The Seed

I found this article thought provoking and gained renewed inspiration from reviewing the 8 stated fundamentals Author Unknown

The Seed A successful business man was growing old andKnew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children,He decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO.I have decided to choose one of you. "The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.

I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives beganTo talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however.

He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot.

But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- In all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him! When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room withHis empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!

His name is Jim!" Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants andFlowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, youSubstituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"

1. If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

2. If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

3. If you plant humility, you will reap greatness

4. If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment

5. If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective

6. If you plant hard work, you will reap success

7. If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

8. If you plant faith, you will reap a harvest

So, be careful what you plant now; It will determine what you will reap later. "Whatever You Give To Life, Life Gives You Back"

David Anderson
President
Okanagan Training Solutions / Priority Management Interior BC
250 762-5096 / 1-877-762-5096
prioritymanagment@shaw.ca
http://www.okanagantrainingsolutions.com/
http://okanagantrainingsolutions.blogspot.com/

David Anderson - Okanagan Training Solutions - Improve Communications by asking the correct questions

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who just drones on and hammers their opinions, without once stopping to listen to what you might have to say? I don't know about you, but whenever I find myself trapped into a conversation with one of these people, it takes every ounce of my self-restraint not to scream "Who cares?!" In fact, I have yet to meet a customer who enjoys the experience of having a sales person force their opinions and perceptions on them - even (or perhaps especially) when those sales people felt they were only offering their "honest opinion."

Today, we continue our series on "The 9 Fine Lines to Sales Success" with a closer look at the fine line between offering an honest opinion, and being brutal with the truth.
Don't get me wrong, our opinions are important - to ourselves. Nobody needs to hear all your opinions - especially not your customers! The mistake most sales people make is thinking that it is our opinions and perceptions that influence the customer to buy. The fact is, most successful sales people find that the complete opposite is true: they are far more successful when they don't express their opinions and perceptions, and instead limit their communication entirely to the facts and their emotions.

Making sure you don't cross the line

Honesty is stating facts the way we see them, and sharing how we feel about those facts. Brutality is attempting to force our opinions on others, blaming others for what we think they did wrong, or adopting an attitude that just screams "I told you so."

Successfully staying on the right side of this line depends entirely on your ability to get your customers to share with you their emotional reasons for buying your products. How do you do this? By asking them the right questions - questions that will move your prospect from an intellectual position (knowing they have a problem that needs to be solved) to the emotional state of trusting you to solve that problem in a way that will satisfy them.

The right questions, in other words, are ones that will help you to reveal a buyer's true motivations. To help you get the answers to those questions - and close more deals in the process - try the following four steps to building more lasting and profitable customer relationships:

1. Identify the intellectual problem.

Q: What's the biggest challenge you're facing today in the area of X?

Q: Our clients tell us that we help them solve problems in the area of X. That's not a problem for you, is it?

Q: What plans have you made to?

2. Develop an intellectual awareness about this problem.

Q: Can you tell me more about it?

Q: Could you be more specific?

Q: How would you improve?

3. Get emotional! Identify the specific business impact of this problem.

Q: How has this problem impacted your organization?

Q: What will happen if this problem continues?

4. Identify the specific personal impact of this problem.

Q: What impact does this problem have on your job / your staff?

Q: What will happen if you don't find a solution to this problem?

Staying on the right side of the line

Once you've revealed your prospect's true emotional reasons for buying your products, you're ready to move to the next step in streamlining your communication: learning how to share your emotions during the sales process.

Now, I want to be very clear here: I'm recommending that you describe your emotions, not that you show them - especially if that would mean breaking down into tears or a screaming tirade.

When it comes to expressing your emotions, think of yourself as Tarzan. Tarzan was a man of few words, yet he was always able to express himself in a way that people understood. Keep it simple, and simply report your emotion: I am mad. I am upset. I am stressed.

For example, you might say to a customer: "I noticed that we haven't received the purchase order from your purchasing department yet, and I'm worried that this will delay your implementation." Or: "It's been a couple of weeks since we agreed to talk about your order. If we wait much longer, I'm concerned that they'll be out of stock."

