Tag Archives: communication

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Everyday Sales Leadership: Stop, Collaborate and Listen

Today’s post was written by a former colleague of mine, Jess Titchener – an     adrenalin-driven management consultant living, working and serving in London.   You can follow Jess on Twitter as well as on her new faith-based blog at        thistrainisboundforglory.com. To be featured on this site, click here.

As I reflect on the three years that I have worked in corporate sales and negotiations in the communications and media industry, I have been thinking about what we can all apply from some fundamental “sales” principles into our daily working routines – whatever area we may work in.

Business People WalkingI think my lessons can be distilled into these three priorities.

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Listen Your Way to the Top

In recent years, we’ve seen a new emphasis placed on the art of listening. It can’t be because listening is all of a sudden more important than it ever was before. Maybe the nature of work in the information age means the the cost of misunderstanding is higher. Or perhaps the experts have been burned by poor listening one too many times and decided to produce more thought leadership on the topic.

At any rate, study after study demonstrates the importance of listening to communication, leadership and influence. We are apparently able to listen about three times faster than we can speak, but we also forget most of what we’ve heard. Listening been identified as one of the top qualities employers seek. And the ability to listen well has been tied to the ability to lead. Leadership is impossible without communication and communication is impossible without listening.

Listening Kid

Everyone wants to be hired, to lead well and to understood. So how can we learn to listen more effectively? The first step is to distinguish between the various listening levels that exist. Here are five of the most common ones:

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The Power of Believing the Best

Several years ago I had the pleasure of participating in a 16 week leadership coaching training course with the Center for Coaching Excellence (CCE). Since that time I’ve had the pleasure of coaching a number of of business owner or organizational leaders. I enjoyed the insight and techniques I was taught, but the most significant thing I came away with was the relational effectiveness of CCE’s core values for coaching. For anyone wanting to influence others, I think it represents the bottom line.

The value that stood out the most was “believing the best” about other people. Think about that one for a minute. What does believing the best actually mean? How often when we talk or relate with someone do we believe or assume the absolute best about the other person? What could happen if we did? What would it take to get there?

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Article Preview: Stress Test Your Speaking Skills

Last year I got the opportunity to write an article for Toastmaster Magazine.  I put my heart and soul into writing a funny and helpful article that related my experiences in Army Special Operations training to the pressure of preparing a professional presentation on short notice.  I learned one thing: if you’re fortunate enough to have an article featured in a publication with over 270,000 subscribers, someone is bound to read it!  Even though the article ran in April, 2011, I recently received an email from a Toastmasters Club member in the UK saying how he’d like to organize a “stress test” speaking event, like I wrote about in the article.

Style Sheets Master
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a blast in my pursuit to become a competent public speaker.  However, if I hadn’t practiced, I wouldn’t have been nearly as effective under pressure.  That’s why I’ve invested in programs like Toastmasters and Dale Carnegie.

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Six Reasons You Should Give Public Speeches

Public SpeakerOne of the ideas I really latched on to when I started taking leadership courses in graduate school was John Maxwell’s quote, “everything rises and falls on leadership.”  But I was also challenged by a response my leadership friends came up with, that leadership rises and falls on communication.  If they were right, then it didn’t matter what I learned about leadership if I couldn’t communicate it.  A quick self-assessment revealed that I could write, converse, and lead small group discussions, but I lacked training and experience speaking in front of groups.

Right then and there I promised myself I would become a better public speaker.

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How to Establish Yourself as a Leadership Expert, Part 2

In my last post, I shared several reasons why you don’t have to wait until later to be a leadership expert. You can begin right here, right now, no matter who you are. If you’ve bought that idea, then let me share several practical ways you use your leadership expertise to benefit others.

Expert3

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The Three Leadership Questions I Always Ask

QuestionsHow do you talk with other people about leadership?

Unless I’m already a trusted leadership advisor, most people don’t just come up and ask me to help them evaluate their personal and organizational leadership effectiveness. (And when they do, it’s a little more organic than that!)  It’s true the more responsibilities people acquire, the more complicated their leadership situation gets. Executive leaders usually have access to budget, resources and personnel to address the leadership challenges they face. Everyday leaders often have to figure things out on their own. You may be able to help, but how do you get the conversation started?

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The Courage to Lead

The more time I spend with military and national security leaders, the more I’m convinced of the magnitude of a certain leadership quality: courage. That might not surprise you; everyone knows military service members need courage to put their lives on the line every day. There’s no debating that, but the courage I’m talking about applies to all leaders everywhere, whether your organization is made up of hundreds of thousands of people, or just a handful. Let me explain.

Courage

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What I Learned at the Re:Write 2012 Writers Conference

Last week I had the privilege to fly cross country from Washington, DC to San Diego to attend a two and a half day writers conference called Re:Write sponsored by The Fedd Agency. It featured many high-profile and incredibly well-written (and well-sold) authors, such as Ken Blanchard, Paul Young, George Barna, Mark Batterson, Peter Strople, John Kilcullen, Mary DeMuth, and others. Most of the attendees had either written books, were in the process of writing their first book, maintained blogs, or just wanted to learn more about how to focus their writing inspirations. There were also publishers and agents in attendance.

Ken Blanchard photo

I met Ken Blanchard at Re:Write 2012