It seems to me that effective time management consists of only 12 basic strategies.  There are 3 skills, 3 principles, 3 techniques, and 3 corollaries .  A corollary is something that is not a part of a subject,but has an impact upon it.  We’ll cover this later.

The 3 skills are:

1.  Career competency

2.  Effective planning

3.  Effective delegation

The 3 principles are:

1.  The Pareto Principle (80/20)

2.  Parkinson’s law

3.  Pearson’s constant

The 3 techniques are:

1.  Time log

2.  Focus time

3.  Lists

And, the 3 corollaries are:

1.  Environmental safety

2.  Relationship well being

3.  Financial solvency

Each one of these twelve time management strategies is missing a critical piece of information that’s necessary for the strategy to work well.  As we continue to develop this subject we’ll need to keep adding new insights.

© 2011, Carter Institute, Inc.  all rights reserved

The Five Fatal Voicemail Flaws are

1.  You didn’t identify yourself at the beginning of the message.

2.  Your message was longer than 30 seconds.

3.  You didn’t leave your phone number.

4.  You left your return phone number at the end of your message rather than at the beginning.

5.  Your return phone number was either slurred or spoken too quickly for the listener to capture the number.

Bonus Reason:  It’s also possible that you’ve done something that has upset them and they’re either evading you or punishing you, but this isn’t really about the voicemail so much as it’s more about the quality of your relationship.  Look for the blog about Repairing Ruptured Relationships!

The simple solution to all of these flaws is to make it easy for the person you called to get back to you.  The easier you make it for them, the more likely they’re going to return your call in a timely manner.

Let’s address these one at a time.

1.  You didn’t identify yourself at the beginning of the call.

I know! I know! I know!  Of course you have a right to expect that your best friends and clients will automatically recognize your voice so you don’t need to identify yourself.  After all, you talk with them all the time.  And, there’s a good chance that your best friends and clients do recognize your voice. But, what if they don’t?  Leaving the message, “Hi!” “It’s ME!” creates at least temporary confusion!

Think about it.  If you’re like most people you yourself have difficulty recognizing your own recorded voice, but your friends are supposed to do better than you do?  And, granted, one of the reasons it’s difficult to recognize your own recorded voice is because of the way your ear bones vibrate with sound. Whereas your friends and clients hear your voice differently than you do.

But, even with that, doesn’t it make sense to identify yourself at the beginning of the call?  I even suggest to my coaching clients that they include their Surname.  When I leave a message for my friends and clients I begin with “Hi!” “This is Doug Carter!”  It’s simple!  It’s clean!  It makes it easy for my recipient to instantly understand who called!

2.  Your message was longer than 30 seconds.

I realize that you have a lot to say!  And, with “telephone tag” it may be that leaving a longer message is an appropriate way to further the conversation that you’re currently not having (live).  But, have you ever had one of those days when you’re super busy?  When you finally get to check your voice mails you’re still pressed for time.  If someone leaves you a voice mail that seems to go on and on, never quite getting to the point, what do you do with it?  Most of the people that I’ve interviewed either delete it or park it in saved messages.  Sometimes, if you know and like the person you may listen to all of the message, but even then, it’s easier to call the person immediately.  If you can’t return the call, then you still have the rest of your voice mails to check which means that most long messages go into saved messages.

This is a possible solution.  After beginning your message with a greeting and your name, why not just let your recipient know why you’re calling?  As an example, “Hi!” “This is Doug Carter.”  “I’m calling about your request to adjust our appointment time.”  Now your recipient has an instant understanding about why you’re calling.  This helps them identify the importance of your call.

3.  You didn’t leave your phone number.

With the proliferation of smart phones that show caller ID with both the caller’s name and their telephone number it would seem that there isn’t a need to leave your phone number at all.  The underlying assumption is that if you have a smart phone with caller ID then everyone else probably has one also.  But, let’s look at the statistics.

The following chart shows that in the United States, as of 2010, only 33% of young people have a Smartphone!  Granted, there are lots of people age 25 to 60 who have Smartphones, but my understanding is that the youth 15-24 have more Smartphones per capita than any other age group.  Which means that less than half of the population has a Smartphone.  You may think that everyone should have a Smartphone, and it appears that as time goes on eventually

everyone will, but as for now, if our goal is to get our voice mails to be answered then it makes sense that leaving your phone number improves the odds.

#4  You left your phone number at the end of the message rather than at the beginning.

When you leave your phone number at the end of your message rather than at the beginning you dramatically decrease the ease to getting your number.  If your recipient doesn’t have caller ID, and isn’t in a place where your number is easy to retrieve, such as in front of their computer, and if they didn’t happen to get your number written down the first time through your message, then they have to listen to your entire message again.  The longer the message, the less likely they are to listen to it again.  Unless, of course, their Smart phone allows them to skip to the end.  But, no Smart phone, no-can-do!

If your desired outcome is to get them to call you back, then the easier you make it for them the more likely it is they’ll call you back.  Just leave your number at the beginning of the message.

#5  Your return phone number was either slurred or spoken too quickly for the listener to capture the number.

This is actually quite easy to do.  Most people are so used to rattling off their phone number they don’t realize they’re speaking too rapidly for a listener to keep up or even understand the phone number.  It sounds like “Call me back, fuv-tha-o-nun-toosex-tha-te-twa.”  We understand it because it’s our number.  But, unless the listener already knows your number they’re going to be confused!

The simple solution is to slow down when you’re leaving your number, say the numbers distinctly, and repeat the entire number.

The 3 steps for increasing the likelihood of a return call are:

1.     State your name at the beginning of your message.

2.     Provide your telephone number, in clear, concise language, at the beginning of your message.

3.     Keep your voice-mail messages short and to the point.

All of these ideas aren’t going to guarantee that everyone will always call you back in a timely manner, but what they will do is give you some guidelines on how to make returning your call an easy thing to do.

© 2008, Carter Institute, Inc.  all rights reserved.

Let’s pursue this idea.  Let’s say someone comes to you to ask for a favor.  You don’t really know this person very well.  They’re an acquaintance at best, but not really someone you would call a friend.  They’re definitely haven’t earned the right to be a part of your “inner circle”.  But, let’s say they come to you and ask you for a favor that only someone on your inner circle would have the right to ask, something like, “Can I stay at your house for the next two weeks while my house gets repainted?”

I’m not asking you whether or not you would agree to the request.  That’s an entirely different conversation.  I’m asking, if someone you barely knew made a request like this, candidly how would you feel.  I can tell you what the general answers have been over the past 8 years that I’ve been asking this question.  The most common answer is, “I’d feel put-upon!”.  There, of course are other answers, such as, “Uncomfortable!” “Uneasy!”, “Suspicious”.  In all fairness, occasionally someone WILL say, “I’d feel honored to be asked!”, but usually the answer is more like the others.

Now, let’s take another example.  Let’s say you have someone in your life who you are really close to.  They ARE part of your inner circle! The two of you have gone through both the ups and the downs of life and you’ve done it together.  Let’s say that they need help.  It’s help you not only could easily give them, but you’d want to be the person to help them out.  But, let’s say they don’t come to you for help, they go somewhere else.  Candidly, how would you feel?

I can also tell you the most common answers for this example.  The most common answer is, “I’d feel hurt!”  The rest of the most common choices are, “I’d wonder what’s wrong!” “I’d wonder if I did something to offend them!”, “I’d wonder why they didn’t come to me!”  There occasionally is an answer like, “I’d be happy for them to be responsible for getting their own results”, but those are usually pretty scarce.

