Things that rhyme show up
It’s quite clear that the world needs more peace of mind and justice if we are to recover from the pandemic. I spent the weekend with some good friends in the Swedish countryside, this experience of fishing and hunting for mushrooms was amazing. We found both Karl Johan’s and chanterelles. We cooked them with garlic, onions, and cream, we ate them with French toast as a starter and they were delicious.
Millions of years ago on earth everyone was a hunter, nowadays, there are hunters and farmers. I think that being a hunter requires a different skillset than being a farmer. We have only had ca. 500 years’ experience of being farmers, and as a farmer you get really good at sitting still and focussing and making tiny incremental improvements. In a world that moves so fast with trends and habits, the old hunting skills of being able to notice just a little bit of movement in the bush are still valuable.
What do I do?
I help people to see where they are and what’s holding them back, and then I help them get to where they want to go. I try to educate, connect, and lead a small group of people who actually care. Contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.
Can you see the light?
“Your results are just an outcome, they are not your worth.”
Pushing your boundaries
Comme Ci, Comme Ça
I was recently asked this question: Why are we competing when we can create? After a few days of contemplation, I am now ready to answer it! I think that it’s OK to be different as there are many great minds with solutions to big problems out there who are being blocked by the same problem? There are so many opportunities in every industry to create and make a difference, we need to know how to get there in order to move from competing to creating.
I guarantee that you will feel empowered when you start to pick up on that divine purpose you have for being here on the planet. All the roadblocks in your way will be more easily overcome. In reality, everyone wants to work for an organisation and in a team where there is meaning behind what they do. I think what makes you unique and stand out from the sea of competition is: “Who you are and how you work with people, and how you do what you do and the beliefs and values that you emphasise in your process.” Contact me via e-mail when you are ready to look at your roadmap.
Think like your customers
Sales and marketing are different functions, marketing is to attract people who are interested in the benefits of your products or services. And selling is the conversion to buy from you rather than from your competitors. You can’t sell if you can’t attract interesting prospects. In my experience the very best companies think like their customers, they are obsessed with their customers. They think and talk about customers all the time, they call and visit their customers, and they personally responded to customer complaints. They are just obsessed with their customers.
I think the key to success is to make your customers happy, then make them happier than your competitors. You must wake up every single day and think - How can I make my customers happier? The foundation is having a great product or service and just as importantly is the need to provide a great customer experience. Making your customers happy from the beginning to the end is so important and it’s the key to repeat business, customer retention and rapid growth. Every successful company, without exception is obsessed with taking good care of their customer experience once they get them. What do your customers want? What do your customers need? Contact me via e-mail for a deeper dive into your customer experience strategy.
Turn your wounds into wisdom
The best study of life is how it is, not how we think it should be. I think people will do more to avoid pain than they will ever do to gain pleasure, therefore, salespersons must sell consequences. Buyers will always think about whether you have their best interests in mind, in other words, “Can the buyer trust you?” When most salespersons say something, it tends to be just filtered through their needs and desires when in reality, it should be about the buyers. In my experience most salespersons sell what they love about their products rather than what the buyer would love about their products.
People don’t do things because we tell them to, people do things for reasons. For example, buyers must associate the action of buying with creating tremendous pleasure and the action of not buying with pain. I think that selling is the process of finding the buyers pain, disturbing it, and making them feel the hurt. The salesperson is then responsible for healing the buyer’s pain through different choices, usually through their products or services. Would you like to know how to guide buyers through your sales process? Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.
Don't complain, don't explain
I think that the mind is our individual mental factory and what you read pours a massive amount of ingredients into your mental factory. Subsequently, the quality of your life will be built on those ingredients. Everyday, I stand guard at the door of my mind, and I decide what goes into my mental factory as I have to live with the results. I would advise you to select the right ingredients, keep out the wrong ingredients and acknowledge that it all starts with thought. In my opinion, everything starts with thought, so you must be wise and careful about what you think about.
