How an Outbound Call Center Makes Sense for Business

You've observed the saying, "Don't contact us, we'll contact you." For all intents and requirements, this means either that someone is not enthusiastic about discussing with you, or their needs don't go with up presently. But what if their needs do go with up, and they are enthusiastic about discussing with you -- it's just that you haven't been able to successfully arrive at them?An contact

More about → How an Outbound Call Center Makes Sense for Business

THE TRANSITION TO A 'PEOPLE FIRST ECONOMY'

The signs are clear that the economy has been and is in transition with the failure of Borders, collapse of Blockbuster, bankruptcy at Kodak, big changes at JC Penny, rumors of Best Buy's demise, the worst year in US Home Sales ever, a threat of a worldwide recession and not enough room to list the failed banks! There are countless other businesses trying to survive until a recovery comes but they are on a course to fail.

There are too many leaders suffering from 'normalcy bias', waiting for a recovery that isn't coming. This is producing strained and stressed sales managers, needy, desperate salespeople and sales trainers teaching the same sales skills with the intention to make a sale. All of them working harder and putting more pressure on consumers to buy that's helped create today's dysfunctional buyer and seller relationship. Add to that, consumers don't trust or believe salespeople, changing demographics, maturing use of technology, the explosion of social networks and it's the perfect storm for a transition to a new era in business. This is no less dramatic than the shift from the agricultural age to the industrial age...New intentions, thinking, attitudes, skills and actions are required to make the transition to a 'people first age' in business!

Success in this 'new economy' will require new business and sales intentions to generate a new engagement, connection and conversation with consumers for a healthy relationship. Nothing else will produce immediate results and sustainable growth better or faster!

It's not back to basics unless you want to just slow your failure... It's forward with new intentions for a successful new 'people first economy'!

More about → THE TRANSITION TO A 'PEOPLE FIRST ECONOMY'

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM MONEYBALL

Preconceived notions stop the people in charge from seeing inefficiencies in their businesses. Old habits, traditions or just plain comfort makes them reject the ideas of those who see the inefficiencies and have solutions to improve them. In fact, if their fear of change or pride becomes strong enough they will often reject and attack the people with the solutions too.

The greatest inefficiency in business today is the dysfunctional relationship between salespeople and consumers. It's caused by the intention to make sales. The good news is it can be corrected by changing this intention, which would heal the relationship and result in increased sales and sustainable growth. It won't be easy, but it is actually simple, like most changes that produce great improvements, transformations or start new era in business.

We are in transition to the 'People First Age' of business and commerce. It's happening right now. We aren't in a recession; we're in this transition to a 'new economy'. A big lesson form Moneyball is that it's easy to look at numbers and statistics and then make poor decisions...Success in business is about people, not numbers...When analyzed correctly the numbers should inform leaders how to help their people become successful, or how to select the people who will succeed. 

Businesses have to change their intentions or face certain failure...It's this shift in intentions that allows leaders to see the information that's in the numbers. Just as Kodak, who invented the digital camera in 1975, but refused to take advantage of it for fear it would damage their traditional film business, only to have their film business cannibalized by their competition with the digital camera they already possessed. They had the numbers but their intentions where misplaced and led to their demise!

If traditional businesses don't change their intentions at the point of engagement with the buyers of their products they will be cannibalized by new businesses with the right intentions. Like Kodak, existing businesses have the power to be leaders in this new 'People First Age' but one way or the other it is happening and the winners will be those who have the right intentions. The intentions to help, serve and do what's best for the buyer...The intentions to make customers and not just sales.

"People seek to improve until they are comfortable, and when they become comfortable, they stop looking to improve."

By Mike Moore

For more information about the right intention go to http://makingcustomers.wordpress.com/.

More about → LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM MONEYBALL

Most Managers Are Ineffective

Power is the capability to get factors done. You could say that control is the art of guaranteeing that factors get done. Yet what's so stunning about most companies is that so little control is efficient.That's what instructors Heike Bruch and the overdue Sumantra Ghoshal found when they examined what they known as "decisive filled with meaning activity." Most companies, far from being cities

More about → Most Managers Are Ineffective

A GOOD DAY...A GREAT LIFE

What makes one person cheerful, happy and able to handle the hassles of a normal day, while another is upset, frustrated and ready to quit when adversity comes? Our intentions and expectations drive our emotional state-of-mind. Too often they focus us on our circumstances and not solutions to our circumstances. This will make our emotional state-of-mind a roller coaster ride full of peaks and valleys that sabotage our ability to create the results or life we want. We have to set the proper expectation and intentions that will generate the behavior that will create the results we want. We have to start in our mind before we take action.

