by Richard Flint Seminars
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Focused On Business Concerns Recently, we have been sharing a research project I did with business leaders regarding their business concerns for the future. As they have read the information, most have told us you are right on with what any business leader needs to be looking at as they plan for the future. Here are some of my views on these four areas of common concern. First let me restate them for you.
Any company or organization wanting to improve must address these issues. My research says they are going away. They will grow in emotional presence. Retaining and Recruiting Quality People This is the #1 issue facing companies today. A tight labor market can create a stressful business environment. The result becomes leadership driven by a fear of loss. What happens then? They are willing to hang onto people who don’t support the mission of the company, make exceptions, change the rules, overlook behaviors that are negative and justify it with there are not a lot of quality people out there. Reality is — there may be more quality people out there than we have had in a long time. Truth is, there are not a lot of quality companies designed to attract them. Lowering the standards changes the design and punishes those who are committed to quality. Lowering the standards rewards those who simply show up and aren’t committed to a mission of customer care. The tragedy is the number of talented quality people who are leaving because they are tired of giving 100% to an unappreciative leadership who continues to take advantage of their commitment to quality. Rewarding negative people is a costly mistake! Understanding the Meaning of Motivation Many managers are exhausted from trying to keep people motivated. For some strange reason they have made themselves responsible for the energy of their people. What they don’t understand is that is not their job! It is not their responsibility to emotionally adopt people. Their role is to design and maintain a healthy environment where motivated people can excel. When you emotionally adopt a person, you become responsible for them. That means that they act and you react by taking care of them or fixing their mistakes. So, they spend their days fighting fires, not doing their work and becoming an emotional wreck. Improvement demands people are held accountable and responsible for what they should be doing. Protecting negative people simply validates their behavior and increases the stress on the leader of the orphanage. Soon, the leader gives up and unknowingly becomes a participant. At this point leadership stops! Motivation demands people know who they are, where they are, and what they want for their life. Without these understandings they show up and hold the company environment hostage with their behavior. Strengthening the Customer Connection How important is the customer’s experience with the organization? Is it important enough to monitor their experience and make sure that their experience is one that brings them back? All GREAT companies are more focused on bringing the customer back than getting them in the door. To most companies as long as they are making money, customer satisfaction is a concept, rather than a process the company takes seriously. But, let the people go away and profits slip and what do they start preaching? CUSTOMER SERVICE! GREAT customer care is not happening; it is a process of building relationships. That process tells the customer they matter. Products don’t demonstrate that; people do. I designed a customer research where I visited with 100 customers whose company loyalty was destroyed by people disappointments. In talking with them it was interesting hearing their expectations and disappointments. If those companies had just lived up to the promise of customer care, they would have not lost these people. Of all customer complaints, 99% are generated by people disappointments. How costly is that! Helping People Find A Definition Of Balance For Their Life Smart leadership understands that unhappy people hurt a company’s profitability. Too many come to work for the check, not because this is something they want to be doing. Too many have unstable lives outside of work and bring their personal issues to the work place. These people lack focus, are constantly exhausted, driven by a negative presence, and rarely give their best to what they are doing. GREAT companies are striving to link business to living a totally healthy life. They are providing counseling, workout facilities, and activities for them and their families. Several understand the growing number of single parents and are working to take some of the stress from these people. They understand the need for balance. It really is an interesting time we are living in. Many businesses are positioning themselves to avoid dealing with the customer. They are putting systems in place that make it difficult for one human to talk to another. Yet, the excitement of doing business is when people come together with people. The challenge is many who have been given the role of leadership don’t enjoy people, so they are building walls using technology to insulate them from that evil necessity called people. The internal customer translates that as saying I am not important to the company that creates behaviors that tell the external customer we don’t care about you. Result—companies with great products and disappointed internal and external customers. This disappointment removes the desire to be loyal from the mind of the customer. I wonder who wins here?
