The definition of grit is courage and resolve or strength of character. It can also mean an indomitable and irrepressible spirit that doesn’t back down in the face of failure or obstacles. Experts identify five characteristics of grit. If you have them, you’ll be better equipped to handle the challenges life throws at you. How do you stack up?
1. courage: strength in the face of pain, fear or grief
People often underestimate just how courageous and resilient they can be. Every aspect of life requires a little bit of courage. A child needs the courage to face the first day of school, and a student needs the courage to step out into the world after graduation.Similarly, entrepreneurs and business owners need the courage to take risks with their daily activities, to make investments and introduce new products and services. They have to overcome the fear of failure and find it in themselves to stand up if a failed venture knocks them off their feet.
2. conscientiousness: meticulous, detail-oriented and careful
Conscientiousness requires patience and commitment and is a significant characteristic of grit. People who are conscientious try their best to avoid mistakes and never jump hastily into commitments. While courage is the ability to make mistakes and face failure, conscientiousness is the capacity to work hard to avoid failures and errors in the first place.You’ll notice that people who possess true grit don’t shy away from hard work. Conscientious people are also quite principled and won’t take shortcuts if they have to compromise their values and ethics.
3. resilience: confident, committed and optimistic
It’s easy to dismiss resilient individuals as stubborn. They stay on their path and are determined to succeed despite all odds. They’re confident in their ability to make sacrifices, put in the effort and overcome failures to reach their goals.Entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals need to be resilient to survive in a cutthroat business environment. Resilience can help you withstand the pressure of competition and even enjoy the challenges it presents.
4. excellence: being outstanding or extremely good
People with grit will always strive to achieve excellence rather that focus on perfection. While perfection focuses on the result of your efforts, excellence is more concerned with how you get there. Excellence is a forgiving concept and only asks you to give your all to a particular task.If you fail despite your best efforts, you’ll learn from your mistakes and move on. If you succeed, you’ve achieved the best result possible. Think of excellence as progress vs. perfection. It’s better to start and learn with a bad product, then to have never started at all.
5. endurance: staying put in different situations to achieve long-term goals
You won’t succeed in life if you don’t remain on a path you’ve chosen, regardless of how difficult and challenging the road becomes. Most people find it difficult to keep up the hard work and want quick rewards. Long-term goals require time, patience, sacrifices and effort and you need to have the endurance to stay on the path.All of these characteristics of grit will help you succeed in your personal and professional life. If you don’t yet possess these characteristics, life will happen and you will either develop grit or live a life of helplessness. As John Ortberg explained: “Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.”
I recently sat in on a pipeline review with a sales rep, Clare, and her manager. After asking a couple questions about one particular deal, her manager asked how confident Clare was that it’d close.“They were really enthusiastic, so I’m almost certain,” she replied.
But when I checked in a week later, Clare told me that buyer had ended up going with a competitor. She’d gotten happy ears: The common sales trap of being overly optimistic about a deal because you haven’t qualified enough to discover true objections.Happy ears lead to inaccurate sales forecasts and missed quotas, and are usually the result of salespeople failing to ask tough questions and uncover objections. These five strategies will help reps maintain a healthy level of skepticism.
1. ask probing questions
Digging into the buyer’s positive statements helps salespeople identify if there’s a true intent to buy. It’s easy to interpret a statement such as, “It seems like a great fit,” as “We don’t have any reservations.”However, that statement could just as likely mean, “We like what the product does, but the integration process sounds time-consuming and the price is a little higher than we’d like.”The takeaway: If reps take everything buyers say at face value, they’ll miss serious reservations.To surface potential objections, salespeople can ask these probing questions:
“Glad to hear it, [prospect name]. Can you explain what you mean by X?”
“Would you mind going a bit more in-depth about [prospect’s comment]?”
“I think [feature] is great too. But is there anything you’re not as confident about?”
“When it comes to X, do you see any obstacles to successful implementation?”
If prospects don’t have any objections, they’ll simply elaborate on their earlier statement — which will subconsciously reaffirm their own positive opinions while confirming that reps haven’t missed anything.
2. seek out red flags
The prospect might sound ready to sign the proposal right then and there — but unless they actually do, reps should be still keep their eyes peeled for warning signs the deal won’t close.These include:
Lack of authority: When salespeople get happy ears, they often forget to verify that their contact is the actual decision maker.
Lack of consensus: One of the stakeholders might be be eager to buy, yet their enthusiasm won’t matter if their colleagues are skeptical. To get a deal over the finish line, reps must identify everyone involved in the buying decision and show each person why the purchase helps with their individual goals.