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David Anderson

Okanagan Training Solutions

Priority Management Interior BC

250 762-5096 / 1-877-762-5096

prioritymanagment@shaw.ca
http://www.okanagantrainingsolutions.com/
http://okanagantrainingsolutions.blogspot.com/

David Anderson - Champion Service in Tennis & Business for Better Net Results in Tough Economic Times

I recently received and email from my daughter on the Gold Coast in Brisbane Australia that deals with Customer Service. I thought I would like to share it with you on my blog.

David Anderson / Okanagan Training Solutions

‘Whether serving customers or tennis aces, you’ve got to keep your eye on the ball if you want to be a winner.’

I’ve watched and played countless hours of tennis and whether it is Wimbledon or the Australian Open, I’ve never once seen a player win a match by looking at the scoreboard. Champions keep their eye firmly focused on the ball and let the scoreboard take care of itself. Yet, how often are we so busy measuring customer satisfaction results and looking at the scoreboard of tangible indicators, that we take our eye off the actual customer situation? A classic example was an attempt to improve train service. Although there were indeed improvements with running on time, it was also revealed that they weren’t stopping at all stations to pick up the passengers, as the drivers were only focused on the measurement of timeliness! So much for keeping your eye on the ball!

Let’s look at the acronym of the word, ‘service’ and other such analogies between service in tennis and service to customers.

Self-esteem
Too often, we have confused service with subservience and people in service jobs have not had the high self-esteem that their roles deserve. How often have you played doubles with someone who ducks and calls out “Yours”? How often do you work with individuals who do an equivalent ‘duck’ and call ‘yours’ when there’s a tricky customer situation? We need to feel useful and be able to step up to every customer situation, difficult or otherwise, take ownership of that moment, and call out ‘Mine”.

Exceed expectationsAs customer demands increase, we need to constantly meet and exceed their expectations. We can never take them for granted. It’s not always the number one seed who wins Wimbledon but often the up and coming players who are willing to go that little extra distance to gain that slight competitive advantage. So too in business-and no matter how great a champion you or your organization may be, success in the past is no guarantee of success in the future.

Recover
We all know that things go wrong from time to time and even customers appreciate this fact. Encouragingly, the research shows that if you satisfy a customer complaint, and do so quickly, the majority of those customers will become more brand loyal to your organization if they feel you’ve adequately recovered from an initially unsatisfactory situation. Just like missing a first tennis serve, most customers let you have a second chance. It’s equally important to remember that 96.7% of unhappy customers never take time to complain so you better not double fault on those who do.

Vision
It’s not only essential to keep your eye on the ball but to keep in mind a long term vision in order to successfully win tennis games or customer loyalty. Neither happens overnight and in order to maintain a key competitive advantage, keep in mind a long-term vision. Tennis games aren’t won or lost on centre court. They’re won or lost on the back courts-hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year of practice before you even qualify to play in the big game.

Improve
Even if we never reach centre court, our tennis game can improve through practice. The difference between an amateur and professional tennis player is that an amateur will practice until they can get something right. A professional will practice until they never get it wrong. We need to be professional in our approach to servicing customers, as consistency is a key retention factor.

CareIf you’re a tennis coach, you care about your players, just as a service provider must care about the needs and wants of their customers. Customer care should never be some phoney platitude but a genuine, heartfelt desire to help the customer by placing yourself in their shoes, whether they be sneakers or high heels! If you like your job and look for daily opportunities to do this, you’ll find it easier to succeed. It’s better still if you love your job; love helping people. In tennis, love is nothing. In life, it’s everything! And it’s important that we genuinely care about serving our customers, our organizations, families, communities, planet and ourselves-not necessarily in that order.

EmpowerWe all like to feel that we can make a difference to the final score; that we’re a valued team player; that we can be empowered to stretch ourselves beyond former personal bests. John Akers, CEO of IBM, once said:

‘If you always get your first serve in, you’re not trying hard enough.’

Unlike Wimbleton, it’s certainly not all strawberries and cream in the world of customer service-especially in tough economic times-but it will be game, set and match to those individuals and organizations who recognize that looking after your customers will result in increased net profits.

Love all. Love all customers. The ball is truly in your court so remember that:

Whether serving tennis balls or customers, you’ve got to keep your eye on the ball if you want to be a winner.

