Brrrrrrr - Cold Calling

In this era of business development where 'business networking' appears, for most, to be the 'preferred' medium for creating business relationships it seems that the 'good ol' telephone' has been pushed even further to the back of the desk, gathering dust, hiding away......

But why is this? Especially in SME/Micro business territory where the thought of 'telemarketing' or 'cold calling' is somewhat 'frowned upon'.

A couple of thoughts

Firstly, some business owners assume that making telephone calls is purely 'selling' and that is the first mistake. Yes, you must have a purpose when commiting to this activity, an objective for the call, have prepared for outcomes that might occur, but what realistically are you looking to achieve on that first call? Do you really think your are going to make a sale?

So the question is, if you're not their to make a sale, what could you be there for? What is your objective?

Could it be notifying businesses that you exist?
Informing people and businesses of your product or service?
Helping other people by explaining who you are and how you help businesses like theirs?
Profile raising?
To ask to meet the person involved? (notice we've not sold anything yet)

Not so cold now?

Think about business networking. You go to an event, talk to people who may or may not form part of your target audience and you may get 1 or 2 people who you agree to meet up with you outside of the networking group parameters. You may have been lucky enough to speak to 8-10 people that morning in 2 hours and from that gained 2 meetings. Those meetings are probably to 'network further' rather than 'sell' right?

Don't get me wrong, I think networking is a huge part of any businesses revenue development activity but let's get one thing straight. Networking does not put you in IMMEDIATE contact with your target audience. There is a reliance on your networking peers to 'talk about you' and prompt a referral of some description which may come a little way down the line. Your message, due to 'chinese whispers syndrome' could become a little diluted and the nature of this approach, being reactive, means that you never really are 'in control' of your activity.

Straight to the heart of your chosen audience

Telecommunicating takes you straight to the heart of your audience and bypasses any reliance on another person to create a need for you. It is the most proactive way of getting your message across to businesses and as the message comes directly from you that means that your message should be clear as a bell, not second hand, not 'diluted'. In addition, how many calls could you make in 2 hours? 10, 15, 20, 30?

When you think about it, telecommunicating is direct awareness raising of your business to your chosen market and with that in mind, how can you not choose to look at picking up the phone and making calls? At the very least, you know that your business name is being heard in the right neck of the woods.

So what's stopping you?

Maintaining 'state' and behaviour

Never before in business, especially in the current climate, has it been more important than ever to maintain a decent 'state' or 'level of behaviour'. With numerous external forces that contribute to our successes and in some cases our business failure, those outcomes do affect us as individuals as we accrue the feelings associated with both ends of the spectrum.

Motivation and Drive

You may have experienced recently a business success and the emotion that it brings - excitement, pleasure, satisfaction - aswell as the extra 'motivation and drive' that business deals bring. On the other hand, stress, disappointment, de-motivation and multiple other 'states' occur sometimes when things don't go as planned.

Forgetting skills

Having spoken to a client of mine recently, a recruitment sales Director who had enjoyed huge success over the last 10 years, a high earner who had got to the stage where 'business came to him' and as a result he had become a reactive business developer as opposed to a continually proactive business developer, it was evident that the language he was using to describe his situation gave a description of how he was feeling about his circumstances. Feeling demotivated, lacking in interest in the business, overwhelmed at how things had got to the stage they had we concluded rapidly that the problem was easy to diagnose. Having not had to 'do the basics' (i.E make phone calls to businesses) for a number of years he had simply 'forgot' or 'unlearned' the proactive behaviours that got him to where he was in the first 4-5 years of his career.

Think about it like this. If you have a skill that you don't use, what happens to it? It goes away, becomes less potent and lies dormant. The mechanics of that skill and the sequencing of what needs to happen are still within the person but in this case the physical actioning of the skill had not been put into practice for a number of years and this had resulted in a counter-productive feeling/state/behaviour being attached to this function.