Lack of urgency: Salespeople are always worried about the competition, but they should be focusing on the status quo. Doing nothing is always the easier option for prospects, even if inaction is harmful in the long run. Reps need to determine if their prospect is truly motivated to act and why. (Not sure how? Try assigning homework.)
Lack of budget: Sellers can only help buyers find creative solutions to budget problems if they know buyers are having budget problems in the first place. Don’t assume there’s money for your product: Ask how your prospect plans on funding the purchase.
Everything might look good at first glance. However, if these red flags are present, reassess your strategy rather than preemptively celebrating.
3. get an outside opinion
Reps can get a reality check by asking their manager or a team member to review the deal. An outsider can hone in on key details the salesperson might’ve overlooked. For instance, they might ask, “Why are they looking to switch solutions now? With the end of the year coming up, it’s an inconvenient time to replace all of their processes with new ones.”The rep could have forgotten to confirm his prospect’s timeline. Thanks to his coworker’s suggestion, he can explore this crucial detail on their next call.
4. avoid “this one is different” syndrome
Ideal co-founder and COO Shaun Ricci recommends salespeople think twice when they find themselves saying, “This one is different.”Reps may use this line to justify why a deal will close more quickly than normal or a buyer will spend more than the average customer, Ricci explains.“There are exceptions to every rule, but if you find yourself uttering those words when your boss asks why a prospect will buy in two weeks when your average sales cycle is 90 days, that should trigger you to go back and review why you believe this prospect is truly different,” he says.
5. prepare for the worst-case scenario
A positive mindset often transforms a salesperson’s ability to convince her prospects of her product’s value. On the flip side, being too positive blinds the rep to the obstacles in her path.How can salespeople strike the perfect balance between pessimism and optimism? Try New York University psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen’s W.O.O.P. strategy:
W: Think about your Wish.
O: Think about your ideal Outcome.
O: Think about the Obstacles in your way.
P: Plan for those obstacles.
W.O.O.P helps you envision the best possible future while also requiring you to prepare for roadblocks. If you have happy ears, this exercise will help you come back down to earth.Getting happy ears can wreck reps’ chances of closing. These five tactics will help them maintain a balance of confidence and realism.
One-hundred and forty characters. What was your first association with that phrase? I bet you’re thinking: Twitter.
At least that was (and still is) the character limit for the network. However, on September 19, the platform relaxed the rule: Now, photos, videos, GIFs, polls and Quote Tweets no longer count toward the limit.
This new update will make Twitter conversations so much easier, even richer. How many times have you struggled to cut the last two characters needed to fit the limit? Have you ever felt more like a robot and less like a human when tweeting all sorts of awkward sentences full of abbreviations? What about efforts to have meaningful conversations when the tweet you were replying to or quoting was stealing valuable character count?! Well, you’re not alone and Twitter has finally heard you!
While this change is a huge step for the network, it is also a logical one. When Twitter launched a decade ago (yes, it’s hard to believe, but it’s been exactly 10 years already!), it was operating in a much different space from today’s. Nowadays, there is an unmistakable shift toward multimedia content. Images, short videos and GIFs have practically taken over the social space.
Since Twitter was hit with a lot of criticism and showed no potential for-impressive growth, these changes were long overdue. A plausible reason for Twitter losing its appeal is because the space just became too noisy. Partly because of the character limit (and also because of the desire to automate everything), most marketers tweet out the name of an article, sprinkle in a few hashtags, slap on a shortened URL and voilà, the Franken-tweet is ready to be published. How can they expect to get any meaningful engagement from that?
The other instance is to upload an image with tons of text on it, include a call to action in the body of the tweet and slap in the shortened URL once again. That’s a bit better on providing some context, but is still not very human. Plus, not only is it not the prettiest workaround, it has technical implications for businesses.
Not so long ago, Twitter partnered with Google to make sure tweets appeared in search results. But, when you post a screenshot with lots of text on it, the text is not searchable. Meaning: Twitter’s biggest media partner cannot read your updates, and thus cannot count them as relevant to search queries.
Hopefully, the new update will modernise the network and its etiquette, encouraging more meaningful conversations, more colourful visuals and fun, short video snippets. After all, we are so used to these things on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, right?
Despite these plans, @mentions have not been affected by the recent change, but they likely will be soon. The company already announced this. We are really ready for the rule to be lifted from usernames as well, because if you’re trying to engage in a chat with two or three handles at the same time, half of your tweet will be wasted just for @mentions! It is especially important to encourage real conversations instead of spamming one other with links.
Because Twitter has started losing its major space in the social media game, the network really needs to start considering the breadth and the depth of conversations taking place online every second if it wants to stay at the top. This flexibility in character limits is the first step in the right direction. Your message can still stay brief and to the point, but the media you use should enhance that message instead of cutting it short.