It's  simple really, just not easy. When you wake up in the morning what are your intentions for the day ahead?  I have asked individuals and groups, large or small, this question over the past two decades and the overwhelming number one answer is, “I want to have a good day”.  When I ask people to define a good day, the definition is, “A day with little to no problems, no hassles and nothing to worry about”.   When I ask them how many days a year this intention or expectation is met, they usually answer, “None”.  So, the majority of people I meet and speak with, start each day with an unrealistic intention, that when not fulfilled, makes them frustrated, upset or stressed out.  We’ll discuss stressed out later but let’s stay focused on how to use our intentions and expectations to better serve us and drive us towards the life or results we really want, instead of setting us up for more bad days ahead.

First, let’s look at how we ever got to an intention of no problems, no hassles and no worries.  When we wake up each day we have a choice to make, “Better or Comfortable”.  Our human nature wants us be comfortable, not better. Can you picture early man in a cave?  It wasn’t until he knew someone else had a better cave that he decided to go look for a better cave for himself.  Our human nature makes us content to be comfortable but it’s constantly driving us to compare ourselves to others. We really don’t wake up each day driven to be better human beings or to make things in our life better.  If we did we wouldn’t have most of the issues confronting society today. 

Let’s stay focused on how we can overcome our human nature and stop sabotaging our own lives. When we define a good day as no problems, no hassles and no adversity, when we are confronted with the first problem, how do we react? If you said, “frustrated”, you would be right.  By definition, this intention has set you up to be frustrated. Not the best state-of–mind to handle life’s problems. It is also my experience that defining a good day with comfort as our primary goal, leads to becoming frustrated when you meet the first problem of the day, which starts a downward spiral of poor emotions. These emotions make you less capable of handling the next problem or the adversity you are confronted with and may even make you withdraw or quit trying to overcome the obstacles in your day.

How can you change your intentions to change your results? Everyday the choice you make, makes you.  When you start your day, change your intentions by changing your definition of a good day.  Let’s revisit the idea or definition of a good day. If your choice is comfort you define it as “no problems”. Think about when you feel best about yourself. Your self-worth or self-esteem is best when you overcome adversity, solve problems and help others.  So to change your results, to develop the emotional state-of-mind to make a difference in your life, you need a new definition of a good day.

This new definition can help you make a better first choice as you wake up each day. Define a good day as one where you find, meet and overcome adversity. Yes, you need to wake each day looking for problems.  Problems to solve that will help people.  You should not be looking to make problems, but to find existing problems and help solve them.  If you are part of a problem, then become part of the solution.  You should be looking for ways to serve or help others.  This definition will help you not avoid conflict and endure difficulties with the proper emotional state-of-mind.  With this definition, when you find problems you will be prepared and not be frustrated.  You will meet them head on and you will find solutions.

Adversity and problems are the obstacles that stand between where you are and the results or life you want.  The first step to overcoming adversity and problems is your attitude or emotional state-of-mind, which is most affected by your intentions and expectations created by your daily choice, “Comfort or Better”.

Redefine a good day and begin to experience them everyday until your life is a journey of solutions that serve others and rewards you with the results and ultimately the life you want.

By Mike Moore http://dld.bz/XePf 

More about → A GOOD DAY...A GREAT LIFE

Grow Your Business - Work on Outbound Lead Development

What are you going to do when the well operates dry? To be obvious, I am not referring to water, I am referring to brings. What are you going to do when all the incoming brings dry up and there are no new revenue possibilities to pursue? The response to that concern is both easy and complicated simultaneously. The easy aspect of the procedure is do confident cause growth. The complicated

More about → Grow Your Business - Work on Outbound Lead Development

ACCOMPLISHING YOUR GOALS...THE MISSING STEP

We all have wishes, hopes and dreams but to turn them into goals and unleash their power, they have to be put in writing with a date to be completed.  


Wishes, hopes and dreams rarely come true while goals are often accomplished. 


Setting your goals is actually step three in accomplishing them. Step two is creating an action plan. You’ll need to start at step three and work backwards to create the first step to accomplishing your goals.

When people set goals they often don’t make an action plan for how to accomplish them and set themselves up to fail. For those who set goals and make an action plan, they’re still missing the most important and powerful step. They’re missing the first step and real driver behind accomplishing their goals. Most people fail to accomplish their goals because of this missing step!