Assigning a 'preferred' state to the task

The client knows what to do - the mechanics of picking up a phone, dialling and communicating - and by working with me, we used a technique to re-design the behavioural strategy for the task of telephone calling which resulted in a preferred feeling associated with the task. As a result, the function is now able to be undertaken easily without any counter-productive feelings/state attached to it and the client is working like he did 5, 6, 7 years ago with the same zest and enthusiasm that got him to where he was.

In times like these, if there was a tool out there that could change the way you think about certain tasks in business or in life in general, what is it you'd like to change, knowing that if you did that, you'd get a different result!

Do you network or socialise?

There is no doubt that business networking is a great tool for the development of face2face relationships for your business. The opportunity to communicate your message to a number of people who are there to also meet with like minded business people, only comes in this 'format'.

Be proactive

As a business networker, you'll access groups old and new with traditional and 'different' forms of structure yet no matter which group it is, there is that 'point' where you can be proactive and begin the process of making new contacts or move towards 'people you know' to strengthen existing relationships.

Finding that all important balance between being proactive and searching for new contacts versus strengthening relationships is a fine line and both carry equal weighting. However, if you are the type of person who only gravitates towards people you already know then there is an argument to support the fact that you could be deemed as 'socialising' not 'networking'.

Is socialising networking?

Before you start with the notion that socialising IS networking, which I agree whole heartedly, the important point that is to be stressed here is to find that balance between continually developing existing and creating new relationships.

For those who choose to adopt that balance, they will be the ones who 'grow' proactively, whilst others who choose to wait for referrals only (based on the strength of their relationships) will grow, but aren't 'in control' of their growth as they are 'reactive' to other people supplying information/leads to them.

Building NEW relationships and cementing existing ones

There is no 'right or wrong' way to network. It is about speaking to people, it is about building relationships and it defintely IS about building NEW relationships.

Next time you're at an event, commit to communicating with people you have not met before. You never know who you're going to meet, what they do and who they know and what that relationship 'might' bring.

Continually learning

I've just got back from delivering a 'Key Networking Skills' course with co-trainer Russ McGrath. What an afternoon.

I've known Russ for a while now and it was around 3 months ago that we agreed to do some work together and looking at our skills, there is a really decent match of qualities and experience that added together creates the fuel for the content and delivery of the course.


Evaluation

Like most situations, it's good to evaluate your performance. Over a beer in the gardens of the venue we were using we sat and discussed the positives and areas for improvement along with an overview of the delegate feedback sheets. This is where it started to become interesting.

Our initial thoughts of improvements centred around delivery style, timings of 'modules' and the realisation that with more bodies next time round we may have to lengthen the duration of the course slightly to accomodate more requirements for clarification and feedback. Upon reading the feedback forms, where we had asked explicitly for honesty, the feedback given was very positive and made us both realise something of much value.


Striving for improvement

As a trainer or provider of any service, there will always be times when YOU know where you can improve yet the receiver of the content is unaware of any downsides in your personal performance and would not realise your noted personal improvement area.

Bearing this in mind, do you strive for your own personal 'level' of performance, or, that of the level required by your audience?


The choice to improve

Perfection is not reachable. Nor is it always essential. Yet continuous self-appraisal and accepting external feedback provide you with the substance to have a 'choice' to improve, or not as the case may be!

It's all in the eyes

Eye patterning and representational systems is a core NLP pattern that derives from the original work of John Grinder and Richard Bandler in the 1970's.


Eye movements

As we go about communicating in our day to day lives, speaking with people, asking them questions and attaining responses, you may notice that the movement of a persons eyes in that 'communication loop' differs depending on the type of question you ask that person.

For most people, (there are exceptions to the rule such as left handers) the way that they process information can be seen via the movements of their eyes. Let me give you an example.

Ask yourself the following questions :

"What colour was the front door of your house as a child?"
"What colour will the next coat you buy be?"

Where did your eyes move as you processed that information?


For most, their eyes will have pointed up and left (for Q1) and up and right (for Q2). Why? In Grinder and Bandlers work they noted that eye movements can depict what 'sort' of information a person is processing - Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic. In the above example we took two questions of a visual nature and you will have responded to those questions by looking up and left or right to access the colours/pictures to answer the questions.


What's the point?