Psychological barriers routinely put chains around workplace creativity, stalling both projects and careers. To unlock your innovation, recognise these three most common hurdles and apply the easy fixes.
conformity
If you’re a conformist at work, you say and do what you think others expect you to do and say, aligning your beliefs, attitudes and behaviours with current norms. Honesty is difficult and, subsequently, so is building the trust you need to share your original ideas.
Fixes:
Ask your boss for some independent projects.
Ask questions, especially “Why…?”
Use phrases such as “I think…”, “In my opinion…” and “I would…” to remind yourself to speak with independence.
Spend time with those from other cultures to see what others do and believe.
fear of judgement/looking like a fool
Lower-level workers often fear being judged during the creative process because they don’t want to lose the chance for perks or promotions; upper-level workers don’t want to destroy the reputation they’ve built. If you fear being judged, you probably feel nervous when you have to show your work or are asked for your opinion. You also might think things like “If I do X, they’ll…” or “I don’t want them to…”
Fixes:Tell yourself “They’re on my side.”Make a list of your well-received ideas or products to remind yourself others have judged you positively and that rejection isn’t guaranteed.If you have a negative reaction to others’ work, challenge yourself to identify the root of that reaction. Then come up with something positive about the concept. The less you judge others negatively, the less you’ll expect others to judge you negatively, too.
ready acceptance of the obvious
Obvious solutions usually are easy to come up with, but they tend to be creative wastelands. Acceptance of the obvious likely is a problem for you if don’t come up with multiple options or jump to get to work without questioning what you were told to do.
Fixes:Set aside your initial idea for 24 hours to give yourself time to think of other options and avoid selection based on hot emotional reaction.Practise combining opposites.Take classes, research and read so you’re more aware of alternatives.
the creativity is there — claim it!
Most employees–including you–have creativity inside. They just need to free it. Doing this involves changing habits, which can take time and get you out of your comfort zone. The good news is, anybody can use the strategies outlined here. Recruit your coworkers and even your boss to support you, and encourage them to challenge conformity, fear of judgement and ready acceptance of the obvious, too!
Different social networks have different user bases — even the major ones. For example, 72% of adult internet users are on Facebook, while only 25% are on LinkedIn, according to Pew Research Center. Each of those networks attract users for different reasons, and cater to different user behaviour.Just because a network is hot right now, doesn’t mean you should be using it. The key is to figure out where your personas are engaging on social media and figure out a strategy for connecting with them there. (Don’t have personas yet? Check out our persona templates to get started.)Note: Keep in mind that the personas you’re targeting might differ between departments. For example, your recruiting department may be looking to engage with different folks than your marketing department.
2. will this account fill a need that is different from one of my other accounts?
If you have a social channel for your company already, you likely already have an audience that’s interested in receiving your content and updates. Congrats, that’s hard work.When you start a new account, you are building that audience all over. Don’t do the work for nothing. Unless there is specific content that your audience cannot receive in the original area, or there is a need to serve a new user base, there might not be reason enough to create another account.In other words, don’t create a need for a new segment if it isn’t already there. Creating a new account should be to drive a business need, not to create one from scratch.
3. do i have the time required to build an account
If you are going to have a handle represent your brand it is important for that handle to be meeting the expectations of the customers. Most commonly that means building a sizeable following and consistently posting to the account. Otherwise, the handle can look inconsistent with your other handles — or worse, dormant.That being said, it takes time to build and publish to a new account (multiple hours a week for several weeks). This is a laborious process that requires a big time commitment in order to be successful. Before committing to your new account, take a look at the calendar and see what your team can realistically handle.
4. do i have the time required to monitor the account?
This is the one that surprises most people. When you open up a direct channel of communication, your audience will use it. Being able to monitor an account is imperative for a good brand experience. This expectation of service can be great if you’re looking to start a support account, but trickier if your account has primarily a marketing function.Keep in mind that expectations will be different depending on the network you’re considering. On Twitter, 70% of surveyed users expect a response from brands, and 53% want that response in under an hour. Brands that don’t respond actually hurt their brand reputation. Facebook is also encouraging faster responses by giving brands who respond to 90% of messages within 5 minutes a “very responsive” icon on their pages.While you may have a slightly longer grace period for brand comments (like on Facebook or Instagram), when people are reaching out to you directly on an account, they are doing it because they want a rapid response.Check out this handy guide to learn how to monitor your social media effectively.
5. what is the plan for content planning/creating?