So with one example you feel uncomfortable if they DO ask for your help.  With the other example you feel uncomfortable if they DON’T ask for your help.

The first “missing piece” is that each of these examples  could be the same request.

Whether someone get’s their feelings hurt if you do not let them help you build your business, etc isn’t based so much on how the request is made…it’s more dependent on the quality and closeness of the relationship.  I believe that the quality of your business and your life is actually based on the quality of your relationships.  If the relationship works, the details don’t tend matter.  If the relationship doesn’t work, then the details don’t tend to help.

The second missing piece is that you can only have the kind of relationship with someone else that you have with yourself.  If you can’t trust yourself, you probably have difficulty trusting someone else.  If you doubt your own credentials and credibility, you probably question the credentials and credibility of those around you.

The more open, authentic, grounded, and transparent you are with yourself, the more open, authentic, grounded, and transparent others will tend to be with you.

Many people want to move their business to another level.  But, businesses don’t move to other levels…people do!  The key to your ongoing success lies in your willingness to look within yourself and discover what needs to be done for you to be more confident, more certain, and more candid.

© 2007, Carter Institute, Inc.  all rights reserved

Let’s say you sit down with a prospect.  You ask your questions.  Your Client has a breakthrough in their thinking.  They ask you how you might be able to help them.  You describe what you do and why it works. That is, you offer what’s called a “performance promise.”  They ask you, “How much does it cost?”  You tell them.  They think the price is fair and they accept your promise.  Your relationship is in balance.

A week later you and your new Client meet again.  You deliver everything you have promised to deliver.  They pay you as they have promised.  Your relationship is still in balance.

However, as soon as you begin to say something like the following questions you throw the relationship out of balance.

“John, there’s one more thing, who do you know who you could refer me to?”

Or, “Who do you know who might be interested in what I do?”

Or, “Who do you know who is open minded, and always looking for ways to increase their effectiveness who I might talk to about what I do?”

Or, “There are two ways I can spend my time.  I can either spend it marketing.  Or, I can spend it doing the best job possible taking care of you.  Where would you rather have me spend my time?”

These kinds of questions are commonly used to begin the referral request process.  But, any question like these invoke the “Law of Reciprocity,” also known as the “Law of Trust.”  The Law of Reciprocity states that if I give something to you I have a right to expect equal or greater value in return…at a time of my choosing.  This is especially true if I’m giving you this value in response to your request.

The noted anthropologist, Louis Leakey has said that the Law of Reciprocity is the basis of all society. It’s in every culture in the world.  It’s the basis behind the Asian concept of “face.”  And, it’s prehistoric.  Ten thousand years ago if you and I grabbed our spears in the morning to go kill the wooly mammoth, we had to know that we would have shelter and a tribe to come back to.  If our respective mates stayed with the tribe to keep the children and elders alive, and to provide shelter, they had to know they were going to have food to eat.  The members of the tribe who were best at working together tended to have the best chance of survival. Reciprocity is not only societal, it’s genetic.

We instinctively understand this, which is why most sales people have a problem asking for referrals.  We KNOW we’re asking for help that is all about us.  And, as much as we might tell people it’s in my client’s best interest for them to give me referrals, underneath the surface we still have to contend with the Law of Reciprocity.

So, how do we deal with this tendency to shy away from asking for help from our friends, family, and clients?  Here’s how!  First, we’ll discuss the value of the right kind of relationship.  Next, we’ll change our desired outcome.  Then, we’ll cover the only referral system that always works.

Let’s begin with the right kind of relationship.  I ask each of my coaching clients to tell me their most candid answer to the following question.  “How do you feel if someone who you barely know asks you for a BIG favor that only someone who is part of your innermost circle should ask you?”  Their most common answer is that they feel “put upon!”  I then ask, “How would you feel if someone who IS part of your inner circle needed help, knew you could easily help them, but did NOT ask you for help?”  The most common answer is that their feelings would be hurt and they would wonder if there is something wrong with the relationship.

Think about it!  On one hand you feel upset if someone DOES ask you for help and on the other hand you feel upset if someone DOESN’T ask you for help.  What makes this most interesting is that it COULD be the same request!  The point is, whether someone wants to help us or not isn’t determined by the request…it’s determined by the relationship.

Here’s how this applies to referrals.  If the relationship is so close that the Client or friend feels like they are part of your inner circle…they would most likely feel hurt if you did not ask them for assistance.  What we want to do is to make sure that the Client or friend recognizes just how important they are to us.

Here’s how we do this.  First of all let’s change the desired outcome from trying to get as many new prospect names as we can to strengthening our community.  By community I mean those people who know you and know of you.  What ever we do we want our community of Clients, prospects, friends, acquaintances, and family to be stronger as a result of our request.  Which brings up the third step for building your Client base.

I’ve heard it said that a referral without an introduction isn’t much better than a cold call.  I believe that!  The most successful conversations I’ve had with prospects have been with those people who I was introduced to.  The more intimate the introduction, the more trust and acceptance I had with the prospect.  I don’t think you are just looking for a bunch of names to call.  I think you’re probably looking for people just like the most ideal clients you have.

So, let’s prepare you for this kind of conversation.  Who is your most ideal, favorite client?  The one who not only buys multiple products and services, but who is also the kind of person you like, admire, and respect?  What do you like about this person?  What kind of person are they?  What do you respect about them?  Please note that I didn’t ask you what they have done for you.  This conversation is all about them.  It’s helpful to write down your answers to these questions.  Are you looking for another Client just like this one?  Most of my Coaching Clients tell me that this is exactly the kind of client they’re looking for.

If that is so then let’s just tell the truth.  Why not just tell your most ideal clients, “I’m looking for another you!”  They’ll probably want to know what you mean.  So, you can continue, “I realize there isn’t anybody who is exactly like you but I also realize there ARE people who are similar.  Who do you know…” (at this point you’ll want to describe your Client’s best characteristics, strengths, and traits.)  It might go like this.  “Who do you know who is open minded and progressive?  The kind of person who is deeply involved with their family and their community?  Someone who has the initiative and drive to get things done but still has time to make the people around them know how important they are.  The kind of person who not only has a great sense of humor but also makes you feel like you’re trusted and respected when you’re with them?  Who do you know who’s like you?”

If you actually did answer my questions, told the truth, and were sincere in your message then you just strengthened your community whether your Client gives you the name of someone or not.  This is a “no lose” situation.

Several years ago I was giving the “keynote” speech for a Regional Conference for one of our larger Financial Services Companies.  An Advisor in the front row asked me, “Doug, how is this different from just asking for referrals?  Doesn’t the Law of Reciprocity still apply?”  My answer is, “Yes, it does apply and it applies in a very unique way.  If the message that you’re sending is so strong that the person understands that you regard them as being part of your inner circle…then their response is similar to taking care of family.”  It will be interpreted as truly being about themselves and their community.  They won’t see themselves as being “outside” of your group but more as an integral part of the community, or tribe if you wish.  As part of the tribe it’s in everyone’s interest for everyone to do well.  The tendency is that they WANT to help!

They’re either going to give you the names of people or they’re not.  If they do then write the name down and ask if anyone else comes to mind.  Generally, it’s better to first have them give you all of the names that come to mind.

Once they have given you the names then you can ask your Client if it’s ok to ask a few questions about each person.

Here are the questions!

What caused (the person’s name) to come to mind?

What do you like about them?

What else do you like about them?

What do you most respect about them?

You’ll want to write down their answers.