Why is this important? If a person during communication is considerate of what representational system the other person is using they can match that system with their language. Let's use the visual system as an example.

Person 1 - "That looks good to me" (The word looks is a visual 'predicate')
Person 2 - "Yes it does, I see what you're saying by that" (The word see denotes visual 'predicate')


By matching the system in use, the persons communicating are operating on a shared system which solidifies the communication loop between those persons further towards a strong bond of rapport and if you can increase rapport, you build stronger relationships that get better results.

Unlocking potential

"The gold is on the inside...."

Have some purpose!

Whether you're employed, self employed, studying or any other activity for that matter, one of the 'big' questions is "Do you know why you are doing what you are doing?" Understanding your purpose is one of the key conditions to achieving outcomes. Why? Because it identifies the words that describe the feelings associated with the task and when a task has feeling it gets done better than if it doesn't.


Why are you there?

I'm running a training course with an associate this week and in the design of the course material we have decided to make delegates aware that any situation is measureable and quantifiable (to an extent) and actions like business networking are no different. As a business owner, you'll network, I'm sure, and as you attend events, formal or informal, how many of you 'know why you are there?" A silly question it may seem at first but when you think about it, do you have an objective at all? Do you know what could be measured in that environment, what objectives you could have created pre-event and how to track if you attained them or not? Just going with the notion of 'getting more business' is a little limiting. Partly for the fact that it won't happen.


You could set some 'goals'

If you do already set big and small goals then I'm positive that you are reaping the rewards of your thought processing and I wish you continued success! If you don't, you may want to think about why you are in attendance, what you could achieve in that environment, how you could set yourself goals in all areas that quantify the stepping stones to be taken towards the attainment of that objective and how you can start by documenting your plan for your next event!

3,4,6 or more....

With all that in mind, your focus will be towards achieving your objectives (whatever you set) that in turn will create the volume of contact you require to continuosly build new relationships. Without that in mind you might continue to walk away with the 3 or 4 or 6 cards that you always do....

Changing people in 10 minutes

This morning I travelled to Hull to a breakfast meeting where I did a presentation on NLP and a demonstration with two people who experienced a change in their thought processing and how by playing with memory framework, it's possible to 'set the feeling' differently for a context or circumstance that is traditionally challenging.

A fascinating topic

It's great having such a fascinating topic, like NLP, to discuss and 'make it real' for people who have not experienced NLP previously but upon having that experience, become interested in what could be achieveable.The possibilities are endless.

Upon the volunteers coming forward, both male, I explained the process we were to go through. It was agreed that they would both at some point close their eyes to remember an event that they would choose and upon listening to my questions, they would answer accordingly. Not needing to know about the 'content' of the chosen situation or a requirement of the subject to 'poor your heart out' (that's the beauty of the techniques) they each selected a challenging context and answered questions about their memory of it. I then gave them further instruction to make some changes to how the memory is structured and after issuing further instructions based on their answers their verbal description of how they 'felt' shifted from 'nervous to 'calmer' in one instant and the other too had a positive shift. Both agreed that they 'preferred' the way they thought post changes.

Your future 'vision'

In understanding that the memory framework is changeable, it is valuable if you're into personal development, to know that in the creation of your future 'vision' you can also tie 'preferred' feelings to situations that may occur. For example, public speaking and cold calling or a tough meeting where the right behaviour and qualities would enahance your chance of success - as these events all happen in the future, you can 'create' a behavioural strategy for that situation and have the qualities you want to have at that time. As NLP has, according to some, become synonymous with 'therapy' and it is not often seen as a tool that enhances performance of existing qualities and skill levels.

Increased personal performance!

If you were to think about how your own performance rates right now, where and what is it you could improve and knowing now how you are able to go about tackling those tough parts of your job with pre-chosen behaviours, then and only then do you realise what might be possible and what realising your potential might really be like?

From the mind and into words

Ever stopped to think what process you go through as you verbalise information and produce these things called 'words' that enable you to get by in the world?

It's quite simple.

Remember a journey you took to see someone recently and just take a moment to verbalise your journey.

How many words did you use? Did you recover ALL the information apparent in that experience? I don't think so!