This may be the most time-consuming part of your social strategy, but some (myself included) would say it’s the most important. Content is what will keep your social channel front of mind, and it’s also what will bring in the views, interactions, and leads. Suffice to say, when creating a channel you should have a plan for sustained content creation.When thinking about your new social channel, consider where you will be getting the material and how you’ll be able to sustain this to create multiple posts a week. Remember, this content should also serve a unique function from your existing accounts.
6. how many posts/week am i able to commit to this account?
Posting consistency is key. Once you have a content plan, be sure that you’re able to keep up a consistent posting schedule as well. After all, your accounts aren’t doing much for you if you’re not posting from them. Dormant accounts also can give off the impression that you don’t care, or can’t commit to brand followers.Exactly how often you post is dependent on network and industry, but you should plan to have at least 1-2 Facebook posts a week, and 4-5 on Twitter (if not more). For some of the quieter networks with less links to click (think: Snapchat, Instagram, etc.), you can manage posting a couple of times a month, rather than weekly.Need help figuring out a posting schedule? Check out our templates.
7. do i have budget to help build/scale this account?
Money talks on social media. This is an unfortunate truth we are seeing more and more often. While you don’t really need budget to build out an account, a little spend can go a long way for boosting posts or putting yourself in front of new followers — especially on algorithm-dependent networks such as Facebook.If you choose to put your money behind advertising in social, watch it carefully. Define goals beforehand, and put it into a network that is really worthwhile for you. Each network has a slightly different way of handling paid advertising. For more on how to navigate paid social advertising, check out this free guide or click on any of the respective links below:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Snapchat
(Note: Snapchat ads can be quite expensive. You may want to consider an on-demandgeofilter instead).
8. what is the goal of this account? how will i know if it’s successful?
When you’re launching any initiative it’s important to know what value it will bring you, how you know you should double down on your efforts, or when you may want to cut and run.Whether your success is measured in leads, applicants, or share of voice, knowing your goals can help you prioritize your time and report your wins back to your team more effectively.
9. why is time spent on this social account more valuable than time spent doing other marketing activities?
If you’re feeling good about the questions above, you’ve hopefully determined that creating a new social account will take you a healthy (but totally worthwhile) amount of time. Now you have to ask yourself: Am I best spending my time creating content for this specific channel, or should I consider other marketing tactics (running experiments, optimizing emails, hosting events, etc.)?At the end of the day, it comes down to you and your team. Specifically, to whether or not you can create and sustain a new account to a degree that feels worthwhile to your company. If these questions have you planning a run for the hills, perhaps a new account is not the right fit. At least not right now. On the other hand, if they have you feeling excited about the content you’ll post with this account, or the goals you’ll be trying to hit, sounds like you have some creating to do.
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It’s the end of the month, and you’re just one deal away from hitting your number. You have the contract out … but the prospect hasn’t signed it yet.
With just that one signature, your month is made. Without it, you’re in the red.
In this scenario, the urge to become a high-pressure sales jerk is overwhelming. Believe me, I’ve been there. But if you’re truly committed to serving your buyers, it’s never acceptable to be a jerk. Don’t turn into a jerk just because you are almost at the finish line — after all, this is when your buyer might need your help the most.
Obviously, yelling and making threatening demands is jerk-y behavior. But I find that many reps kill their deal with rudeness at the finish line without even realizing it. All it takes is 10 short words:
“Why haven’t you been able to get this finished yet?”
Translation: “What is wrong with you that you haven’t signed the contract?” That’s what your prospect hears when you ask this passive-aggressive question. Time of death of your deal: The moment this awful phrase is uttered.
This question makes your prospect feel like they aren’t doing a good job getting this done. If you have capably helped your prospect and shown value up until this point and they are ready to buy, don’t screw up your hard work at the last minute because you’ve gotten nervous.
Tell your nerves to calm down. Things will work out the way they will work out, but you being annoying and rudely questioning your prospect’s process is not going to help them or you.
Modern sales reps never, ever pressure their buyer. Sales is about helping the buyer buy on their timeline, not forcing them to fork over the money when it’s convenient for you.
The next time you inevitably find yourself in this situation, take it as an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to helping your prospect. Instead of demanding why the buyer hasn’t gotten the contract back to you, ask open-ended questions to uncover the obstacles they’re facing, and learn how you can best help.
Here are some examples:
How can I help you to get started using our product or service?
What things need to happen from here to get this approved?
What are the next steps you have to take to get approval on this?
Who do you work with internally on this and what kinds of things do you think they would have questions on?
What kinds of content will help you internally in getting this done?
There’s a line between being assertive and aggressive in sales. Don’t ever — for any reason — cross over that boundary. You might think that pushing is the best way to close a deal, but I can guarantee you that the only thing aggression will do is kill a sale — in record time.