There are a number of ways to proceed from this point.  My favorite way is to simply ask if my Client would be willing to introduce us.  This introduction can take place in so many ways.  We could meet for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  We could meet for a cup of coffee.  We could meet for golf, tennis, racquetball, biking, or a run, depending on your preference and physical condition.  We could meet in my Client’s office, or in the prospect’s office, or I suppose, in my office.  We could meet at my Client’s house for dinner or a barbeque.  I’ve even been introduced with a conference call.

This is not a “blind date”.  I fully expect my Client to tell their friend that one of the purposes of all of us getting together is to for the two of us to meet.

Minimally, I ask my Clients if they will call the prospect and suggest that we at least have a conversation.  If the Client doesn’t want to even make that suggestion…then why would I call?

Let’s use a telephone conversation as an example of the initial conversation.  Let’s say that my Client’s name is Joseph Smith who has referred me to Felix Jones.

When you call the referral the conversation goes like this, “Felix, this is Doug Carter.  Joseph Smith suggested I give you a call and I promised I would.  I’ve really been looking forward to talking with you because Joseph told me what he thinks of you.  He said that you’re (describe what your client likes about the referral) an open-minded person who is always interested in finding new ways to become more involved with your family and your community.  He said that when he’s with you he always feels respected, trusted, and like you’re a part of his family.  Am I talking to the right Felix Jones?”

Normally…they’ll laugh!  Then they’ll either “down play” the compliment or they’ll make a small joke about it.

Most referral programs suggest that you want to spend as little time as possible setting an appointment with the prospect and then get off the phone.  I think they’re crazy.  This isn’t a numbers game.  This is about relationships.  There is even an algebraic formula that indicates what I mean.  If A equals B, and B equals C, then it follows that C will equal A.  Here’s how this applies.  If you have a great relationship with your Client, and they have a great relationship with their referral, then it follows that your prospect will have a great relationship with you.  It doesn’t always happen but the odds are great that this could be the outcome.  So the original emphasis should be on establishing your relationship with the prospect.

In real life my tendency is to ask them, “So, how do you know (your client) Joseph?”  They’ll usually tell you a short version of their story.  It’s also appropriate for you to mention how you met your client. You’ll want to end your story with a positive comment about your client…”He’s really a great person to be around!”

“Has (your client’s name) ever talked to you about the very special way we handle his finances?”  They’re either going to say yes or no.  If they say yes, ask them what they’ve heard then proceed with the rest of this conversation.  If they say no then proceed with the rest of the conversation.  “Let me make this easy for us.  I don’t know enough about your unique situation to know whether the very special way we help them with their finances would work for you or not.  But I figure it would only take a few minutes to find out.  What do you think?”

You should expect your prospect to ask you what it takes for both of you to determine if there’s a match.  And from this point forward all you need to do is to “walk them through” whatever process you use to help someone determine if there is the right kind of match.  As an example, if you’re a follower of Bill Bachrach’s Values-Based Financial Planning then this would be the right time to use “The Values Conversation tm”.  If you’re a believer in my “Ethical Persuasion, How to let your prospect sell themselves”, then this is the right time to use “The Stairstep Questions tm”.

In summary, most referral programs aren’t used because they throw your relationship with your Client out of balance.  You can move beyond that by changing your intention from just getting names to strengthening your community.  If the relationship works then the details don’t get in the way.  By telling someone that “I’m looking for another you…” and then describing those positive strengths, traits, and characteristics that you like and respect you move your relationship to a deeper, more intimate level.  An introduction is more powerful than a referral.  By describing what your client likes, admires, and respects about the prospect enhances all three relationships and helps to provide a solid foundation upon which to build your new relationship with the prospect.

© 2004, Carter Institute, Inc.  all rights reserved.

You could be projecting “I’m so busy” through something as simple as your word speed, or in how you enunciate your words.  It could be by comments you make about having only a few moments for a conversation or a meeting.  It could be by making or taking calls on your cell phone in the middle of meetings or by leaving your pager on during a meeting.

Your busyness might be communicated by constantly looking at your watch. Or by the frantic or preoccupied way you drive when taking a client to lunch.  It could be by complaining about coming to work early, going home late, taking work home with you, working on the weekends or holidays, not having enough time for yourself, etcetera, etcetera.

The I’m-so-busy signal might also be sent by a sigh in the middle of a conversation, by passing off clients’ questions or their routine matters to someone else, by not being able to get the job done for days or weeks, or by leaving a client “on hold” for more than a few seconds.

There is nothing wrong with being busy.  Most business people are always looking for new or better business, and to be busy can mean that your business is successful.

But, looking busy has its downfalls.

When you always appear busy, the more often your clients see this, the more they may want to protect their own relationship with you.  They may, either consciously or unconsciously, want to protect both you and themselves by not making you busier with more referrals.

This is why that may be true. Your clients want to protect you so that your life doesn’t get any more hectic than it already is.  They know that if they give you another referral, you will only have more work to do.  And, if they were to give you, say, three to five new referrals, not only would your life be made worse, you may not even be able to get to those new people in a timely manner—which would make you feel bad, the referrals feel bad, and your client feel bad.

Your busyness may even be setting up your best clients to be “sitting ducks” for your competition.  The more your clients are concerned about your busyness, the more likely it is they won’t want to impose on you, by, for example, phoning you with questions about their account.  So-o-o, they may even be relieved to find someone else—anyone else—who is apparently willing to take the time to answer a few questions for them.  If that someone else is your competition, he is getting a chance to demonstrate not only competence to your clients but also that he has the time to really work with your clients.

In addition to protecting you, your clients may feel—again, perhaps unconsciously—that they need to protect themselves.  They may be thinking that if you don’t have time for a relationship with them, you may not have the time to do a great job—to fully manage their account.  So, they watch your results more carefully.  And, they don’t commit new money to you.

Your clients also may be thinking, “If you barely have time for me already, I don’t want to make it worse by having to share you with anyone else.”  So, when you do ask your clients for referrals, they tell you they’ll think about it.  Or, they give you the names of people who won’t take up much of your time—either by becoming clients at all or by being the type of client who hasn’t enough assets to require much management.

Either way whether your good clients mostly are protecting you or themselves—the result of your busyness can be a less-than-optimal relationship with your major clients (if not the loss of them altogether) as well as a lack of referrals to potential good clients.

And yet we know that it makes more sense for us to take care of our existing clients than it does for us to try to find new clients.  One of the most effective ways to take care of those clients is by sending the message that they are important to us.  We make others feel important—and connected—to us by taking the time to pay attention to them.

Now the question becomes, “With all of the things I already have to do, how do I send the message to my clients that I have time for them?”

The following ten ideas won’t solve all of the busyness challenges you may be facing, but they will give you some practical ideas you can use immediately.  Many of these ideas are from Max Dixon, who, over the past 36 years, has established himself in both the public speaking and entertainment industries as one of the world’s leading coaches on communicating more clearly and powerfully.

1. Anyone can look good when things are going well. It’s when things are falling apart that you get challenged.  So, first let me give you something to do when “Murphy’s law” is operating in overdrive.

Do what great athletes do: Create a ritual.  When you watch a tennis match between great tennis players, you may notice how, between points, each player tends to examine or adjust the strings of her tennis racket.  Their strings don’t need to be adjusted; it’s just that the best tennis players in the world have trained themselves to perform a ritual between points so they can maintain their concentration regardless of what is going on in the match.