If you would be interested in spending a weekend with me to gain a deeper sense of business or personal clarity, let me know. Email me at Richard@RichardFlint.com What separates leaders from managers? Managers manage tasks, and leaders lead people. Many who are called leaders are actually managers. It is not because that is their role; the truth is most are more comfortable managing tasks than they are leading people. You can always tell when a person is more comfortable with tasks than people, because the tasks get done and the people issues grow and gain emotional strength. Managing tasks takes product knowledge, while leading people takes people skills. When you study the leadership training of most organizations is it more designed around organizational task management, not people understanding. People understanding demands the leader be sharp in five areas – listening, communication, confrontation, delegation and decision-making. Show me a leader who is sharp in these areas and I will show you a leader who is prepared to bring leadership to those they are there to lead. Over the next few newsletters, I want to explore each of these. Let’s start with listening. Every prepared leader is a good listener! This is one of the top strengths they bring. If you really break it down, listening is a process designed to gather information and see awareness. Each person has been given eyes and ears to hear with. Your ears hear words, while your eyes hear behavior. A good listener uses both and allows them to compliment each other. Without both your ears and eyes participating in the listening process, important information will be lost. The loss of information stifles the clarity of communication. Why is it so challenging for most people to listen? Here are the most common reasons I have found. The leader is loaded with too many things to do. If you feel overwhelmed or totally scattered, it is challenging to pay attention for any length of time. There is always a crisis that is burning and you have to get to it. The leader’s interest is not there. Many tune out when they are handed stuff they don’t care about; they pretend to be there, but in reality they are not listening. The story the leader is listening is the same story they have already heard. It is really challenging to stay for a conversation you have heard several times before. Many would like to finish the story for the person so they can get on with their life. The leader doesn’t have the time. This is one of the top reasons; most are stretched for time and they don’t sense the urgency to invest the time at this moment in what they are being presented with. The leader is emotionally reactive. Any time one is emotionally reactive, they are not going to listen. They have already formed their opinion and just want the other person to shut up and listen. The last challenge for the leader to listen is the fact there are just too many negative conversations. It is so draining to listen to whining, blaming and all the other emotional garbage that goes on during a day. It is easier to just look at the task and make that the focus. Next month we will look at why listening is so important. You can’t lead if you don’t listen. Listening is the first skill one must master to provide leadership, not management. (I would love to hear your thoughts about this information. Email me at Richard@RichardFlint.com) There are many challenges to building your business; one of the top challenges is the concept of duplication. Everywhere you turn someone is talking about being able to duplicate the process from person to person. The concept is sound, BUT the achievement of it is where the confusion happens. Why? Here are a couple of the reasons I have discovered. First, not everyone is you. Many times when one is teaching the process to others, they are teaching from the theory of “I.” This is how “I” do it; this is the way “I” have found works best. The fact is not everyone is like you! Each is an individual; what must be taught is the strength of the process, not the use of the process by the person. Duplication must leave room for the person’s personality. Second, not everyone accepts the process. How many times have you seen someone come from another network marketing group where they became comfortable with the process they were using and decided they would just continue to do what they have always done? The challenge here is not all processes work the same for different products. If they can’t listen and learn, you are in for an emotional collision. Third, duplication demands the patience to learn and implement. Too many who come into an organization want to be successful overnight. The leader has to be careful not to paint an unrealistic picture of the journey. If the expectations exceed the understanding, the person is going to run into a wall that will flatten them. Once they are flattened, they will begin to doubt what they are doing. The theory of duplication is sound; the challenge is in the lack of understanding about its meaning that many leaders have.
Strategies for Successful Selling Have you ever watched a salesperson give up on a customer because they didn’t purchase on their timetable? This is a salesperson who doesn’t understand the power of persistent consistency based on consistent persistency. Selling is not about a moment in a customer’s life; it is about a presence that builds a relationship that brings value and understanding. Without this understanding, customers will come and go and not gain the full understanding of the doing business. Doing business is more than selling a product. It is having that presence that has presence when you are not present. Do you understand what that means? Here is what presence says to me:
If you are simply a moment in the customer’s life, you will soon be the person they used to do business with. Presence is all about the continuation and strengthening of who you are to their business life.