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Call me crazy, but I’ve always preferred sleep to caffeine. But with erratic schedules and tight deadlines, getting six or more hours of sleep per night is no easy task for a coach—just ask any diet soda and coffee-addicted friends. I’ve spent a lot of time trying various productivity hacks to squeeze as much as I can out of each day.
My favourite tool for getting things done? The 10-minute timer on my phone.
My “10-minute rule” is pretty straightforward: Every task on your to-do list should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. If it takes longer than 10 minutes, then you should have broken it down into smaller tasks or delegated it to someone else. The key to this rule is in enforcing it, which means setting the timer on your phone to go off at the 10-minute mark. The level of speed and focus that this brings to your day is nothing short of astounding.
Want to give it a try? Here are three tips for making the 10-minute rule work for you.
1. delegate
Delegating is not as easy as it sounds. It can be difficult to let go of a task when you fear that another person’s work won’t be as good as your own. It’s helpful to remember that “done is better than perfect,” and the only way you are going to move ahead in your career is if you let go of the things you’ve mastered and take on new challenges. Another mindset shift that helped me was realizing that delegating creates opportunities for others. Now I actively think about what tasks and projects I can create for my team that will help them learn, grow, and advance their careers (which conveniently helps clear up my plate as well).
One of the challenges I see most with people who have trouble delegating—especially those in entry-level positions—is that they forget that they can and should delegate up. If you feel uncomfortable asking a supervisor or superior to do something, try this: Start by pointing out what you are doing, and position your “ask” as a request for help. For example, instead of, “I need you to call the team leads,” you could say “I’m working on pulling the data for this analysis—would it be possible for you to help me by calling the other team leads?”
2. find the easy, 10-minute task
You may be sceptical at first, but by simply changing how you frame your tasks, you will see that just about everything can be broken down into 10-minute tasks. Do you need to research a new topic? Start with 10 minutes on Google scanning news articles, followed by 10 minutes of jotting down everything you know and the top few questions you still need to answer, and then 10 minutes each calling people to get advice on answering your open questions (bonus points if you were savvy enough to notice that the phone call is a form of delegation!).
Voilà! You have just squeezed a task that may have otherwise lingered on into hours into 30 minutes.
3. use that timer
Using your timer is a critical part of the rule, so don’t forget it. As everyone in the business world knows, “we do what we measure.”
This is true of the 10-minute rule as well—you must use a timer or clock to keep track of how long you are spending on things. Smartphones make this easier with their built-in timer apps, but any clock with a minute hand will do. Whatever you do, don’t guess—because if your approximately 10 minutes always becomes 20, you’re not maximizing your productivity.
Sometimes, you’ll spend less than 10 minutes on a task (more time back—yay!), and sometimes that alarm will ring and you’ll still be on the phone (no, I’m not suggesting that you just hang up when the alarm goes off). Don’t feel badly about running over—just make note of it for next time.
For example, if one co-worker tends to ramble, preface your next conversation by telling her you have 10 minutes to brainstorm. What if you really need more time? That’s fine too: Tracking your time spent will provide insight into how you work, so you can plan your day better next time.
the 10-minute rule in action
One of my favourite examples of this rule in action occurred a few years ago when a team I was working on received the dreaded 4 PM phone call from a client redirecting the work that we would be presenting the following morning. Ugh, so much for a relaxing evening!
There were two big pieces of work involved, so we split our team of four in half. Each of our two sub-teams had about the same number of PowerPoint slides to revamp, with similar amounts of analysis, so it should have taken us about the same amount of time to complete.
I said to my team-mate that I really wanted to finish by 6 PM so we could go get dinner, and he agreed but was doubtful about our ability to get it done. So, we tallied up the pages, divided by the two hours left in the day, and found that if we could achieve a rate of 10 minutes per page, we would have enough time to complete it—plus a buffer for anything that proved to be particularly tricky. Re energized, we split up the pages, set the timer, and started cranking. To make a game out of it, we kept a tally on the whiteboard of how many pages each of us completed under or over the 10-minute mark.
By 6 PM, we were finished—and feeling really good about it. The other team who didn’t use the 10-minute rule? They finished around 9.
The challenge is on. For your next task today, get out your timer and try it for yourself. The clock is ticking!
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You know the feeling when you search for something on the internet, then click on a “related article” or other link … and before you know it, you’ve charted the entire Russian Revolution?
Yeah … I’ll be the first to admit it: I do this a lot. It’s a dangerous side effect of having a job that requires internet research. It’s one thing to mindlessly browse the web outside of work or when you’re on a break. (In fact, I have a great list of the best sites for wasting time on the internet for times like those.) But it’s another entirely when you’re supposed to be doing actual work.