Ponder

Just ponder on this for a moment. What was the temperature on that day? How much money did you have in your pocket? What were wearing? Did you mention any of these things?

The reason for this is that as you recall information from your memory in relation to that experience there are a few 'filters' in place that delete, distort and generalise that information and as you verbalise it, the filters 'kick in'. Therefore, the information is there, but unless there is an instruction to recover that specific point, it will be 'deleted' as it is processed into language.

Different experiences of words = different linguistic response

You might have commeneted on the weather occuring on your journey and you may have described it as 'nice/pleasant'. But what does 'pleasant' mean to you. If you were to ask 10 people what pleasant meant, you'd get a number of different responses that in a round about way would quantify or equate to pleasant but not every answer would be exactly the same. This is because 'distortions' occur in language - same words, different expriences associated with that word.

Back to the example again. You may have gone as far to comment (probably not though!) on a landmark and have said that you 'always' pass or that 'everyone' looked stressed or 'all' the lights were red on the way. These 'generalisations' - always, everyone, all - are not linguistically true. Let's look at 'everyone looked stressed'. Did every person you saw look stressed? Serioulsly, even the little boy with the ice cream or the cat or dog you saw? Probably not.

Ask more questions

So language is created through a process of deleting, distorting and generalising information that you contain in your mind relational to that experience. Just think about all the questions you can now ask about a persons journey and what information you might find that if you didn't ask, you'd never know.....

Public speaking tips - Your physiology

The dreaded public speaking, the number 'fear' for most people, even more feared than death itself!

First impressions

First impressions in business count, no doubt about it and your 'ability' to put across your business message relies on a couple of important elements working together to churn out a decent pitch or piece of communication. Those 'elements' being the right words, your frame of mind whilst doing it and your physiology.

As a networker, its very interesting watching and listening to people pitch their business. Some are confident in communicating verbally, but not physically. Others are not in the right frame of mind to do it as well as they could and most are looking for solutions to enhance their performance in that 40-60 seconds (or more if they stray into 1 minute plus land!). Finally, the seasoned 'pro' who continually reels off the same message they developed 10 years ago without any feeling/emotion attached to it now as they've 'exhausted it' and everyone just knows what they're going to say. In fact, they don't need to be there!

So the question is, how do you improve your presentation by making personal physiological adjustments.

Improvement made through physiological adjustments

Your mind and body are a linked system. You may notice that the way you stand, sit and hold yourself can be described by you in one word, whatever position you are in. As you are reading this text, pay attention to how you are now and what word describes how you feel as you read this. What word would you use to describe how you are now?

If you find that you are challenged by presenting, you may want to give the following exercise a go.

Make some changes

Find a mirror. Stand in front of it. Define, using one word, how you feel now.

Now. Make changes in the following areas:

Width of stance. (Adjust until to your preferred stance is achieved - recommended shoulder width)
Feet position (adjust the position to toes straight forwards)
Positioning of head (chin up and down - adjust to your requirement)
Positioning of shoulders (back and forwards - adjust)
Hand position (situate your hands infront of your waistline - adjust)
Facial features (adjust your features to suit how you want to be portrayed)

As you make the adjustments, ask yourself "How do I feel now?" Make further minor adjustments until you get the response you are looking for. When you get a 'response' that suits the context, then that may be YOUR required physiology to operate to optimum in that context.

Looking forward to seeing you present next time round!

How does it work?

This is probably THE question that is asked most about NLP.

And I can understand WHY a person might ask that question when wondering whether to engage in personal development. One possible reason, as well as your own, is the 'fear of the unknown' element. And I can understand that. But what sometimes I can not understand is why some want to develop their 'hard skills' and sometimes ignore the need to develop softer skills like communication and behavioural performance. But hey, that's the privelage of having a choice.