As a child, I remember the first time I heard the Henry Ford quotation, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” I immediately knew that our lives are affected most by the way we think things are and poor thinking habits will keep most people poor. We need to get upset, we need to get disturbed and this motivates us to do something about it and change our behaviour. It’s only when we feel hurt enough that we will do something about it. Contact me via e-mail and I will awaken you to the pain that already exists and then guide you with solutions for that pain.
The twin forces of human behaviour
Illustration: E. Wikander/Azote
The primary motivating factor behind all human behaviour is the desire to avoid pain and the desire (or need) to gain pleasure. My values are “old school”, as I think selling is the process of motivation after you have discovered the reasons why the buyer should buy your products or services. Those of you who are from my school of thought, believe that people don’t buy needs, they buy wants. And then the big question is, how do you build tremendous wants for your products?
We know that if you can make people want your products or services badly enough, they will find a way to justify their purchase. For example, online shopping for luxury goods has soared, doubling its market share from 12% in 2019 to 23% in 2020. This indicates the profound shift in consumer behaviour as well as the results of people shopping from home due to Covid 19. The key to succeeding in these times will be for brands to meet customers’ expectations in a more seamless manner across all of their channels. Especially as brands contend with store closures, travel disruptions and ongoing threat of future lockdowns. Contact me via e-mail for workshops around improving your online customer support, click and collect initiatives and contactless payment procedures.
Details makes the difference
“The team must trust the leader, the leader must trust the team and team members must trust each other.”
You do have a choice
c/o BBC
New technologies will always encourage different types of thinking, the symbiosis between humans, machines and nature has enabledI us to move forward in new ways. Some things never change, for example, relationships. You get what you pay for and this especially true in relationships, so if you truly want them to be great, then you are going to have to invest in them. I’m a believer in therapy and anything that makes you look at yourself in a constructive way. There are so many levels to life, I think it’s always beneficial to sit in front of someone who is not going to give you the answers you want. It’s also really important to maintain a student mindset and learn from relationships.
No leads = No sales = No income
Sugar coating things and pretending problems will just go away on their own is nice, but it’s not something we do in my network. As entrepreneurs we are used to wearing different hats, for example, sales, marketing, operations and finance, etc. and we use CRM tools to help us mange our sales processes. Your number one goal in sales is to make your customer as successful as possible and as long as your motivation is to help the customers win, you will always win in sales.
I recently watched Susan Cain’s “The Power of Introverts” Ted Talk and was reminded about what a nightmare it must be for a shy person when working with outbound sales. Constantly making excuses to avoid making that call or sending that e-mail. It must be hard to continuously have your sales pipeline full of new opportunities when reaching out to strangers is hard for you. This does not mean that introverts are not good salespersons, as I have found that introverts are better listeners than extroverts. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.
The basics
Curiosity is critically important in sales
We currently live in a world where we can connect to whomever we want whenever we want, therefore, why would we connect to someone who is selfish and boring? We are more likely to connect with people who are interesting and generous. I think selling is about matching a solution to a problem and it’s also about building relationships.
Salespersons are usually trained in behaviours that buyers find no value in, therefore, they are going to have to learn how to change their thought processes before they can change their behaviours. I think sales should be fun and I always try to make it fun, as I am a curious person and approach everything with curiosity. When you approach things with curiosity, you are present, you are learning and you are connecting. You will always learn new things that push you out of your comfort zone. Do you have a sales manager who trusts you to do things your way? Sales training should not always be about compliance to methods and processes. How can I help your team to tap into their natural curiosity and overcome the roadblocks to success? Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.
The mental vs. The physical
I can highly recommend the renowned sports psychologist and culture coach Dr. Pippa Grange’s book, “Fear Less: How to Win at Life Without Losing Yourself”. For over 20 years, Pippa has helped leaders and athletes (including the English football team) reach their true potential. Pippa has found that even the most successful people experience fears of inadequacy, what sets them apart is their ability to pinpoint their fears and “turn down the volume.”