You might feel like getting lost in the black hole is inevitable, but there are tools out there that can help you prevent it from happening. For example, StayFocusd is a Google Chrome extension that breaks the black hole browsing cycle by blocking distracting websites after a set amount of time. You have a set amount of time to browse a certain website per day, and after that time expires, you’ll get this message in your browser:
8. working through your lunch break
Eating at your desk doesn’t just make you antisocial. According to NPR, it’s also “bad for thinking, bad for creativity, bad for productivity, [and] bad for your body.” Sadly, though,only one in five people actually leave their desks or the office for a lunch break.
To be fair, if you’re among those people who take lunch at your desk instead of taking a break, it may not be your fault. Perhaps it’s not built into your office culture, or maybe you have a deadline that’s pressuring you to squeeze every waking moment out of your day.
But research shows taking the midday break can be mentally rejuvenating — and, in many ways, more productive than plugging away at your desk between mouthfuls. The best way to take a lunch break is to remove yourself from your desk or workspace and eat somewhere else — like a cafeteria, restaurant, or public park. Better yet, build your network at work by eating with a colleague. (Here are some more ideas for what to do during your lunch break. My favorite is probably “build a helicopter obstacle course.”)
9. not listening. (like, really listening.)
One of the sad consequences of being constantly distracted is the epidemic of only halfpaying attention — and thinking that’s OK. You might think that any time someone else is talking and you’re not, that means you’re listening.
That, or you’re reading that email that just came in. Or checking to see why your phone buzzed. When you’re in a meeting, how much can you really be paying attention when your laptop is open?
Not only can not listening carefully cost you relationships, it can also cost you in the time it takes to make up for whatever information you missed. Becoming an active listener is a critical part of becoming more emotionally intelligent. This mean really, truly paying attention to what people are saying — and it’s a skill that’ll set you apart in both your professional and personal life.
10. saying “yes” to every meeting
Being “in the zone” is when you lose yourself in whatever you’re doing — so much so that you lose track of time. It’s one of the keys to both happiness and productivity at work.
… And nothing disrupts that flow like a meeting. Especially an unnecessary one. It turns out that the average person wastes 31 hours in meetings per month. These unnecessary meetings are ones where you or the organizer isn’t prepared, you didn’t really need to be there, and so on.
Want to get those 31 hours back? Here are a few suggestions:
Be sure you’re only attending meetings you actually need to attend. If you don’t see yourself actively contributing to the group, politely let the meeting requester know that you won’t be able to attend.
If you’re the one calling the meeting, send invitees a note, description, or some sort of heads up along with your calendar invitations. This’ll give them an idea of why they were invited or need to be there. Try an app like Do or Solid to help keep your meetings organized and actionable.
Schedule meetings in bulk if you can. This is a strategic way to ensure the time youdo have outside of meetings is spent as productively as possible, since it takes peoplean average of 25 minutes to refocus after switching tasks.
Speaking of which …
11. multitasking
Multitasking can seem inevitable in our modern, ever-connected lifestyles. But research shows it can make us less effective, increase mistakes and stress, and costs the global economy.
Think you’re an exception? Consider this: Only2% of the population is capable of effectively multitasking. For the other 98%, all it does is cause us to be 40% less productive and make 50% more mistakes than non-multitaskers.
Remember that bad habit of not listening? People do that a lot during meetings when they try to multitask — whether it’s reading and responding to emails and messages, scrolling through their Twitter feeds, or something else. In fact, 92% of professionals admit to multitasking during meetings, and 41% admitted to doing it often or all the time.
Getting out of the habit of multitasking is difficult, but certainly doable. Removing notifications from your work computer (see #5) and putting away your cell phone (see #6) are two great ways to start. Other ideas include establishing a no-laptop rule for meetings, using the Pomodoro Technique (where you work in sprints in a way that complements the body’s natural ultradian rhythm), and planning your day in blocks that include built-in breaks.
12. playing with your phone before bed
Have you ever lay in bed with the lights off and spent a few minutes scrolling through your phone to respond to last-minute texts and emails, check your Twitter feed, or scroll through Instagram? Now, raise your hand if those few minutes have ever turned into half an hour, forty-five minutes, or even an hour.
Imagine how much more sleep you could’ve gotten that night if you’d simply gone to bed when you first turned the lights off.
But it’s not just about the amount of sleep — it’s also about quality of sleep. Studies have shown that people who gaze at a backlit screen right before bed actually report having lower-quality sleep — even when they get just as much sleep as someone who didn’t look at their electronics before bed. This is because presence and absence of light tell our brains whether or not they should release the sleep hormone melatonin that makes you tired. Because the LED lighting emitted by the screens on our electronic devices is so similar to daylight, it can trick our brains into thinking it’s daytime, causing us to stay awake for longer.
