People Buy People

People 'buy' People.

What are they 'buying' from you?

Seriously. Think about this. What is it that people get and can expect when they interact and work with you? Is it worth the price?  If what you have to offer is not uniquely different than the person standing next to you, then why would someone choose you?

It starts to feel a little like picking sports teams in grade-school, no one wants to be the last one 'picked' for the team, but this is what happens every day in business.  When you go for an interview, when project teams are being put together, when promotions are being made, when consultants are hired.  Skills, abilities, attitudes and experiences are being bought, which means we are all in the business of selling ourselves.

How good is your sales process?

As with any product, you can't sell what you don't know.  How clear are you about your strengths?  You can't articulate and highlight what you don't know.  Ideally you want to build your brand around the key strengths you possess that are both marketable AND that you enjoy using.  An exercise that I use with clients to help them uncover these strengths is the following...

Take out a piece of paper and draw a quick chart. Down the left-hand column, create a list of your accomplishments and achievements that still instill you with pride. Pride is a key component because if you still feel good about what you achieved you likely used some talents and skills you enjoy.  

Across the top row you are going to list your abilities.  Start with the first accomplishment you listed and consider the various skills and abilities that you called upon to help you complete that task.  List them in the top row, checking each off in the row across from its associated accomplishment.  

Look at the next accomplishment you listed and check off any of the abilities you added that apply to this accomplishment.  Some may have been used while others hadn't.  Add any additional skills that you haven't yet indicated.

Continue to review each accomplishment, checking off any of the abilities you've listed that were used to complete each, while also adding any additional skills/abilities that were also used.

When completed, take a look at the abilities with the most check marks. These likely represent those skills/abilities that you call upon the most and represent your key strengths. Given that these accomplishments are pride-filled moments for you, these strengths are also likely to be things you enjoy doing and are talents that others recognise in you and turn to you for help with. These are the elements that people 'buy' from you.

Knowing what you have to sell to others is one thing, selling it is another.  People can't buy what they don't know is for sale.  What are your marketing strategies?  Doing great work, and letting it speak for you, is one strategy... but it is only one. On its own it is insufficient to ensure that your product - 'you' - stands out on the shelves.  What other strategies could you implement that help you to stand out and be seen?  Here are a couple of quick tips borrowed from our Bragging Rights program to help get you started...

• When you have helped someone out and they thank you, don't ever respond with... 'No problem'.  Ever.  Saying 'no problem' implies that, in fact, it was no problem.  Which is rarely ever true.  Don't diminish the work you did by saying that it was no problem.  Simply saying 'you're welcome' is better, but consider letting them know you went out of your way for them by saying something along the lines of... 'I know how important it was to your project so I juggled a few things to make some room to help you out'.  It never hurts to let someone know you are willing to give a little something extra, which helps differentiate you from the rest of the crowd.
• When you enjoy doing something, let people know... so you can get more of it!  We may be good at many things, but we really only want to work on those that we are both good at AND love doing. Others aren't likely to distinguish between the two if you don't highlight the difference for them.  
• When you meet people that you haven't seen in a while and they ask you what you've been up to, do not... I repeat ... DO NOT simply say 'nothing much', or 'keeping busy'.  Give them some insight. This is a great opportunity to insert a little brag-bite, a short update on something, just one thing, that you have been doing that highlights a strength.  Make it short, snappy, interesting... but start getting the word out about what it is that you can do if you want people to remember it, and you, when great new projects are coming down the pipe.  

People are constantly in the market for people.  People to help bridge the gap between their personal talents and their needs.  Help them to see you as the right fit for that gap by selling yourself appropriately.  People are buying people all the time.  If they are not buying 'you' then it may be time for you to revamp your marketing strategies.
 

 

 

Colouring: Not Just for Pre-Schoolers!

Colour Psychology can tell us a lot about what colour to paint the office, depending upon what emotions and behaviours we want to drive. Savvy retail spaces use colour as a strategic design element to enhance the customer experience.  Most of us know a little about this and likely have intuitively used some colour psychology when selecting the paint colours for the walls in our home.  Granted, we may have consciously simply selected the colour we 'liked', but we know that our subconscious choice was based more upon how the colour made us feel than simply on how it looked.

However, few of us strategically use colour in our day-to-day business processes... but we should!  If you
are anything like other business leaders, you likely find yourself in numerous meetings each week, if not each day.  In order to keep ourselves on track we typically will take notes during each meeting, to ensure we have a record and reference of what information was shared, what actions were agreed upon etc.   Unfortunately though, we rarely go back and read through our notes and, when we do, we are overwhelmed by the volume of information and give up on making sense of it.

Research into mind-mapping though is now also indicating that we should be using colour to 'code' the notes we are taking.  It seems that not only does using colour improve our recall time but it can also save us reviewing time and serve to form some connections between ideas we might have missed otherwise.

Here's the basic premise...

• If you are using mind-mapping techniques as your preferred note-taking style, then using different colours to separate the various 'branches' of your map will help stimulate the creative side of your brain, which helps to create a stronger visual recall of the contents.  
• Using colour with any form of note-taking helps you to stay focused on more boring topics - longer. Adding that dash of colour serves to liven notes up, instantly making them more memorable and interesting.  Easier to find and review later.
• Many who use colour during note-taking assign specific meanings to various colours.  For instance, Black for general information, Blue for client's comments, Red for immediate action items and Green for new ideas.
• Lawyers have used colour-coding for their notes forever, learning the technique early-on in law school.  Rather than writing with different coloured pens, they will use highlighting to capture key information: Red for holdings of a case, Green for general law, Yellow for Facts, and so on.  This allows them to see the ways that their cases are structured and significantly enhances their recall of the case information.  Note though that you must be selective in your highlighting... colouring everything fails to offer any kind of distinction or time saving.  

I have long used colours when creating my mind maps and also use different coloured pens in my Desk-Journal - a book that I keep on my desk to jot down all of the bits and pieces of information that cross my desk (and my mind) each day.  Quotes I resonate with, small clips of information, book recommendations, fun facts, key insights, questions I want to address later... all get recorded in the journal, which I flip through periodically. All the thoughts are located in one place, avoiding them getting lost (which used to happen when I always wrote them on sticky notes!) and the journal itself serves as a great reference and motivational tool. The picture on this blog is a photo taken of one of my journal pages.

Regardless of how you intend to use them, you might want to consider adding a little colour to your life and to your notes!  Another skill learned in Kindergarten that serves you well in business.