

Instead of saying “you are wrong and you were wrong and no you were not…”

I took the approach of…

“Perhaps there was a miscommunication, all I know is that I felt very abandoned and let down from someone I was hoping for great support from.

I was going through a very rough patch in my life and needed your support and I did not feel that I had it. I understand that perhaps I should have spoken with you about this earlier, I was just very upset and perhaps that was my mistake.”

The result?

PROFOUND - The entire situation was resolved in minutes, relationship restored, both parties happy and everyone living happily ever after (to point at least).

For those of you with an ego – notice that I did NOT apologize or say “sorry” anywhere, that was not necessary – I only needed to discuss my feelings. I never said this person was wrong – I simply was honest about how “I” felt.

Keep it about you, give the other person some benefit of doubt and go into it with a mindset of a peaceful resolution, not a fight.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Dear Fighters,

For the next few days at least, I will be quoting the lessons learned from one of my favorite books – How To Win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. This is the first of his books I have read and I am an enormous fan already. The book was a short read but has completely changed the way I “deal with people.”

One of his points of advice that really hit home with me was “Never Criticize People…” – He didn’t really give away 3 reasons, but I am (after thinking how this applies in my life).

1. It inspires one to be defensive.

Have you ever tried to work with or talk to anyone that is defensive? It’s very hard, they shut down their reasoning and listening and focus on DEFENDING themselves. At this point, nothing you say will convince them that you’re right.

What happens is that THEM being defensive makes YOU more aggressive and soon, before you know it, you’re arguing.

2. It inspires “negative” feelings…

A goal of mine when I speak to anyone (even if we’re fighting) is to make them walk away feeling good. I don’t want anyone, ever, to walk away from me feeling ill-will towards me.

Well, when you put someone down and tell them they’re WRONG – they tend not to have rosey thoughts of you.

3. Your message is completely tainted…

Whatever you were trying to get across – forget about it. It ain’t happening. That person is no longer focused on your “constructive” criticism, they’re focusing on your criticism and are now thinking of how they can “attack” back.

So, all in all, I think “constructive criticism” is bull **** – there is no such thing! Always focus on COMPLEMENTING with helpful suggestions

It may seem like I just did a play on words, but I really didn’t – there is a huge difference, try it and see for yourself.

Popularity: 2% [?]