An example

But just for a moment, think about it like this. To date, your mind has been a bit like the software package you're working with now. Since conception, users have uploaded data onto the system and processed information that means upgrade procedures are carried out to manage the information better and keep it performing to its optimum.I'll give you an example. I have a client, her name is obviously private, who had a behavioural pattern that prevented her from picking up the telephone and speaking to people, not just in business but other 'areas' too. The problem stemmed further as this disruption meant that her son was unable to attain a vital piece of health equipment that would enable his movement further. Using a technique appropriate for this change to be made, the lady has allowed herself to be able to overcome this personal challenge and is now reaping benefits. Changes in her levels of confidence have also meant that her public speaking skills have also increased with it. Her first networking pitch was an unbelieveable improvement on her previous missions and now looks a different story, completely.


A bit like being a property developer

How this happened was through the use of a tool that allows a person to identify how they think about themselves in the challenging context, not in terms of the actual content of her thoughts, so no need to have to come clean about all intricate thoughts and feelings during the process - unless you want to, but in basic terms, how the memory framework of that experience is structured. A builder might describe it being like 'houses come in different shapes, sizes and colours, some are in quiet areas, some are next to noisy places and some feel a certain way when you enter them.' Our sensory information that is contained in out memory is coded through the visual, auditory and kinesthetics (feelings) associated with what ever context you come into.

This ability means you are able to recognise new situations, that have certain characteristics like the same sights, sounds and feelings associated with them as you go from context to context recognising these patterns and becoming comfortable with them and accepting them. For example as, you travel from home to work, you feel more comfortable than you did the first time you did it. Now that's a basic example. But what about someone who feels uncomfortable doing something that they avoid, for whatever reason, yet if they did that task, they'd improve their personal circumstances even further towards the achievement of their goals.In a situation where a person 'responds' in a certain way in a situation that they find uncomfortable, the patterning of the memory is structured for that situation and can be changed to create a more appropriate pattern that moves the person forward towards the attainment of their preferred outcome or feeling. That feeling inside your body you get when you perform well or at the other end of the spectrum ‘not so well’ can be reset to a different area, using NLP techniques, so you feel different or enhance how you feel in your chosen context. If you imagine the range of feelings you can feel, as keys on a piano keyboard, then if you want to pick a key, then you can have that note played in that song.


It's all about how you can change how you choose to think

So. NLP works by thinking differently about experiences and having the opportunity (choice) to make changes to the patterns and processes contained within the experience to associate a different kinesthetic response (feeling) so a person can accelerate their learning of a new behaviour to allow them to perform to their optimum in a given context. You don't lose your mind, it isn't trickery and it does get people results.

Credit has to be given to John Grinder and Richard Bandler who developed NLP, as well as influential others who have massively contributed to the field. Two men who went on a journey to find out how to bridge the gap between average and excellent performers and in their work created a tool box that fast tracks behavioural learning that in turn, fast tracks personal performance.

60 second presentation formula for business networking

What do you want to do?

The 60 second presentation for some is a daunting task. For others, not so daunting but a lack of structure means that even the most confident of speakers can veer off down the track and refrain from giving a message that hits the proverbial 'nail on the head'.Make no mistake. This 'communication' IS a sales pitch for you and your business. That snapshot in time (or longer for those who stray into 1 minute plus land) is critical to allow those in the room to make a number of 'decisions'.

Bananarama

Firstly - was that performance any good? "It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it and that's what gets results." I never thought that an 80's pop band would have such resonance in business but that quote is SO true. How you 'deliver' the message is a crucial part of this communication. With only 7% (ish) of your overall communication being the words, how important is it to pay attention to what you are doing whilst you are saying your stuff!Holding onto the back of the chair, hands behind your back like a copper or looking down just doesn't do you any favours. Instead, stand up straight, chin up, feet shoulder width apart and hands held around the midriff does the trick!

FAB

No. Not the 80's lolly but Features, Advantages and Benefits. What you do, the difference between you and another business in your field and the benefit/value/headache you remove as a result of your product or service is paramount to the success of the 'content' delivered.To think that saying who you are, who you work for and where you are based is enough to leave the audience thinking "OK, I want to do business with the person saying this" is a bit lackluster. People are intersted in 'gain, value and emotion'. So, highlight these factorsd in your pitch!

Our customers say that, "............"