The same sorts of rituals are used by pitchers and batters in baseball,  runners in track and field, free-throw shooters in basketball—they all use rituals, as do athletes in nearly every other sport that requires concentration under stress.  So, let’s create a ritual for you that can help you “model” reflection, patience, and time:

Just be silent for a moment . . . .ten seconds.  That’s the ritual!  Before any appointment, simply stop what you are doing, and sit or stand silently for a full ten seconds.  At the end of that ten seconds, take one deep breath and then let it out.  Then proceed with your appointment.

2. The next step is to perform some kind of slow behavior.  It may be as simple as standing up and walking over to the person, taking a moment to shake his hand while gaining eye contact. The key is to do it slowly and deliberately.  Spending even two extra seconds here can send the message that you consider this person important.

3. Most people who are in a hurry tend, when speaking, to emphasize the consonants of the words.  This makes their language sound unemotional, clipped.  So, as you talk with your client, you’ll want to enunciate your vowels.  By making sure that you sound out the vowels when you speak, you will help to create two results. The first is that you’ll express yourself with more passion and compassion: Your comments will take on more “life.”  Both you and your client will be more emotionally involved in the conversation, and you’ll tend to feel more connected with each other.

The second result is that your word speed will tend to slow down, which will give the conversation more impact and make it feel more complete.  This compounds the involvement both of you will feel.

4. Carry out your conversations at a different location from your desk.  I realize that not all your conversations are full-blown appointments—many of them occur simply while walking past someone.  The suggestion here, however, is that you have your important conversations at a location different from your regular desk.  If someone steps into your office and asks a question, stand up or move around and sit on the front edge of your desk. For formal appointments, it will be worth your effort to move away from your desk and sit with your client at a different location.

5. As long ago as 1936, Dale Carnegie wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People that one of the ways to build good relationships is to “Be a good listener, encourage other people to talk about themselves.”  This is only as effective, however, as your ability to listen to their answers.

I am often asked for coaching and advice, on various subjects.  For years, I would respond first by asking enough questions to get a rough idea of what the person wanted, and then I would launch into a summary of the different solutions they might use to solve the problem. Usually, after I had talked myself out, people would simply say something like, “Well, I was thinking about doing such-and-such. What do you think?”  They already had the answer!  They didn’t want any new information; they just wanted their answer confirmed by my experience.

Now when people ask me what I think they should do about a problem or challenge, I like to ask them, “What do you think you’d do?”  Then, all I normally have to do is listen to the answer they have already thought out.

6. Even though you may be asking your clients a lot of questions and listening to the answers, your conversation may still take on the air of “let’s get this over with.”  One of the symptoms of this attitude is responding to the other person before she has completed saying what he wanted to say. To make sure that you maintain an air of reflection with your clients, do as Max Dixon suggests: Stay with them “a beat beyond.”

What we mean by staying with them a beat beyond is that, before responding, you wait for at least two full seconds after the other person stops speaking. This ensures he has finished; it also helps you “model reflection,” and it gives you time to consider your response.  One of my good friends, Bill Bachrach, tends to put his telephone on “mute” during conference calls so he can concentrate more fully on what the other people are saying.  If a question is directed at him, he needs to release the “mute” button before he can speak.  He says this has helped him tremendously in his phone conversations, because he has that brief moment to collect his thoughts before he speaks.

7. When your clients leave your office, walk with them to the door or lobby.  This simple gesture of respect will help you in several ways.  First, it demonstrates you have the time to be respectful—that your client is important enough to you that she is worthy of being “walked out.” Second, it gives you another opportunity to shake her hand and maintain the connection you’ve created with her.  And third, it gives you time to think about your next task or appointment as you walk back to your desk: You’ll think more clearly than you would if you’d remained sitting in your office; and the time spent organizing your thoughts should be about the same regardless of whether you are sitting at your desk or walking back to your office.

Those first seven suggestions are “tactically” oriented; they are ideas you can use immediately.  The following three suggestions are more strategic in nature: Some initiative and planning will be required in order for you to get the best results.

8. Take a life-management program, like Franklin/Covey’s “What Matters Most.” The Franklin/Covey organization has established a reputation for helping people discover what is most important in their lives and organize their time so they can accomplish those important things.  When you clearly understand what you value most, you’ll tend to express those values and characteristics in your dealings with others.

9. Write out a description of your ideal client, and then jettison those clients who are farthest away from your ideal.  Most business professionals are afraid to give up any clients at all, yet there is an important reason to do so.  The reason is “Parkinson’s Constant.”  Parkinson’s Constant is one of the Twelve Fundamental Time Management Strategies around which all time management techniques and systems are built.  The principle of Parkinson’s Constant is that the job expands to fill the time allowed.  That is, we will take whatever time we have at our disposal to complete the work we have to do.  So, if you have 300 clients, you’ll fill your days taking care of those 300 clients; if you had only 100 clients, you would fill your days taking care of those 100 clients.  It doesn’t matter how many clients you have—you’ll always seem to be about as busy as you are now.  So you might as well be busy taking care of, or looking for, those clients who fit your ideal.

10. Create a system that lets your clients know, when they least expect it, that they are important to you.  Have you ever received a letter of appreciation or a gift that you kept for a long time?  How did you feel when you received it?  How long did you keep it?  In both our Clients Forever program, and our Life Optimization Advanced Leadership Training, we’ve encountered people who have kept letters of appreciation for as long as 43 years!  Please note that we aren’t talking about sending sales flyers, newsletters, or calendars—we’re talking about personalized letters, cards, and gifts sent at times your clients or prospects don’t expect them, which forces them to pay attention to the fact they are important to you.

By simply writing and sending one card of appreciation a day to one of your clients you’re sending a message that you’re willing to take the time for them.

So remember, as management consultant Tom Peters says, “Every day, a [person] sends a thousand messages about what is important to him or her.  And you’re sending those messages, whether you know it or not.”  If you appear to be—or actually are—too busy to make your clients feel comfortable and taken care of, they may actually be holding out on you—not giving you what you need from them!

Using these ten suggestions can help you send the strong message to your clients that they belong to a very special group—a group of people whom you always have time for, because they are important to you and because they are worthy of being treated with the dignity the human spirit deserves.

© Carter Institute, Inc. 2003 all rights reserved.

“Oh, I already covered that!”  said Karen as she turned toward the screen at the front of the room.  The Power Point slide was the all-too-familiar cobalt blue background, a headline in gold, eight lines of white text with the current idea highlighted while the rest were dimmed.  But, while Karen was fussing over her PowerPoint she was missing the obvious fact that over half of her audience hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong at all…because they had already lost interest within the first four or five minutes of her presentation and were no longer paying attention.  They were thinking their own thoughts while they put in time waiting for Karen to get through her boring, mind-numbing ritual.

They didn’t lose interest because the material wasn’t relevant to them!  They lost interest because the visual impact that is available in a well-done PowerPoint presentation had been lost long before the workshop had begun.  It was lost in the construction of the PowerPoint presentation itself.  As is all too common, Karen had created her PowerPoint presentation for herself rather than for her audience.

To ensure she covered everything she wanted to say, she created a slide for nearly every thought.  The end result was a Power Point presentation that consisted of entirely too many slides.  Nearly all of them violated the basic rules for a great visual.   I’m sure you recognize the pattern.  There is the title slide, then, as in an outline, each new concept or idea was listed one right after the other, slide after slide after slide of text.

Karen had so many Power Point slides she was constantly running over her allotted time to cover the important concepts she had to cover.  It took her longer to process her slides than it would have taken her just to tell her audience what they needed to hear.

