Cold Drinks or Tyre Cleaners

Today afternoon, I was buying newspaper from a bakery-cum-general merchandise shop in my locality in Bangalore. Another customer came and asked for a bottle of Pepsi. Shop owner gave him instead a bottle of Thumps Up. I told the shop owner, he asked for Pepsi and you are giving him thums up. He told me, customer will accept any one. I was perplexed. I asked the customer, is it so? He said yes, because I am buying it not for drinking but for some other purpose.

Now suspense was thicker. I could not hold myself. I enquired little more, during conversation he told me, he has bought this thumps up bottle to clean the car tyres. I could not believe him.

I simply followed him, and what I saw, one boy was cleaning the car of his owner. This man also got involved in cleaning the car with that boy. I asked him to show me literally how he is going to use thumps up for cleaning the car tyres. I asked his name, he was Ram Milan. He told me, Sir, you will have to wait, first we will clean the whole body then in last we will wipe the car tyre with thumps up.

I was ready to see the experiment from my own eyes, so simply I killed some 20 minutes reading the newspaper. Till then they had completely cleaned the car. Meanwhile the car owner also came. I told him, I am waiting to see some experiment; it will be an eye opener and lesson for my life. He started laughing, and told me that he is using all these cold drinks, pepsi, coca-cola and thumps etc. to give shining to the car tyres. He told, all cold drinks will work.

Now Ram Milan, took the bottle of thumps up, poured the drink in a mug and soaked it in a piece of cloth, and started wiping the outer side of the car tyres.I could not believe my eyes. To be fair with these cold drink companies, I can tell you it worked wonderfully. Tyres were looking brand new. Thums up!!

Owner quipped, new tyres!!

Now time was for me to take lesson, never to touch “Tyre Cleaners” in my life.

Do you get some lesson from this story? Am sure, at least you can give your car tyres a brand new look. Whether you will drink it or not, is your choice.

For cold drink companies, I have a simple question, what are you selling? Cold drink or “Tyre cleaner”?

A BIG Thums DOWN..

The Genius of Wearing the Same Outfit Every Day

What do Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, our current president and Homer Simpson all have in common?

They've all worn the same outfit, pretty much every day.

                                            

Why? It isn’t a coincidence. Jobs and President Barack Obama, for example, are both part of the same-outfit club, but for different reasons. And both are logical, from both a scientific and business perspective.

The Science

If you notice, Obama wears a blue or gray suit all the time (when he wore a tan suit earlier this year, it nearly blew up the Internet). Why? Here’s the explanation he gave to famed writer Michael Lewis, via Vanity Fair:

“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” Obama told Lewis. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

That logic is backed up with some pretty convincing science. Two college professors who have studied decision-making, Kathleen Vohs and Barry Schwartz, both foundthat a person has a limited amount of brain power in a day, so the more decisions they have to make, the weaker their decision-making process becomes.

"The mere act of thinking about whether you prefer A or B tires you out," Schwartz told The LA Times. "So if I give you something else that takes discipline, you can't do it -- you'll quit faster. If I have lifted weights in a gym, later trying to lift a 30-pound weight is impossible."

Vohs conducted a study where she asked a group of random people how many decisions they made that day, and then asked them a series of simple math questions. The more decisions they made in the day, the worse they did on the math questions.

Jobs’ Reason

Jobs, meanwhile, garnered the additional benefit of more brain power by choosing to wear primarily a black turtleneck, blue jeans and white shoes, but that wasn’t his main motivation. Instead, Forbes reports Jobs – one of the great marketers ever – did it to establish himself as a brand.

“It is also great to have a trademark look,” William Arruda, a branding expert, told Forbes. “It makes you memorable and distinctive.”

It makes sense, when you think about it. After all, who can’t picture Jobs without that iconic black turtleneck? Or Zuckerberg, with his gray shirt, portraying the ultimate irreverent, precocious 21st-century Internet entrepreneur? Or heck, even Bono, and his ever-present yellow shades?

For these people, that look has become part of their overall mystique. And that makes them more iconic, like a Homer Simpson, which people can recognize instantly.

The Secrets of a Waiting Room Jedi

It happens all the time. It’s happened to us, and it’s happened to you. More than once, guaranteed. It goes like this:

You’ve finally scheduled a meeting with that prospective client you’ve been after (or maybe a first meeting with a new client—where you’ll set the tone for your relationship).

And you’re ready.

You’ve done your research, both online and off. You’ve consulted with your analysts and your colleagues back at the shop. You’ve thought about what you can offer that your prospect might value. You’ve refined and rehearsed a short script or two. You’ve got your initial questions lined up. You’ve left yourself ample travel time to compensate for unexpected traffic. You’ve even used the facilities by the elevators, just in case.

