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Take a WALK

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers share the best advice they’ve ever received. I DECIDED TO SHARE

 

“Be sure you take time for walks.”

 

“What?” I thought to myself. “Me? The person who heads to the gym to get a workout in as efficiently as possible so I can get in to the office?”

 

It’s the last thing I expected to hear from my new “boss.”

 

Hussein Enan, the CEO of Insweb, the early online insurance marketplace founded in Silicon Valley, was now the chairman of and partner in the company I was starting, Women’s Financial Network.

 

“It takes a lot of energy to do what you’re doing,” he said. “Are you ready?”

 

Having started several companies before himself, Enan knew how much effort and sheer persistence it took to get a new company off the ground, and he knew I would face moments when those walks would be critical.

 

Still, it was a zen insight that caught me by surprise: “Take a walk.”

 

As I speak to you, there are so many other pieces of advice to share – focus, listen more than you talk, know who you’re doing business with – but it’s that time during walks when you can stop and reflect.. to improve your decisions, your behavior, your priorities.

 

It’s advice that would come in handy in so many ways.

 

Take, for example, Women’s Financial Network. It was starting to get known for helping women financially. And now, we were working through a strategic partnership with a major media company that would give us national presence. Exciting stuff. In an effort to get the deal done, we took on the additional work of drafting the contract, at a substantial cost.

 

And then, the Internet bust occurred. Remember that? Companies were pulling back on all sorts of things, just as we’ve seen over the last few years: little investing, little hiring. I figured the media firm would back out of our partnership for sure.

 

And then, about two months later, as we still worked to shepherd the agreement through, they pulled out. They had been impacted too much themselves by the economy’s turn and couldn’t take on any new projects, they said.

 

OK, painful. But the worst occurred when I looked on their website a few weeks later only to discover that they were now using some the ideas we had offered-up as part of our partnership. I wanted to shout to the world: How could they?

 

I then remembered Enan’s advice: take a walk. Not to run from the problem but, rather, to step outside the problem by stepping outside the office.

 

That walk was critical. It led me to step back: would shouting to the world really help? Did I have the money to fight? Fight based on what? And, let’s face it: I’d rather have more friends than enemies. Not the direction I wanted to take.

 

And then, during that same walk, I had the ah-ha that would help re-focus my energies: form a strategic partnership with a brokerage firm to complete our goal of offering direct investment services. We did.

 

As I’ve come to realize, taking a walk can be essential to success in so many ways: birthing your next best idea, identifying the solution to a big challenge on the job, or just de-stressing so that you can connect with others more effectively.

 

Indeed, we spend so much time sitting in the office, staring at the computer screen or finding ourselves distracted by multiple voices and opinions, that taking time out almost becomes essential to success.

 

Taking a walk can be a bit like mental yoga. You open yourself up and create space and time to digest what is happening around you. Are you bringing any biases to your views or decision-making that deserve a re-think? How are others responding to you? If it’s not as you’d like, what might be standing in the way?

 

It’s also a great time to integrate ideas that you may have heard over the course of the past few weeks or months. What are the little nuggets you’ve picked up – the “ah-ha” moments from meetings or conversations – and how do they all fit together? Chances are, a good walk will lead you down the path to a stronger conclusion, and one more in sync with who you are.

 

A short hike can also be a great way to bond with someone. How many times have you heard about golf outings? Why not a walk? It takes less time and still provides the ability to talk without running out of breath.

 

Finally, I find a long walk at the beginning of the year can be especially beneficial. Every year, I create my own “Annual Plan” of personal and professional goals. This year, I decided to take a walk in my local park near the water to ponder some of the items in my plan: What did I really want to focus on in 2014? What activities were diversions and what were essential to my personal and professional goals and passions?

 

Today, on occasional walks, I go through a mental checklist of the items in my annual plan and ask myself how I’m doing.

 

I’ve discovered what Hussein revealed: that your best ideas, your best solutions, your best “you” will emerge in a walk. Not only that, if you put some energy into it, and perhaps add some inspirational (but quiet) music, you will have also succeeded in a fruitful workout as well.

 

About the writer

Jennifer Openshaw is a nationally known consumer financial expert. The author of The Millionaire Zone (Hyperion) about the social networking strategies of the wealthy, she also serves as president of Finect, a compliant social communications platform for the financial industry.

 

 

What you need to know about sales calls

I welcome you for yet another beautiful day. For the benefit of those new in the sales game and will probably be ask,” What the herk is a sales call. Well am not any close to an academic wizard and so i will put it in a crude way.

A sales call is customers hunting. No guns allowed in the hunt.

Now for those who wants the formal way.

A sales is the visits salespeople make to a
buyer’s premises in order to sell their
companies’ products.

Got it right!

Preparation is the mark of the professional- in every field (not the football kind of field, OK!). Note that the highest paid salespeople review every detail of account before every sales call. First, they study their notes from previous calls.

On the other hand the lowest salespeople try to make minimum preparation and you know what, you and I know professionals when we meet then and certainly they won’t act like one.

For now I am going to split sales call into three piece. And it all include:

1) Pre call analysis:
Research the account prior to the call and learn something about the person and their business before the meeting? Check their web page, brochures, newsletters. God knows, you could hit a million dollar information.

Send an outline of the agenda to the client before the meeting and have three value-added points prepared. Bring all materials, brochures, contracts,
etc.?

2) Pre call objectives

Answer the three important pre-call objective questions:
A. Who are you going to see. Who knows it could be a ghost!
B. What is the goal of the call?
C. What do I need to find out during the call?
D. What’s the next step after the call?

Customers loves salespeople who thoroughly prepare with written outline. Also dress professionally with mega credibility of an expert ( solution man/ a consultant). Ask open end questions while narrowing it down to your sales objectives. Handle objections professionally. And don’t forget be a resource and also a friend.

and
3) Post call analysis

Don’t trust your memory and don’t wait until the next day before you write your discussion and findings down. Write every fact you recall as quickly as you can. The prior to seeing the prospect again, if need be, review you database.

Lets say that will be for now. Have a nice day.

What’s your personal value?

Values are those things that really matter to each of us … the ideas and beliefs we hold as special.
Many of us learned our values at home, at church or synagogue or at school.
Values are difficult to see in a person. People often have difficultly articulating their full set of values. When they do, values can seem a complex array of ideas–and usually come out
disorganized in a person’s thought process. Personal strategic planning begins with your determining what it is you believe in and stand for-your values. Your values lie at the very core of everything you are as a human being. Your values are the unifying principles and core beliefs of your personality and your character. The virtues and qualities that you stand for are what constitute the person you have become from the beginning of your life to this moment.

Your values, virtues and inner beliefs are the axle around which the wheel of your life turns. All improvement in your life begins with you clarifying your true values and then committing yourself to live consistent with them.
See you soon and don’t forget to like us Facebook.