Catherine DeVrye MSc, CSP - Author of Who Says I Can't?-Hope Happens-Hot Lemon & Honey- Good Service is Good Business


David Anderson
Okanagan Training Solutions
Priority Management Interior BC
250-762-5096 /1-877-762-5096
prioritymanagment@shaw.ca
http://www.okanagantrainingsolutions.com/
http://okanagantrainingsolutions.blogspot.com/

David Anderson - Okanagan Training Solutions - WHAT TIME WILL YOU FINISH WORK TOMORROW?

David Andereson / Okanagan Training Solutions - Kelowna

I read this great article that I would like to share with you.

Just as few people are trained in information management, even fewer are trained in workload management. Yet every job in the world entails balancing a series of to-dos with the clock. Our experience with over 1,000,000 customers worldwide in best-practice productivity processes, shows that very few people have a realistic plan for each day. Most plans that we see are long lists of unprioritised tasks-more of a wish list than a plan.

Here is a quick check as to how your workload management processes compare to best practice. Firstly, think about where you presently keep all the things you have to do . How many of the following tools do you use each day? Notepad, paper to-do list, scraps of paper, post-it notes, whiteboard, piles on the desk, Inbox, electronic to-do list, diary, electronic calendar and your memory. No wonder we so quickly lose the plot and find ourselves unable to finish 'a day's' work.
Best practice demands just one place to plan (yes, that’s ONE). When our work is in one place then we have something we can manage and control.
Now we have consolidated our tasks into one location we have a process that will get you home on time!
1. Write down all the things you need to do tomorrow in one place. (It can be your Priority Manager or your electronic calendar)
2. Estimate how long it is going to take to get each item done. Total the time - does it fit into an 8 hour work day?
3. Are you likely to be interrupted tomorrow? If so, how will that impact your work? It will most likely double the time it takes to accomplish your work. Ask yourself if you can still get the work done after the interruption time is added?
4. Have you included time for lunch? What about travel time to and from your appointments? What about time to check your email? Remember that time for lunch, coffee breaks and checking email can easily add up to one-and-a-half hours.
5. Now total the realistic time and block out your calendar. What time are you going home? Is it the time you want to go home?

Start today to develop the skills that will help you stay balanced and in control of your personal agenda. By developing essential skills such as personal organization, life/work balance and workload management you will improve every aspect of your life.

Go to these links to learn more: Working Smart with Outlook ,
Working Smart with Lotus Notes
David Anderson
Okanagan Training Solutions
Priority Management Interior BC
250-762-5096 /1-877-762-5096
prioritymanagment@shaw.ca
http://www.okanagantrainingsolutions.com/
http://okanagantrainingsolutions.blogspot.com/
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Okanagan Training Solutions workshops are held in the following cities:Kelowna, Penticton, Kamloops, Veron, Salmon Arm, Prince Rupert, Prince George, Williams Lake, Quesnel, Nelson

David Anderrson - Okanagan Training Solutions - The first quarter of 2008 is OVER

David Andereson / Okanagan Training Solutions - Kelowna

The first quarter of 2008 is OVER, did you reach your first quarterly goals or objectives ?

YES ___ NO____
If your answer was NO, did you understand the reasons that kept you from obtaining them?

YES___ NO____

At Priority Management Interior BC we help our clients increase productivity in the areas of
greatest return, Their time. Through our training, graduates learn to manage their workload with less stress and gain control over their day to day activities with a gain of 40-70 minutes

How can you help me achieve my goals?

Through our training we will help you acquire the skills to manage your workload which will allow you to experience less stress, gain back control over their day to day activities and enjoy a Positive Work / Life Balance.

How does your Training method work?

At Priority Management we use a comprehensive system that makes our clients think differently about how they run their business and their lives.

The competitive advantage our clients gain through Priority Management training is based on the unique concept we originated to identify, measure, and improve the performance of individuals, teams and organizations.

This is accomplished by introducing participants to our 8 step program which is broken down into 3 key elements, Decide, Do and Deliver.

If you want positive results for the second quarter of 2008

Call:

David Anderson
Okanagan Training Solutions
Priority Management Interior BC
250-762-5096 /1-877-762-5096
prioritymanagment@shaw.ca
http://www.okanagantrainingsolutions.com/
http://okanagantrainingsolutions.blogspot.com/