You arrive at reception, you give your name, and you’re told by the employee behind the desk that unfortunately your meeting will be delayed because Ms. Bizzee is still on a previous call.

So far, not unusual. The question is, what do you do next?

If you’re like 99% of your competitors, you take a seat and do one or more of the following:

• Review your notes for the meeting
• Flip through a waiting room magazine
• Pull out your smart phone and check your emails
• Check your mobile contact manager
• Listen to your voice mails
• Check Facebook
• Make a call
• Complete your half-finished Sudoku puzzle
• Check your email again

Hey, you’ve got some time to kill. Why not kill it?

Really?

One of most important sales skills we address in our book Never Be Closing is art and science of discovering what’s useful to your client. In our experience, your potential usefulness is the most important thing you can communicate—and the thing that will most likely win you the sale.

But the concept of usefulness goes way beyond your conversation with your client. It’s threaded through everything you do in the sales process. In fact, we suggest asking the simple question, ‘Is this useful?’ about every aspect of your own sales or business behavior. If your answer is ‘no’, ‘maybe’, or ‘not sure’, we suggest you seriously consider deleting that behavior from your repertoire.

Behavior Testing

Let’s use this simple test on the list of behaviors above.

Reviewing your notes for the meeting could be useful, but if you’re not familiar enough with them by this point, another few minutes probably won’t do you much good.

Flipping through a two-month-old waiting room magazine is decidedly unuseful. The exception here might be the possibility of finding a relevant article in a recent industry or corporate publication.

Checking your emails, your contact manager, or your voice mails? Psychologists would call these conditioned responses to having time on your hands. But useful? Who are we kidding?

Checking Facebook? Ditto.

Making a phone call? Maybe, but chances are you’ll have to say a quick good-bye, so is it really worth it?

And re-checking all of the above is about as useful as finishing that Sudoku puzzle. In other words—not.

So if none of these behaviors are particularly useful, the next question becomes, what could you do that would be useful?

Seeing with Jedi Eyes

Your clients’ offices—including reception and common areas—are their habitats, filled with clues about the company, its culture, the people you’ll be meeting. Sure, you’ve done research online and with your colleagues, but where better to begin to truly understand the people you’ll meet than where they spend the majority of their working—and waking—lives?

Being in your clients’ territory affords you the best possible opportunity to get to know who you’ll be meeting. You’re exposed to information and resources that simply aren’t available in company reports or on the internet. That’s pretty special, considering all your competitors have access to that same internet information.

Once you appreciate the value of spending time in your clients’ space, you’re ready to practice the art of the Waiting Room Jedi.

The first thing a Jedi needs to understand is the power of the Force. And in business, the Force is Connection. Anything and everything you can do to increase the connection between you and your potential client is a step in the right direction—a step toward the sale.

Finding Hidden Connections

If you had a first appointment with an important potential client and a friendly leprechaun offered you the opportunity to meet someone who knew your prospect, and who might be able to give you some useful information about them, you’d be delighted, wouldn’t you?

Well, today’s your lucky day. Because have the opportunity to do just that—every time you arrive early for a client meeting and every time your client is late.

Introduce yourself to the receptionist. We mean really introduce yourself. There’s a good chance the receptionist knows your prospect. If they’ve been with the company a while, receptionists can be a great source of useful information. They know who comes and goes. They know the culture of the organization. They know if times are good or times are bad. They know if executives and managers are part of the team or if they ride above it. They know when it’s an up day or a down day. Furthermore, receptions are often invisible in the waiting room, treated as just another piece of furniture. If they’re not too busy, they may really appreciate a chance to talk. Imagine standing face to face with a resource like that and deciding to check your email instead of talking to them!

How do you probe for information from the receptionist? Just ask. Clearly, your chances of getting under the sheets are limited (nor do we suggest you try; you risk coming off as inappropriately nosey, and even sleazy), but you can open the tent.

Here’s a list of simple starter questions that most receptionists should be able (and often happy) to answer:

• How long has the company been at this location (or on this floor)? What was the reason for the move?
• How many people work here? What kinds of jobs do they do? This can often lead to great follow-up conversations. If the location has both engineering and marketing in it for example, you can observe that that’s an unusual combination. Any reason for that?
• What’s the biggest department or division in this location?
• Is everyone always this (relaxed, friendly, energized, busy) around here, or is something special going on today?
• What do you like best about working here?
• Are the principals usually around, or mostly on the road? Do you get to see or talk to them much?

These are the kinds of questions you can work into almost any conversation and which can provide you with useful ways to make connections later in your meeting.

Imagine in your meeting with your prospective client being able to say something like, “I understand you’ve only been in this location for 18 months and you’re already bursting at the seams. Sounds like things are going well. Must be challenging to manage that kind of growth.”