I think that your results are just an outcome, they are not your worth. Contact me via e-mail for real world strategies, sales training and workshops opportunities.
Feedback is a gift
c/o Medium
Last night I had a deep discussion about motivation and I said that there’s no such thing as pure motivation. I think that ordinarily everything we do is in our self-interest. What a statement! Send me an e-mail and let me know what you think.
“Don’t be defined by what you want, be defined by what you give.”
We all have the same basic needs
The six basic human needs provide a practical key for discovering one’s needs, behaviours, values and beliefs. They are the vehicles we use to meet our needs and these needs underlie and inspire every choice we make.
The first four are the needs of the personality and the final two needs are those of the Spirit:
Certainty - Everybody wants avoid pain and have assurance that our basic needs are met.
Uncertainty - We also crave variety, excitement and new stimuli.
Significance - We all need to feel unique, special and important.
Connection - We want to be loved and cared for and want a feeling of closeness with like-minded people.
Growth - We all have a need to grow and expand in our personal and professional lives.
Contribution - We have a desire to serve and support someone or something bigger than ourselves in a meaningful way.
Reducing the environmental impact
c/o Forbes
I was in Woodstock in 2016 and I saw how cafes and bars were using digital receipts, this practices is slowly making its way to Northern Europe. Last week at during Copenhagen Fashion Week, I saw several sustainable packaging companies. I think reducing sizes and volume as well as reusing packaging are simple ways for online brands to start their sustainability journey. Sustainability used to be a differentiation point for a business, nowadays it’s a licence to operate.
Small businesses usually have a less bureaucratic decision-making processes, agility is a plus point and more often than not they are closer to the customer. Being local and having a brand or product story the consumer can identify with at an emotional level is also is advantageous. I think it’s easier for small companies to demonstrate that they are delivering both social and environmental practices by promoting more diversity at every level, especially at senior and board level. Send me an e-mail and let me know what you think.
Business as usual
Today marks the end of Copenhagen Fashion Week and I think that part of being an artist is about bringing more personality into the work we do. Let’s be clear here, I don’t need to know anything about your sexuality or where you live, all I need to know is how you open yourself up and put an emotion on the table. A good example is Apple, they don’t make cheap and replaceable products - Apple comes out with products that welcome personal criticism and when I say personal, I mean I made this and for someone else to say I hate that. Nowadays, we are too focussed on how to avoid criticism and not focussed enough on how I make a difference.
After visiting the trade fairs on Wednesday, I came home out with the feeling that safety was paramount this season. There were many beautiful collections, polished with no edge, it almost felt as though they had been designed by a committee. And the designers were saying, “It’s not my fault”, there’s no vulnerability there, I really missed the collections which said metaphorically, I can stand up against the system and I show vulnerability. This made me think about Brené Brown’s wonderful Ted Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability” which has now been viewed almost 55 million times. I also think that vulnerability means putting something into the world and being willing to let the world respond or react. Do you dare to be different? Contact me via e-mail for a deeper dive into how you can make a difference, but only if you dare.
The discovery phase
Most salespersons start their presentation by stating the features and benefits of their products and services. Perhaps they should think about looking at business from a different perspective. How do you identify the needs and objectives of a potential customer as they progress from knowing nothing about your brand? Why do they need your expertise for promoting their business?
Awareness - You can help the customer discover the source of their problem by supplying short, easy-to-consume pieces of content that will educate and inform them.
Consideration - To understand and meet this need, you will want to provide the customer with content that educates them on different methods of solving their problem and compares different solutions that you and your competitors offer.
Decision - The buyer at this stage knows what they need and why, they will be more likely to listen when you provide expertise and support their decisions. At this stage, they will be able to see that your greatest concern is providing insight on the best fitting solution for their needs.
Understanding the initial needs of the buyer, along with their preferences and tendencies, will have a huge impact on what you market to them and how you make it visible to them. Contact me via e-mail for your sales training and workshops.