The best way to break this habit? Buy an alarm clock that’s not your phone, and charge your phone in a separate room so you avoid the temptation of checking it altogether. If you’re worried about missing an emergency call, then try sending those last-minute texts 30-60 minutes before you hit the hay. It’ll mean you get more sleep and higher quality sleep, leading you to operate at peak productivity the following day.
Are you ready to grow your business? Even if you have clear-cut objectives, use your answers to these 10 questions to help you fine-tune your efforts and grow your business successfully.By now, you’ve set a working direction for the year, established clear-cut objectives. Your first-iteration plan to reach them should be in place. This now seems like an ideal time to rethink the whole thing, doesn’t it? After all, one of the effects of internet time is that plans are subject to change just as soon as – or perhaps even before – they are written.
Along these lines of thinking, perhaps there are some items you missed. Maybe there are issues you didn’t have time to consider, or even things your mind touched on, but quickly passed over to deal with more urgent and pressing events. If you are off-cycle, and on the verge of a new period, you can use this exercise ex ante, rather than ex post. To help you stimulate your neural pathways and hopefully create an idea or two, I offer the following thoughts for your consideration. These “considerations” are not sequenced in order of importance. I think they are all important.
1. how far in the distance is your planning horizon?
Most companies today plan 12-24 months out, calling anything beyond that “vision.” Internet time implies a shortened time frame for activities, but does that time-collapse extend to a shortened vision as well? How much have you thought about what you will accomplish this decade? What will be your company’s impact on the millennium? (OK – perhaps millennium is too far out. What about the century?) You may say you have more pressing fish to fry. Your investors would like to see increased returns sooner than that. While this might be true enough, taking the long view can inform the short view, leading to greater returns for years to come. What do you see when you take the long view?
2. how are your prospects’ needs going to change?
How is their world affected by the dramatic increases in connectivity and the compression of time? What are you doing to understand their changing environment – their changing business issues? What are you doing to improve your customer’s business under these slippery conditions? To take it one step further, what do your customers’ customers want? While you are at it, you might stop to consider how your suppliers’ needs are changing? Could those changes open up new opportunities for you, or darkly portend changes downstream totally derailing your business model? What about your distributors? Is their world shifting? Can you both benefit?
3. who in your organization simply isn’t contributing?
As they say, your mileage may vary from individual to individual but everyone has the responsibility to go some distance, to make something valuable happen. Not everyone will make good on that implied promise. The often observed 80-20 rule applies to your staff as well: 20% of your people will produce 80% of the value.
That leaves 80% producing only 20%. Do the math: the bottom 10% of your organization produces almost nothing.
Who isn’t making the cut? Should you be doing something about it? You may think it beneficent to provide that bottom percent with a paying job – don’t. It isn’t. The non-performers know who they are, but they won’t cut the cord on their own. Do what you can to help them reach the bar, but if after a while they don’t make it, set them free to find an environment in which they can succeed. Free up your own resources for people who make a difference.
4. are you creating solutions to today’s problems?
What about next week’s, next year’s, or the problems of several years from now? How are you figuring out what those problems are going to be, way out there on the time horizon? Because the solution you sell today should certainly address today’s problems, but the solutions on today’s drawing board better not. Who in your organization is responsible for trend-tracking and forecasting?
Are you building scenarios for the future? What about prospect focus groups, or some other market-based feedback mechanism? Who is your resident futurist?
5. what do you believe about the business you are in?
For most people this is a strange question – we rarely spend time thinking about our own beliefs. The collection of beliefs you hold about your business – what the Germans call Weltanschauung – is decisive in most of the choices you make. How much risk to take. What’s risky and what isn’t. What projects and initiatives to undertake. What kind of resources you need and whom to hire.
Whom to partner with, or should you have partners at all?
Cooperate or compete. How to treat your team. What your customers should expect from you. How hard do you expect people to work?
All these decisions stem from your beliefs, and it will help you to make them explicit. Once you surface those beliefs, you can start to distinguish which are useful beliefs and which are not.
What is the benefit of a particular belief? Is this belief relevant to your current world, or is it a holdover from some past part of life? Then, when you are ready, you can experiment with new beliefs.
6. what are the obstacles to proceeding along your current path?
Yes – you’ve set a plan in motion, and you are taking steps toward its achievement. But what roadblocks may rise up to stop you? What things could get in your way – foreseen and unforeseen? (I know, if it’s unforeseen how are you going to see it? Use your imagination, that’s the point of this exercise.)
