Guy Kawasaki - Enchantment and Likability

How to be more enchanting:

There's a great on-line book study going on over on The High Calling. The goods folks there are studying Guy Kawasaki's new book, Enchantment - The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. It starts with this 12-minute video interview of Guy, by Cheryl Smith titled: On Enchantment, persuasion, work and faith. Worth watching, and especially love Guy's perspective on faith and the work place. There was a Twitter Party, that included Guy that I missed and I am sorry, as that would have been a totally new experience for me.

And today, the discussion of Chapters One and Two on the topic of 'Likability' can be found at this post from Laura Boggess: Achieving Likability: Crow's Feet and the Perfect Handshake. It is a funny and well-done essay and I love this line from Guy:

“Enchantment is like fitness. Everyone can be more (or less). It’s a process, not an event.”

Be sure to check out the list on how to be more likable and the link to the perfect handshake. I hope to buy the book and join the discussion. Join me if you can.

The Dan Plan

The Dan Plan

Yesterday we touched on The 10,000 Hour Rule, the premise behind Malcolm Gladwell's popular book, Outliers: The Story of Success. My photo for that essay was the Westlake (Austin) High School Girls Golf Team, who just took first and third in regional play last week in Waco. They are the defending Texas 5A Champions. Those girls understand what it takes to be successful. They understand each of the keys that we have discussed thus far, when it comes to The Champion Sales Professional: energy management, enthusiasm, and likability. Golf is a great teacher of these skills and we are proud of what the girls have accomplished.

Dan McLaughlin in Portland, OR is putting The 10,000 Hour Rule to the test in his own way. Check out The Dan Plan to see how he intends to conquer golf, starting from a basis of zero and becoming a professional player. As of April 15th he was cruising past 1,400 hours and going strong.

What have you invested 10,000 hours in during your lifetime? That is approximately 5.5 hours a day, six days a week for six years. Have you perfected that skill?

Likability: The 10,000 Hour Rule

Go Chaps Golf - natural sales talent in the making:

Last week we focused on the third (of six) Characteristics of the Champion Sales Professional: Likability. We had some fun looking at the difference in right brain versus left brain selling. We also explored one of my favorite sales quotes, which of course can be applied to anything in life. "People may not remember what you did or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel." I did a little Google research to find out the quote is attributed to Zappos CEO and Founder, Tony Hsieh. 

Before we move on to the fourth characteristic (Love what you do and know it well) let's have some fun exploring the '10,000 Hour Rule' and what it means to a champion sales person. Are you familiar with the 10,000 hour rule? It is the main premise behind Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers: The Story of Success. The idea is that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to really master a specific subject or skill. That is about six and a half hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, for a little over six years.

Energy management, enthusiasm, and likability all need to be practiced, just like any other skill. Tomorrow, I will tell you more about the girls in the photo, and how they are putting all of these skills to use, in their quest for a second straight Texas 5A Golf Championship. We will also look at what an average man named Dan is doing in Portland, OR to put the 10,000 hour rule into practice in his journey to become a champion golfer.

A special Easter post about a very good salesman

From my friend Chad Moore of Dukane:

"There was a young Jewish teacher some years ago who made a statement along the lines of "you'll do well if you value people the way you would like to be valued." I think this lines up well with your [last] post [on likability]. I know a busy executive who always leaves you feeling valued as a friend every time you talk to him, even if its only a couple of sentences that pass between you. That's a gift to everyone he meets and it comes back to him in spades."

Happy Easter. Be likable.

Likability . . . they will always remember how you made them feel

churnOn this: I worked with a talented friend during my tenure at Salient Systems who used to say that a sales call could be summed up this way. "Your client or prospect may not remember what you said or what you did, but they will always . . . always . . . remember how you made them feel." I think this is a great mantra to follow every time you interact with anyone, but especially important when trying to establish and maintain relationships in the selling game.

Likability: Right brain, Left brain, Golden brain

The Golden Brain:

Yesterday, I referenced Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind - Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future. I started thinking about the difference in the right brain (our creative, imaginative side) versus the left brain (our logical, thinking side) and how this applies to likability and selling. I asked my eleven year old daughter if she was aware of the difference between her left brain and her right brain? She told me she recently took a test and the test determined she was both right and left brain dominant, and thus she had a golden brain! Go Lucy!

I once had a business coach who stressed that everyone has a 'heart or emotional side' of their body, versus a 'mind or intellectual side' of their body and that we need to know how we interact with others when we are standing (or sitting) to someone's right versus to someone's left. (Everybody is not wired the same, so some people are prone to react emotionally when on the right, and others are prone to act emotionally when on the left, and so forth.) It is important to understand these differences and to appreciate that we are all wired in our own unique way.

Then there is the common belief that our left brain controls our right side, and our right brain controls our left side. I believe that is also medically correct? So that is a lot to think about when on a sales call, or in a presentation room, or at a business dinner. If you are a champion sales person, you do think about these things (maybe intuitively), because you have learned how to leave people feeling good about you, regardless of whether you are on their left or their right!

ELU Squared – Likability

ELU to the power of two:

Let's begin our focus on the third of The Six Characteristics of the Champion Sales Professional: Likability. I am going 'old school' on this one, with the popular sales expression, "People buy from people they like." There is a new school approach, that says the buying process has changed so much over the past several years, that likability no longer matters.

Some sales coaches are teaching that it is far more important to be the most knowledgeable sales person, or the most prepared sales person, or the sales person with the best product. And, no doubt, all of these things are essential and will be discussed next in this series, under the topic of Love: Do what you love and know it well.

Likability, is a critical soft skill. It is positioned third in the series because it is just as important today as it was in yesteryear. In fact, it might be even more important now than in the past? With the advent of technology allowing the buyer to research companies and products, it is easy to assume that the 'human' side of the sales process is no longer relevant.

I have recently had conversations with several sales executives who agree that the human element is going to be of greater importance in the next ten years, as people realize they don't want their world reduced to bits and bytes. A great source on this subject is Daniel Pink, who writes about it in his book, A Whole New Mind – Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.

Where do you stand on the likability scale? Important to the sales process? More so or less so, in today's world?