Deciding who you need to become, the person who will take the actions in your plan is the powerful first step in accomplishing your goals. If you don’t change who you are, you won’t change your behavior. If you don’t change your behavior, you won’t achieve your goals.

To accomplish your goals, think in terms of these steps…Start at step three, setting your goals. Then take step two by making an action plan. Be aware that if you stop there and start trying to take actions you have set yourself up to fail, become frustrated with goal setting, and eventually stop setting goals altogether.

After setting your goals and making your action plan, take step one…decide the person you have to become to take the actions in your plan. Decide what attitudes, intentions, beliefs and character traits are needed to be the person who would naturally take the actions you’ve planned.

Now use these three steps to accomplish your goals. Start at step one, working on becoming that person. This may also give you insight to a better timetable to accomplishing your goals. If it does, then re-write your goals with a new date for them to be accomplished. This will help make your action plan and goals more realistic and more achievable.

Starting with this missing step will create less frustration and help you start working on the core cause of your accomplishing your goals…YOU!

More about → ACCOMPLISHING YOUR GOALS...THE MISSING STEP

The New Sales Reality

Having reduced their functions and SG & A price framework down to bright steel, here's what many of our clients are doing to get ready customer-focused growth programs best suited for their new truth.

    Extensive voice of the client meetings - A higher knowing of your clients' views and needs allows find new ways for you to offer value, improve connections, recognize unmet needs, and grow

More about → The New Sales Reality

WHAT WINNING LEADERS MANAGE

Raised by a father who coached for 35 years, the first lesson he taught me was to walk into a locker room and take in or feel the atmosphere and the energy.  He was teaching me what winning coaches did to be successful and I've learned how they can be applied by business leaders to create a successful business. He explained that you could "feel" this winning atmosphere if you were paying attention.   He also said coaches and leaders manage this atmosphere and it's in the air all the time. He said it was more important than any of the x's and o's of coaching.

Growing up listening to coaches’ share their views, thoughts and leadership styles was a huge advantage later in my business career. Listening to pregame, halftime and postgame speeches taught me how to manage and maintain this atmosphere and I share this as often as I can with other leaders.

I was always amazed to watch a game or practice with my father or other coaches as they constantly paid attention to how things felt. I realized later that the average ones were focused on their process and not their players. This is similar to business, as we too often get lost in our process and forget about the people involved.

Next time you walk into a sales office, store or business, see how it feels.  Leaders manage the air.  They do this by managing the attitudes, feelings and beliefs of the people in their business, organization or life.  This is why a business that wants to make customers must manage its people's attitudes, feelings and beliefs first. Consumers won’t believe your company is different if your people aren’t and your people won't act different if their attitude isn't different. 'People first leaders' manage the air or atmosphere generated by people's attitudes. 

'People first leadership', isn’t a fluffy fad or esoteric idea, but the first step in increasing sales and growth in business in the 'new economy'.  Its 'people first' focus means a leader has to have strong enough conviction to stick to a game plan or strategy when others around them are growing weary or wanting to overreact to unwanted results. 

'People first leaders' develop people in their business who are mentally tough enough to execute the strategy when others would falter or take the path of least resistance.

By managing the attitudes, feelings and beliefs of your people, you are leading from where results are born.   From the attitudes that lead to actions, the results will be seen in your increase revenue, profits and growth.  You are leading from an advanced position and not waiting to react to unwanted results that were generated from behavior that was caused by attitudes that were ignored.

Leadership at its essence, generates results by getting people to perform at their highest level of competence. When leaders do this they are also growing the level of people’s competence and insuring growth and higher performance in the future.

Use the attitudes, skills and actions of great coaches who have led their teams to championships by instilling a winning attitude, mental toughness and the ability to overcome the excuses their competitors accept to be average.  Coaches like John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, Pat Riley, Don Shula, Pat Summit, Phil Jackson, Bill Walsh, Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick and many others, win and have won because they 'manage the air' or attitudes that produce winners. Ultimately, they are 'people first leaders' who challenge others to be better than they would be without their influence. They move people to do the things they don't want to do that produce the results they want.

Business in the 'new economy' requires an attitude to make customers, not just sales. Instill this in the hearts of people so that it permeates the air in your business and it will generate improved results and growth.

Stop, listen and feel the attitudes in your business. Can you sense the 'winning air'? If not, get busy and make it a priority, then manage it daily for the best results.

By Mike Moore

More about → WHAT WINNING LEADERS MANAGE