The result of her effort to appear technologically competent in her workshop was that she actually sabotaged her efforts.  Her participants suffered from that glazed look of information overload.  The real work of the seminar was hampered by the confusion of too many ideas being thrown too quickly at the listeners.  Their minds were slightly muddled.  Their energy was dulled.  They didn’t volunteer answers to her questions.  And there was limited discussion.  Her constant use of text (written words) had put her participants into a trance…and they showed it.

All of this could have been avoided simply by following a few simple rules.

Rule #1

You, the presenter, need to be the center of attention.

You want your audience to connect with YOU not with the screen.  If your relationship with the audience works, the details won’t get in the way.  If the relationship doesn’t work, the details won’t help.  The more your audience interacts and relates with you the more likely they’ll also embrace your ideas.  It’s about the relationship!

There are several ways for you to enhance that relationship.

• Remember that you yourself are an exhibit.  What you wear and how you move sends a powerful message about the importance of your topic.  I realize that in this modern world of ours there is a tendency for people to want to wear casual clothing to meetings.  But, casual means something entirely different for you as a presenter as compared to someone who is a participant.  You set the standard for the importance of your topic.
• If the group is small enough (or if there is a camera on you that is projected on a big screen so everyone can see you) using an object as an exhibit is another way to make your point.
• Use an overhead to create a visual “on the spot.”  An example is to write the participant’s answers to your questions.  When you do this you get to acknowledge the participant, which builds your connection and relatedness.  They get to see their ideas being important.  And, you have ongoing opportunities to present additional information that relates to their answers.
• Getting the audience involved in interactive exercises accomplishes several things.  If the exercise is well designed your participants will discover and retain more information through their experience than they ever will by merely listening to you.  They’ll also have a chance to discover additional insights from the other participants they interact with.  They’ll get a chance to actually practice the principles or skills you’re discussing.  And, the energy level of the room will increase in direct proportion to each person’s involvement.

Remember that “information overload” is caused by having too many un-experienced ideas.

Rule #2

Use a visual only when it can make the point better than you can.

Human Beings are visual animals.  A picture really IS worth a thousand words.  But, what most presenters don’t realize is that a thousand words AREN’T worth a picture.  So, one visual consisting of a picture or diagram that shows the relationship of ideas will be more powerful and memorable than an entire series of slides with an ever increasing number of words.

There are two exceptions to this rule.  The first exception is if you are discussing something of historical importance.  An example might be The Declaration of Independence or The Gettysburg Address.  But even here a visual of The Gettysburg Address becomes tremendously more powerful if it includes a picture of Abraham Lincoln or a background consisting of a Civil War Battle.

The second exception is if you are discussing something of legal significance.  If your meeting is covering a new contract, it is certainly prudent to visually cover the contract paragraph by paragraph.  Of course, if it’s that significant then you’ll also want everyone to have a copy of the document as a handout.  But, even if the participants have a handout, each visual would be more memorable and interesting if the slide had a relevant picture or background.

Rule #3

The visual needs to be completely understandable within 10 seconds.

If you have to explain what the PowerPoint slide means then it’s too complicated.  The general guideline for words is the 6 by 6 rule, no more than six lines of text and no more than six words per line.  Once again, though, the right picture or graphic will greatly enhance your message.  The ideal situation is for you to advance to a slide and have everyone in the room get your point without you having to say a word.  Now…that’s a well designed visual.

In summary, a poorly crafted Power Point presentation poisons your relationship with your audience.  The purpose of the use of visuals is to ACCENT your message rather than to BE the message.  By following these 3 simple Visual Rules you’ll improve your presence, strengthen your audience’s perception, and increase your persuasion.

Richard Stewart and David Jackson of The Sterling Co. can tell you about the benefits of seventh generational sales.  Before transforming their business, Stewart and Jackson employed six staff members to help service 831 clients.  They spent an average of 62 hours per week managing $74 million in assets.

One of their first steps was to sell off $15 million worth of assets under management–the portfolios of nearly 600 clients. This bold move gave them time to apply the principles of the new paradigm with their remaining clients.

Within a year after they began to transform their interactions with clients, Stewart and Jackson went from managing $59 million of assets to $102 million. They now work with only 203 people who meet their ideal client profile.

Their reduced workload means they only need one full-time staff member. All three take Fridays off as part of a  28 hour work week. They often fail to get all 28 hours in, too. Stewart took 151 days off in 2000 while Jackson skipped 139.

Are they suffering financially? Not at all. Profits are up 24%, and personal before-tax income is up 41%.

Theirs could be an isolated example… except for the fact that Stewart and Jackson are in the company of other financial professionals who’ve achieved similar results by changing the way they “sell” their clients.

This new approach is more profound than simply trying a different sales style or technique. It represents dramatic evolutionary change, the way the Internet represents dramatic evolutionary change in access to information. That’s why I call this breakthrough Seventh Generational Sales.

Let’s take a look at how the sales process has evolved.. The first generation entailed a trade or barter. Thog give you this if you give Thog that. You don’t even need language to make someone understand you want to trade one thing for another. This simple, prehistoric method of exchange goes on to this day.

Sales got slightly more complicated after a sociological shift took place. People stockpiled goods. In order to do so, the primitive salesperson had to do one of two things. First, Thog could be a very shrewd trader.  Thog give you one of these for two of those.  Stockpiling also occured through controlled access to a necessary or desired commodity like food, water, shelter, salt, obsidian, etc. You want flint, go see Thog.

In the third generation of sales, Thog took flint on the road. He became a peddler, looking for customers instead of waiting for them.  Today, many insurance sales techniques are a variation of the peddler system, as agents constantly look for new prospects. Pitch, pitch, pitch–in person, over the phone, through the media. A modern variation of peddling is the infomercial.

The fourth generation of sales took the form of a sales route–the first systematic approach. Thog learned that certain clients bought from him at predictable times.

There first example of this in financial services were debit agents who collected premiums by going door-to-door every payday.  A contemporary, more common–and less obvious–example is cross selling.  You build a book of business, your company comes out with new products, and you go right back to your existing clients (your route) to sell them the new products. Your life insurance customers make easy prospects for new annuity products.

Any process that continually re-contacts the same client base is a form of fourth, or route-based, generational sales. Stockbrokers do this by selling a good investment to 100 people.  They then “drip” on them periodically about additional products and services.  The banking industry is another example. The average customer uses only 1.8 of the 12 to 20 services a bank typically offers. Banks, however, understand that customers who use less than 3 services aren’t captured clients.  So banks continually send out statement stuffers to entice their customers to use more services.

Fifth generational sales is called “the scientific approach.” It’s also known as need-based selling and developed, as far as I can tell, in 1939. In short, the salesperson must find a need and fill it.  If you’ve ever attended a formal sales training, you probably learned fifth generation, need-based selling. This technique depends on a presentation by a salesperson..

Fifth generational sales is about approaches and openings, features, benefits and evidence, along with tie-downs, nail-downs, hold-downs or pin-downs. It’s about responding to objections and rebuttals and 119 classic closes. This style of selling is the foundation for nearly every sales program taught today.

In the mid-to-late sixties, though, prospects got tired of being pitched.  They started saying things like “Wait a minute. You don’t know enough about my situation to know if your product will actually help me. You need to find out more about me and what I need before you start trying to sell me something.”

Sales managers and trainers developed consultative–sixth generational–selling, in response to these client demands. The notion behind consultative selling is that the salesperson acts as an assistant buyer, putting the client’s needs first. However, consultative selling is an illusion bordering on manipulation because it still focuses on what works best for the salesperson.