(I would love to hear your thoughts about this information. Email me at Richard@RichardFlint.com) “Dear Richard, I just thought you might like to know what I do with your words of wisdom that you kindly send each day. I am a Trauma Specialist Counselor, and I run a Holistic Therapy Centre and Alternative Gift and Health Shop. I make little cards with the words you send me, and invite all clients, customers and 'down in the mouth' therapists, to take a thought for the day out of my bag of wisdom. I invite them to put it on their fridge or give it to someone they think could use it. The benefits for all of us have been immense. I regularly have free give away's for my customers - health products, gifts and stress testing cards for adults, aa well as gifts and pocket money toys for children, which are always well received. Since I've been making these cards people have had that extra skip in their step as they leave and we have that extra personal interaction with more customers and staff - the potential benefits of this is phenomenal. You have added a marvelous string to my bow. I'm also thinking of compiling self-empowerment cards for children who visit us as well - building self-esteem and assertiveness at an early age is crucial to a developing life. I'm about to attend a health day where over 500 people are expected to attend. I've produced a bag of wisdom for this event too. What a fantastic way to spread your wisdom and publicize my service. — Sharon Have your ordered your calendar yet? 2007 Daily MindJogger Calendar “If life is going to start tomorrow, what are you doing with today?” Each day is a gift from God and it’s up to you to determine how you will use it. Will you abuse it? Waste it? Spend it? Or invest it? To help you make the process of investing your time easier, Richard created the Daily MindJogger Calendar. It’s a collection of some of his most powerful thoughts. This daily calendar is designed to guide each day of your life as you progress along your journey. It will give you the guidance, motivation, and inspiration you need to clearly define and achieve your dreams. Imagine having the clarity and insight you need to overcome difficult obstacles in your path! For more information and to order now, click here! Quantities are limited. Don't procrastinate! Richard's StarMaker 2007 Conference How important is Motivation? Is motivation a moment of energy or the enthusiasm that goes with living a life with direction and purpose? What happens to a life that lacks motivation? These are just a few of the questions that will be addressed at StarMaker 2007. The theme Richard has chosen is Feeding The Hunger of Motivation. In Richard's words, “One of the most confusing teachings that has come down through the ages are the words used to explain the concept of motivation. It is concept because it lacks the consistent persistency necessary to maintain the momentum of energy. When motivation is a moment of energy, it is not motivation; it is being psyched. That one thought makes motivation impossible to maintain.” This is going to be one powerful StarMaker. Mark the dates on your calendar – July 20-22 at Marriott’s Doral Spa and Golf Resort in Miami, Florida. Keep watching for more information of making this one of your 2007 Growth Experiences. Click Here to Download The Conference Brochure!
The Next Generation of Programs by Richard Flint Creating A Presence of Value Guiding Thought: When one doesn’t see or feel the value, they question whether this is something they really need, even though they have stated their need. When the value is understood through product and person, the skepticism and uncertainty is no longer present. Most companies and/or salespeople have become satisfied with just doing the job of taking care of the customer’s need. What they fail to realize is a need can be met and at the same time business lost. In this thought provoking program, you will gain an understanding of what causes people to question the value of the event; you will learn 14 actions to protect the environment from creating customer disappointment; and you will discover the six rewards from creating value with your customers. This program concludes with eight thoughts that will clear the points of confusion and expand the clarity of your presence. Remember: When you have become an organization that has a presence when you aren’t present, you have become a center of value to your customers. Program Length: 90 minutes to 2 hours
To schedule Richard for your next meeting or conference, please call Hilda at 1-800-368-8255, or email Hilda@richardflint.com. Be sure visit Richard's website for more program information! Find out how to help other people have a better quality of life and make some extra cash at the same time. Richard’s Affiliate Program is an opportunity to build a partnership with Richard and help him reach those who need his information and insights. You know the power of his message and now you can help others know it too.
Richard Flint Seminars 11835 Canon Blvd., Suite C-105 Newport News, VA 23606 1-800-368-8255 or (757) 873-7722 Fax 1-800-232-8255 o (757) 873-7772 Questions? Call Denise at 1-800-368-8255 or email: MindJogger@richardflint.com Newsletter Date: September 20, 2006 |
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