If you are looking for an outlet to let others know how great your product or service is because you feel that it is unruly to make those claims yourself, use a "quotation" language pattern.It might even be deemed by others to be a bit OTT for YOU to come out and say , "Our service is the best" or "We offer great service" so take away that challenge and utilise this quotation language pattern to illustrate that it was one of your customers who said it.Some of our customers say "we offer a great service" - same message, directed now from your customer, not you.

Finally, Analogue Marking - Eh?
That's right, analogue marking! This is a tool to highlight the juicy parts of your presentation ie. the value you add, the important words that are of interest to your audience that resonate with them once you use a marker. When it comes to the benefits, use a 'gesture' such as a hand movement ornod or otherwise to mark out that word. The effect is like putting the word in italics and it highlights it to your audience. You can also mark by using your voice tone. Have a go!

They're all looking at you........so look back!

Finally. Address your audience. Look at them, maintain eye contact and if you can't do that, just concentrate on looking above everyones hairline.At least it will look, from their perspective, that you are looking right at 'em!So go on - Practice, Practice, Practice and start to deliver that message in the way you want to and 'hit the nail on the head' every time.

Normal v Brilliant - The difference is your VISION

Are you normal..?!?

It's interesting in a job where you deal constantly with people, no doubt about it. Most communicate, most have very similar physical attributes, most have had successes and most have had some sort of what they would describe as 'failngs or short comings' in their business lives. As a collective, this could be classed as 'normality'.

But what is normal?

To develop reasoning to substantiate 'what is normal' I propose to just take you back to school, only for a short while, but when you think about school, you'll remember how you and everyone else was 'graded' and sorted in alignment with their 'averages'. The average standard of learner in the year is 'x amount', the average marks for the year are x%, the average, the average, average.....yawn.

Makes you wonder why we continue into adult life and in most cases continue to churn out average results now doesn't it?

From a very young age lots of people have been programmed to shoot for average scores eg 7 out of 10. Remember back in school how getting lower than 7 was 'a bit below the mark' and getting over 7 was jumping into 'brainy or swot' territory. Those areas outside of the average sometimes felt 'uncomfortable' yet AVERAGE felt safe - no swot jokes, no 'thick' jokes just average. And it was a nice bracket to be in, back then, so if those young people were programmed to go for average, is it any wonder why exceptional performance or brilliance is so rare?

Still normal...?!?

Dependant on how open minded you are, how committed you are to appreciating that there are tools out there to increase your average score towards that borderline once known as 'swot territory' but now known in business as 'big profits' you might be interested in knowing that there methods af activating and utilising the 'grey matter' in different ways to get exceptional results.

Thinking differently, using your brain differently, activating preferred emotions for different contexts - is ALL possible in order to retune the way you think about your job, your performance in that job, the outcomes you'd get if you were to change and what you can gain by doing just that.

Don't be normal, be different! Use your head!

The most successful people on the planet, in the UK, in local regions and in online/offline communities like this one, all have a choice to make when deciding how high to set their personal bar. Do I stay the same, doing the same things or can I dare to be different?

Normal people opt for safety to make an easy jump and land safely but really know deep down they'd have made the jump anyway.

Some take a little risk, make the leap perfectly and then wish that they'd have aimed at going a little higher.

But the exceptional few, who set a high bar and maybe don't get over at the first attempt, need to take a few jumps, land awkwardly at first but look back up in the air and think "Wow, did I just do that?" are the ones who get the different results.

Have a vision

So what makes the difference? Planning, doing?

No. Firstly you must have a VISION. A vision of where you are going, a vision of who will be involved, a vision of how you are going to do it, a vision of what it will look like when you are ther achieving your goals a clear, clear vision. By thinking differently and visualising your outcomes happening provides you with the first steps to achieving results. Then you have to be thinking about your vision often - where is it that this outcome is going to happen? What will you look like once you've achieved it? Believe it or not, if you keep thinking like this, great things can happen.

If you have VISION, you are different. If you are different, you are being brilliant and if you are brilliant, you'll get results.

But how long does it take for this to happen? The answer is as quickly or as slowly as you want it to. You have the choice.