Consultative selling methods teach you to function as an assistant buyer by building rapport, talking in terms of your prospect’s interests and trying to understand the situation from the prospect’s point of view. It’s still just a presentation punctuated by questions, the answers to which tell you what part of the presentation to give next.

As much as consultative salespeople talk about putting the client first, their questions indicate something different. You can tell by listening to the way they probe. The salesperson uses the answers to qualify prospects and gather information with which they can be leveraged later on. In consultative selling, the salesperson’s goal is to completely understand what prospects want and why they want it. Whether or not prospects understand their needs and motivation matters less because the salesperson assumes the role of an expert. Statements like I need to understand this in order to help you are dead giveaways. As long as the purpose of the discussion is to answer questions in the salesperson’s mind, it’s an illusion that the prospect’s interests really come first.

Here’s why this illusory process doesn’t work. Imagine that you, the salesperson, understand exactly what your prospect wants and how your product and service will help achieve this. On the other hand, your prospect doesn’t have a clue. If your prospect doesn’t make a connection between current circumstances and the impact of your product or service, are they going to buy?

No.

If you’re trained in fifth or sixth generational sales, you’ll default to a pitch, trying to give your prospect more reasons to buy by increasing the perceived value of your product or service.  Of course your pitch or presentation focuses on the reasons you think your prospect should buy.

Your prospect starts to back away because you’re not addressing what’s most important to them: their reasons for buying.  Your prospect begins to use put-off objections to keep you at bay.  “I need to talk to my spouse, accountant, lawyer, banker, advisor, friend, etc.”  Sound familiar? People use put-offs when they feel pressured.

In contrast, imagine that your prospect discovers that a decision to use your product or service supports what he or she values most highly.  He or she discovers the connection your product or service provides between what is and what could be. Let’s say that you only marginally understand this connection. Will your prospect buy?

Yes.

You move into a new paradigm–seventh generational sales–when your prospects’ interests truly come first. Their willingness to buy a product or service increases in direct proportion to how well they understand its impact on their highest values.

Seventh generational sales–or Revelation Buying–is builds on what’s most important to your prospects. It isn’t really selling at all. Instead, you create an environment that allows prospects to discover for themselves a new connection between what’s paramount to them and a product or service. This newly discovered insight about how a product or service allows them to act on their highest values compels them to take a step toward making that connection real. Prospects sell themselves as a result of the conversation, and the entire process takes place without mentioning a product or service.

Here’s how: ask questions for your prospects’ sake, not for yours. This requires you to set aside the universal human question,What does this mean to me? You have the patience to stifle your need to know when you operate at the level of making a difference, rather than making a sale. You measure your effectiveness no longer by what you do, but by what your prospect does.

By focusing on your prospect’s discovery, without interjecting your own ideas or needs, you communicate a very powerful message. Not only are you completely trustworthy, you trust your prospects to make good decisions. And they act more expansively on their own inclinations than when responding to information, suggestions or requests from you.

Here’s a critical point. As soon as you ask questions on your own behalf, not theirs, you shift the conversation from a discovery process to a sales technique… the magic of trust stops.

While you can ask questions to help your prospects move toward discovery, they must experience the moment of epiphany firsthand. This is obviously great for the client, but how do you benefit?

Your belief that your prospects have the right answers for themselves and can be trusted to make good decisions creates an exchange so unique that they want to tell all their friends about you. Like Richard Stewart and David Jackson, when you let your prospects sell themselves, you get more referrals, bigger and higher quality sales, more time off… and far more personal satisfaction.

According to “Why Satisfied Customers Defect” a 1995 article in the Harvard business Review, satisfied customers are NOT loyal, just satisfied.  A completely satisfied customer, however, is more than four times more likely to purchase multiple products from you – and reward you with unsolicited referrals.  If you want Clients Forever you will need to build a system to create completely satisfied customers.  To do this means you will have to do more than just sell and deliver your products and services.

In most companies, once the sale is made and the company has fulfilled on the promise, that’s the end of the line-unless you have another sale you want to make to the same customer.

One of the largest insurance companies in America recently did a study.  Nearly a third of their policies are considered “orphans,” since they do not have an agent assigned to the client.  When the company polled their policyholders however, they found that more than two thirds didn’t think they had an assigned agent.  Nearly 14 million policyholders didn’t even realize they had an agent.  This company is well known for their commercials and advertisements.  But, this is a typical example of a company where most of their effort goes into gaining new customers rather than building a better relationship with their existing clients.

It makes one wonder if the most successful sales people, in reality, aren’t.  They may be successful at selling products or finding new prospects, but not at building long-lasting business relationships.  Most business’ think they have clients when in reality they really have customers.  A customer is someone who buys products and services from you.  A client considers you such an important part of their life…they make you a “line item” in their budget.

There are four steps for building Clients Forever.  Each step can be compared somewhat to developing a romantic relationship.

Step One:  Prior Presence

The first step for most companies is marketing.  In a typical situation it’s similar to looking for a date.  If you were going to prepare yourself to go out hoping to meet someone for the first time in a long time there are certain things you’d probably do.  You’d take a shower or bath, get your hair cut, either wear your best clothes or buy a new outfit, put on cologne or perfume, and all-in-all do whatever you could to make yourself presentable.  You’d probably even practice having conversations with people.

When I ask audiences why someone would do all of this they answer, “So when you meet someone they’ll say ‘Wow!’”

Let’s compare this with prospecting for new clients.  If you knew you were meeting a new important prospect you’d probably make sure you were prepared.  You’d take a shower, make sure your hair was right, wear the right clothes, the right watch, a good cologne or perfume and all-in-all do whatever you could to make yourself presentable.  You’d probably even practice conversations with yourself or another to prepare for your potential meeting.

When I ask audiences why someone would do all of this they answer, “So when you meet the prospect they’ll say ‘Wow!’”

As natural as this may sound it’s not the most effective effort to create either a personal or a business relationship that works.  What creates a connection isn’t so much what you are doing…it’s who you’re being.

People may be impressed by what you possess and how you present yourself. Who they really want to have in their life however, is someone they know is coming from the heart, someone who speaks the truth, someone they can trust. Looking good on the outside can stop them from looking deeper and make it difficult for you to share yourself.

If the relationship works, the details won’t get in the way.  If the relationship doesn’t work, the details won’t help.  The relationship you have with someone else will be a mirror of your relationship with yourself.  If you want them to trust you then you have to trust yourself. You can only trust a part of yourself you have revealed to another and had it validated rather than violated.  You can’t gain trust in a vacuum…you can only gain trust in relationship.  And all relationships present an opportunity to move in that direction.

The first step in Clients Forever is called Prior Presence.  Your prospects have a sense of who you are even before they meet you.  You already show up in their mind as being a particular type of person before they ever talk to you or shake your hand.

There are 6 steps for creating a powerful Prior Presence.

1. Creating an effective Prior Presence begins with your values – What is important about life to you? You have to know what’s really important in your life for you to know what to pay attention to.  Most of us think we know…but we’re often only paying attention to what’s urgent rather than what’s important.

2. The second step is to establish a vivid understanding of what The E-Mythauthor Michael Gerber calls your Primary Aim.  This is often talked about as your purpose, your destiny, why you were put here on earth.  To paraphrase Roy Disney “When your destiny is clear, your decisions are easy.”

3. The third step is to clearly establish your life’s operating principles.  These are the guidelines you choose to keep you on course in expressing who you are.

4. The fourth step is to establish your operating practices.  These are simple behaviors that help you behave in a way that best expresses who you are.