Rank these obstacles in terms of likelihood, then rank them in terms of severity. Consider how you might deal with them if they come up. The value of this is a) like the Boy Scouts, you are better prepared; b) you may illuminate issues you have been trying to sweep under the rug; and c) you just may invent a whole new approach to get where you are going, and it just might be better than what you are doing now.
7. what, if you only knew how, would you be doing?
What would you do now if you had additional resources – and should the lack of resources be stopping you? What, if you were sure it would be successful, would you jump on right away? What would you begin immediately, if your resources were limitless? (Yes, limitless can be relative.) What are you betting the future of your company on? What would you be willing to bet the future of your company on?
8. what are the most important issues, right now?
Make separate lists for issues in your market and issues in your company.
Which of these issues are you dealing with, which ones are on the backburner, and which ones aren’t even in the kitchen? What are the processes you use to deal with these issues? Which issues are you ignoring, or hoping will go away?
What breakthroughs might be possible by addressing or resolving issues in the latter category? Where are you “resolving” issues by compromising? What possibilities are available by refusing to compromise, or by breaking your compromises? What old stories or old ways of looking at things make these compromises seem inevitable? Where could new technologies (either material, virtual, or societal) be applied to break these compromises?
9. what are you sacrificing to accomplish your current objectives?
The definition of sacrifice is giving up something of value for something of even greater value. Did you intend to give up that thing of value, or is it a thoughtless byproduct of your other choices? Do not dismiss this lightly.
In your business there are a number of priority-conflicting critical success factors. These include profitability, product development, new sales, customer satisfaction, recruiting and retention, revenue growth, sufficient capital – which one gets the most attention? And in this operating cycle – will each area get the attention it needs? Even in a lower position of priority, these areas cannot be neglected. What isn’t getting done that needs to be done and how are you going to do it?
10. what is the purpose of your organization?
I don’t just mean increasing shareholder wealth that simply won’t inspire your people to greatness. What besides that – a given – is the purpose of your company. Purpose is not something you invent, it is there already – you have to uncover it. Why do you come to work each day? What do you hope to accomplish in the long run?
What about your executive team? Your individual employees – why do they come? What do they think they are doing each day? Do you know? Have you bothered to find out? You’ve just completed a planning cycle, and I’m asking what your purpose is! If you can’t answer this question easily, now would be a great time to start.
Bonus question for consideration: Are there any questions I’ve listed above that you do not have easy answers to, but wish you did?
Getting new customers for your business is hard work, but it’s necessary if you want to be successful. Here are 10 ways you can get the attention of new prospects and turn them into loyal customers.
Your business needs a steady influx of new prospects in order to be successful. Whether you’re in sales and looking for new customers or you’re a freelancer looking for new clients, you need to know how to attract prospects to your business. While the rise of the Internet over the last couple of decades has forever changed the way that business is done, the top professionals know that getting new prospects and retaining clients requires a mix of old and new techniques. If you’re looking for a leg up as you prospect for new customers, here are ten helpful tips to get you started.
make use of social media
The first step to acquiring new prospects is to use social media to your advantage. Creating Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts for your business is free and can exponentially increase the exposure of your company. More importantly, since these platforms have become ubiquitous, prospective clients may be turned off if your business doesn’t have a social media presence.
keep content fresh
Consistently updating your website and social media accounts with new content is a great way to stay relevant and show prospects that you’re actively engaged with your industry. Find articles, infographics or studies that are related to your business and post links on your social media accounts. Additionally, it can be helpful to maintain a weekly blog to showcase your own opinions and personality.
use testimonials
One of the best ways to attract new prospects is to show off your existing ones. If you know that you’ve provided a customer with a particularly positive experience, ask them for a testimonial. These testimonials don’t have to be elaborate or embellished. Simply providing proof that you can deliver on your promises will help to give faith to prospective customers.
network
Making use of the Internet can go a long way towards attracting new prospects, but personal connects are the lifeblood of business. Whenever possible, engage with prospects and clients face-to-face in order to give them a personalized experience. By making an effort to get to know everyone you work with individually, you can create a stronger bond, increasing the likelihood that they decide to do business with you.
expect resistance
It’s human nature to follow a set routine. As you prospect for new clients, don’t be surprised if you encounter resistance from people who feel set in their ways. If you sense that a prospective client is hesitant about doing business with you, listen to his or her concerns and do your best to address each of them accordingly.
get referrals from existing customers
One of the easiest techniques for finding new prospects is to make use of your existing customer pool. Talk to your clients and see if they know of anyone who could also benefit from your services or expertise. Remember that word of mouth can be incredibly powerful, and by having an existing client refer you to a prospect, you can greatly increase the likelihood that you land the new customer.