Searching for Other Threads

Aside from these general starter questions, there are clues to the personalities of the company and its employees literally littering the walls. The artwork, the trophy case, the plaque, the photo of the ribbon cutting, the mission statement, the free (or maybe not free) soda machine, even the building itself if it’s company owned. All of these are data about the founders, the principals, the charities, the activities, the culture of the office and the organization. Each is a conversation starter with the receptionist or others you may meet. And each is a thread of a possible connection to your client. The more threads you discover, the better your chances of weaving them together into the beginning of a relationship.

Curiosity Killed the Can’t

The skill of being a Waiting Room Jedi is to transform a series of waiting room habits—checking email, posting on Facebook, and flipping through magazines—into a deliberate process of exploration and discovery.

More than anything else, being a Waiting Room Jedi is about being curious. The more genuinely curious you are, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the more likely you’ll be able to make connections with your client.

The attitude and skill the Waiting Room Jedi is one of a series of interlocking steps that form what we call the Productive Selling process. It starts with knowing who you are and why you’re selling. Then moves into finding, making, and developing connections. The next step is earning the credibility required for your clients to feel comfortable answering the tough, probing questions you’ll need to ask so that you can understand their situation. Once you truly understand your clients’ issues, itches, and challenges, the next step is to demonstrate your usefulness. Once you’ve done that, you can start developing a productive business relationship.

And after all, isn’t that what the best selling is all about?

Caffeine: The Silent Killer of Success

This week's tip for improving your performance is the most simple and straightforward method I’ve provided thus far. For many people, this tip has the potential to have a bigger impact than any other single action. The catch? You have to cut down on caffeine, and as any caffeine drinker can attest, this is easier said than done.

For those who aren't aware, the ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are high in emotional intelligence. These individuals are skilled at managing their emotions (even in times of high stress) in order to remain calm and in control.

The Good: Isn’t Really Good

Most people start drinking caffeine because it makes them feel more alert and improves their mood. Many studies suggest that caffeine actually improves cognitive task performance (memory, attention span, etc.) in the short-term. Unfortunately, these studies fail to consider the participants’ caffeine habits. New research from Johns Hopkins Medical School shows that performance increases due to caffeine intake are the result of caffeine drinkers experiencing a short-term reversal of caffeine withdrawal. By controlling for caffeine use in study participants, John Hopkins researchers found that caffeine-related performance improvement is nonexistent without caffeine withdrawal. In essence, coming off caffeine reduces your cognitive performance and has a negative impact on your mood. The only way to get back to normal is to drink caffeine, and when you do drink it, you feel like it’s taking you to new heights. In reality, the caffeine is just taking your performance back to normal for a short period.

The Bad: Adrenaline

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight or flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state, your emotions overrun your behavior.

Irritability and anxiety are the most commonly seen emotional effects of caffeine, but caffeine enables all of your emotions to take charge.

The negative effects of a caffeine-generated adrenaline surge are not just behavioral. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that large doses of caffeine raise blood pressure, stimulate the heart, and produce rapid shallow breathing, which readers of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 know deprives the brain of the oxygen needed to keep your thinking calm and rational.

The Ugly: Sleep

When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, focus, memory, and information processing speed are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Your brain is very fickle when it comes to sleep. For you to wake up feeling rested, your brain needs to move through an elaborate series of cycles. You can help this process along and improve the quality of your sleep by reducing your caffeine intake.

Here’s why you’ll want to: caffeine has a six-hour half-life, which means it takes a full twenty-four hours to work its way out of your system. Have a cup of joe at eight a.m., and you’ll still have 25% of the caffeine in your body at eight p.m. Anything you drink after noon will still be at 50% strength at bedtime. Any caffeine in your bloodstream—with the negative effects increasing with the dose—makes it harder to fall asleep.

When you do finally fall asleep, the worst is yet to come. Caffeine disrupts the quality of your sleep by reducing rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the deep sleep when your body recuperates and processes emotions. When caffeine disrupts your sleep, you wake up the next day with an emotional handicap. You’re naturally going to be inclined to grab a cup of coffee or an energy drink to try to make yourself feel better. The caffeine produces surges of adrenaline, which further your emotional handicap. Caffeine and lack of sleep leave you feeling tired in the afternoon, so you drink more caffeine, which leaves even more of it in your bloodstream at bedtime. Caffeine very quickly creates a vicious cycle.

Withdrawal

Like any stimulant, caffeine is physiologically and psychologically addictive. If you do choose to lower your caffeine intake, you should do so slowly under the guidance of a qualified medical professional. The researchers at Johns Hopkins found that caffeine withdrawal causes headache, fatigue, sleepiness, and difficulty concentrating. Some people report feeling flu-like symptoms, depression, and anxiety after reducing intake by as little as one cup a day. Slowly tapering your caffeine dosage each day can greatly reduce these withdrawal symptoms.