5. Fifth is to define who is your ideal client?  Who is the kind of person you most want to be around?  It’s more than “What are they worth. It’s really what are they like?

6. The last part of a successful Prior Presence is to develop a systematic plan to build a community of like-minded people.  This includes identifying where to find your ideal clients, knowing what they respect, and being able to systematically reach them.

Think about it.  If you are clear about what’s important in life, what your life’s purpose is all about, the principles and practices that help you to show up authentically, who your ideal client is and how to reach them, you’re in a position to focus all of your energy on building a business where you truly can express yourself honestly and openly.

Step Two

In a typical company the next step is the sales process.  It is similar to courtship in a romantic relationship.  You’ve found a likely target, oops, someone who you are attracted to.  You begin the fine-feathered dance of courtship.  You buy them gifts.  You take them to lunch and dinner. You show an interest in things in which they are interested.  You talk about subjects you know nothing about.  You begin to talk about subjects you think you know something about.  You begin to talk about yourself, to sell yourself.  Let the contest begin!

In way too many business meetings the salesperson begins a similar courting process with their prospect.  They take them to lunch or dinner.  They make comments about decorating items in the prospect’s office.  They talk about themselves, their company, their products, their values, their company’s mission statement, everything other than what’s most important to the prospect…and that is the prospect themselves.

The more you talk about yourself the less likely it is you’re going to get a sale. The best way for a prospect to become a client is for them to discover a connection between what they want and what is most important to them.  This may sound familiar, but our experience is that most salespeople do not know how to create this insight.  And they certainly can’t create an insight like this on purpose rather than accidentally.

This second step in building Clients Forever is called Conversion.  This is more than just making a sale.  We want our new clients to become “true believers.”  This takes the place of the selling process that most salespeople are trained to conduct.  Most salespeople have been trained to go through a “step-of-sale” process.

Here’s what doesn’t work with that approach.

When we focus on the steps of the sale, it becomes all about the salesperson trying to understand how his or her products solve the prospect’s needs.  Shift your focus from a sales process to a buying process however, and watch your effectiveness increase dramatically.  We do this by assisting the buyer to discover the connection between what they want and what’s most important to them.

A buying decision occurs in the prospect’s mind, naturally, only after they create a clear picture about what might happen if they went down one path and what could happen if they went down a different path.  If the prospect can’t see the outcomes, you can pitch them all you want, but they’ll stand frozen like a deer caught in the headlights of a car- confused and afraid.

Someone who is trained to facilitate a buying process recognizes that, until the client has a clear picture in their own mind about what happens if they make one decision or another they aren’t going to decide.  This is a long way from using traditional techniques of probing for a weakness and leveraging that knowledge into getting your prospect to buy a product.  Rather than resorting to negative emotions to sell, you serve as a facilitator and help your prospective client discover what they value, what they want, and the implications of their decisions.  The natural result is a client who trusts you and your recommendations because they can clearly understand the implications of their own decisions.  For many prospects this is the beginning of the kind of relationship that most people only dream about.

The natural outcome of facilitating a buying process in this way is that your prospect will trust you and want to do business with you.  They will already begin feeling like they have entered into a special kind of relationship with a special kind of person.

Step Three

In traditional business development the third step is usually considered to be out of the salesperson’s hands.  It is similar to the engagement process in a romantic relationship.  The sale is made, now it’s time to begin living up to all those promises.  You begin to find out what your future relationship is REALLY like.  Future in-laws begin to show their beady little heads.  Other voices begin to add their opinion about your plans.  “This works.”  “This doesn’t work.”  “Did anyone bother to look into that before we made a decision to go ahead?”  Well, we can’t do it this way.”  “You’ll just have to go back and come up with something else.”  “Oh, and by the way, this is going to cost a whole lot more than you thought.”

In building Clients Forever we call the third step “Fulfilling on the Impossible Promise.”  This is where the company keeps the salesperson’s promises.  This is where everyone in the company makes a choice.  They can choose to be who and what the salesperson says the company is, or they can choose to come up with excuses about why it’s not possible to keep those promises.

I mentioned earlier that this step is typically considered to be out of the salesperson’s hands.  That is an illusion.  Any salesperson can have a profound impact on how their clients are treated.

Once again this is determined not so much by what the salesperson is doing, but more by whom they are “being.”  If the salesperson operates as someone who does not make a difference, then their clients are naturally going to get treated as though they don’t make a difference either.  On the other hand, if the salesperson operates as the person who is responsible for the integrity of the operation of the company, then their clients will tend to get treated with this integrity and intentionality regardless of the circumstances that surround them.

How do we invoke in the people the spirit that we can do anything?  How do we have everyone in the company operate as though we can do the impossible?  It begins with what a person or company is willing to stand for.

Two authors in particular offer insights into how to invoke this spirit.  The first is Joel Barker, a leading authority on “thinking outside the box.” In his book, Paradigms:  The Business of Discovering the Future (HarperCollins), Barker offers a powerful way to create a breakthrough vision for a company.  He advises the top people in organizations to address the question, “What is a promise that our company can’t possibly fulfill today, but that if we could fulfill would absolutely transform our business?”

A clear example of such an impossible promise is “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”…FedEx.  Another is Taco Bell’s new promise ”you like it, or we eat it.”  What is your company’s impossible promise?  What are you willing to stand for?

To identify a promise that is so outstanding it makes you question whether you can fulfill it is more than a mere exercise.  It is how you move people to another level of competency.

The second author is Kurt Wright, whose work identifies key cultural influence factors that allow people to become peak performers.  In his book, Breaking the Rules: Removing the Obstacles to Effortless High Performance (CPM Publishing, 800-726-5885) Wright contrasts traditional management with transformational leadership.  He shows why management can be confining and breaks the spirit, while transformational leadership is expanding…and allows people to express their spirit by inviting them to step into and full a vacuum that needs to be filled.

His research indicates that peak performance occurs only when conditions allow someone to “give all they’ve got!”  A key element of the conditions that draw people into such high levels of commitment is the recognition that something needs to be done, seems impossible to do, and they are the only one who can do it.  Once the initial commitment is made, conditions must then allow the person to operate with absolutely no concern for a “downside” to any actions they may take.  They will truly “stand and deliver.”

As leaders demonstrate their willingness to reach for the impossible, it’s amazing how quickly the rest of the company will “rise to the occasion.”  Any salesperson truly willing to live their values can be the leader that transforms their company.

Step Four

In a typical company…there is no step four.  If this were a romantic relationship, this is the marriage.  Buy them flowers for their birthday and a present for the Holidays.  Every once in a while…when you think of it…take them out to dinner and tell them you love them.  And we wonder why the divorce rate is so high.

The divorce rate is even higher in business. Send them the company newsletter in hopes they see something else they want to buy.  Call them if you have a new product to cross-sell them. Put a note in your tickler file to remind yourself to tell them they are important at least once every quarter, whether you need to or not.

Unfortunately, there are lots of salespeople who are only interested in “one-night stands.’  Once they get that purchase from a new customer, the sales person is off looking for a new conquest.

If you’re operating like this you’re spending a lot of time prospecting and marketing for new business rather than asking for referrals because it’s hard to ask for a referral from someone you don’t feel connected to. Direct mail, seminars, cold calling, networking, etc., become a way of life.  A customer becomes just another prospect for a future sale.

In building Clients Forever the fourth step is the after-sale relationship.  We call it the “Business Marriage” TM.

How much contact does each client need if they are to know they are still important to you?  What kind of contact works best with each client?

If they get a message from you at times they don’t expect it, it forces them to recognize the fact that they are important to you. Keep contact with your clients by sending them personalized non-sales related cards, letters, gifts, clippings, or other relevant items at times they don’t expect it.

You don’t even have to do it yourself.  There are companies that can follow-through on your good intentions.  For more information on companies that do this you can call 1-877-926-3783.

When a prospect knows what you stand for before they meet you, they have an understanding of what to expect when doing business with you.

When prospects “sell themselves” because you facilitated a discovery process rather that trying to sell them something, they will trust you.

When the people in a company make things happen simply because that’s who they are then impossible promises are kept.

When the client continues to be a focus of attention-especially after the sale –they recognize they are important to you.

When you are a “human being” rather than a “human doing” people feel connected to you.  They know they are a part of your community and you are a part of theirs. At this point they will not just be loyal, they will be evangelists for you.

When they know that you are that kind of resource, you become part of their inner circle, an important part of their company and their life.  They will tell the closest and most important people in their life how great you are.

This is about treating people with the dignity of the human spirit-about making others understand they are important.  This is a way of creating an incredible trusting relationship where people want to be involved with you.  And that’s a big part of how to have Clients Forever TM!

Think of a time when you told the truth but weren’t believed, when your credibility was suspect, when, try as you might, you just weren’t convincing enough.  It wasn’t because you were telling an untruth.  It was because there was something missing in the way you delivered your message.  What was it that was missing?

There are six missing pieces on how to make the truth more believable:

• trust,
• understatement,
• specificity,
• evidence,
• conciseness,
• pacing existence.

Let’s develop each of these.

The Truth

The fastest and most sure way to be believed is to be trustworthy.  One becomes trustworthy when they always tell the truth.  Make it a policy to “get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” as quickly as you can. Only agree to do the things you know you’re going to do.  If you know you can’t get to an appointment at the time you set it, then tell the truth up front rather than make up an excuse after the fact. Act as though your “word” means exactly what you say.  The surest way to be believed is to make sure that you’re known for telling only the truth

Understatement

Understatement makes more sense when it’s compared to it’s opposite.  Several years ago I was asked for advice by a well-known speaker who wanted to know what he could do to be more effective.  One of my suggestions was that he stop exaggerating.  At that time he was well known for “embellishing the facts”  in order to make his message more engaging and believable.

My point was, and is, you only have to exaggerate once before people begin questioning the accuracy of your statements.  Even if you’re saying something “half in jest” you may be creating doubt with a statement such as, “I’ve told you a MILLION times.”  Everyone knows it hasn’t been a million times.  They also, no doubt, understand that you’re just trying to make your point.  But the fact of the matter is…you lied!

The unasked question then is, “When and where else do you exaggerate that may not be as noticeable…but is just as equally untrue?”  or a more basic, “When can I trust him or her?”

The flip-side of exaggeration is understatement. The definition of understatement is to state that something is less than it really is.  On the surface this doesn’t sound too promising.  But, in execution, understatement really creates a foundation for credibility.  The pattern for generating an understatement is to first state what your product, service, concept, or idea WON’T do.  Then state what it WILL do.

As an example, you might say, “This policy won’t solve all of your challenges, but what it will do is provide you with the kind of coverage that you need right now.”

Or, “Moving in this direction isn’t going to get us all the way to where we want to be, but at least it allows us to begin making the kinds of shifts in the company we need to make.”

Or, “I know this isn’t exactly what you want, but it’s better than what you had before.”

Understatement won’t solve all of your credibility challenges but it will definitely assist you to be much more believable.

Specificity

The third practice that makes the truth more believable is specificity.  Specificity is simply being exact.  As examples, “61.93%“ is more believable than “65%.”  “There are six steps we can take.” is more believable than “There are several things we can do.”

“We’ve received 17 complaint calls in the past 2 hours” is more believable than “Everyone is complaining!”

If you know the exact number right down to the second decimal place…then you’re probably going to be looked upon as someone who has earned the right to be considered a credible source of information.

Evidence

Which leads us to the fourth method, evidence!  Evidence can come in many forms.  It’s important to note that each person may have a different “perceived value” for a particular type of evidence.

Let’s develop some of the different forms of evidence.

1. Statistics:  a quantitative fact or number.
2. Facts: anything that can be verified as being true.
3. Truisms: something someone would accept as being true.  As an example, I was just sitting here thinking about you.  The other person can’t prove it but it is something they would probably accept as being true.
4. Testimonials: having a third part make a statement of support.
5. Examples: a typical instance, person, or thing that may be taken as an illustration of a certain quality.
6. Demonstrations: actually showing someone how something works.

Conciseness

The fifth method to increase your believability is conciseness.  I read a research report that indicated that the person who feels “least in authority” uses more filler words.  Filler words are words and phrases such as, “and,” “so,” “but,” “you know,”  and “ah.”

To expand on this concept, the person who is least sure of their message will tend to use more words to explain their point.  As an example, when you go to a Medical Doctor, they don’t say, “Well, ah, you know.  I want you to, kind of, take a couple of these, you know, pills…”  What they say is something like, “I’m going to write you a prescription.  I’d like you to take three of these with every meal until they’re gone.  If you have any on-going symptoms, give me a call.”  Clear, direct, concise!

If that same Doctor got pulled over by a Police Officer for speeding we might very well hear him or her say, “Well, you know, Officer, like, it isn’t that easy to, you know, see that sign back there.”  If it takes too many words to say what you’re trying to say then you probably don’t understand what you’re trying to say.

Who ever is least in authority will tend to put more filler words in their message.  My experience is that people who are not certain tend to explain and then re-explain their opinions and answers. So, say what you need to say…concisely.

Pacing Existence

The sixth method for making the truth more believable is “pacing existence.”  You may be asking yourself, “What in the world is “pacing existence?”  And, you’d be perfectly justified to feel curious or even a little confused if you’ve never before heard of the concept or experienced it’s subtle but powerful effect on communications.

Pacing existence is describing an other’s world in such a way they clearly understand that you understand them. The description of what you may be thinking or feeling about pacing existence in the previous paragraph is a small example.

You may be asking yourself, “How do you do that?”

You “pace existence” by mentally putting yourself in the other person’s place and answering the question, “What would I be thinking and feeling if I were in this situation?” You can begin by simply observing your audience.  Are they excited or do they look bored?  Are they involved or are they uninvolved?  If I were sitting the way they’re sitting and observing what they’re observing and doing what they’re doing…how would I be feeling?

In October, 2004 I was the 7^th speaker on the second day of a three-day, financial services conference.  Since both of the previous speakers used PowerPoint Presentations I knew the audience was probably completely “zoned out.”  (I wrote the article, PowerPoint Poison, How PowerPoint presentations destroy your message and what to do about it.)  The audience was quiet, except for the ones who were talking to each other.  Some people were reading. Many people stood up and moved to the walls.  Some left the room.  There were 13 people in the hallway.

When I was introduced I received respectable, but not outstanding, applause.  After saying, Good Afternoon.” my next comment was, “Would you mind if not make this a Power Point presentation?”  The audience laughed AND applauded.

It only took one comment to send a message that I understood where they were as an audience after a day and a half of presentations.  Within a matter of minutes the participants were involved and attentive.  People will listen to you when they believe you are worth listening to.

These are the six missing pieces on how to make the truth more believable; tell the truth, understatement, specificity, evidence, conciseness, and pacing existence.  They may not always make everyone trust you, but by using these effectively they will help you to be more credible and believable.

“Who ever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.”  Albert Einstein

© 2003, Carter Institute, Inc.  all rights reserved.