Discover practical advice, inspiration, and insights to help you succeed in business and grow both personally and professionally.
Found 0 posts
You’ve never dreamt of owning your own business, but that doesn’t mean you don’t fantasize about getting ahead and earning that big corner office. There’s a reason those impassioned entrepreneurs seem to be so good at turning their big dreams into realities: they have an entrepreneurial mindset. They’re confident and driven, and they thrive on the challenges that sometimes keep others from even trying. Embracing and maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset can help you do your job better, allowing you to reach your goals faster, whatever they may be. So, no matter where your career is today, think like someone who rules the world, and someday, you just might.
1. Take Action: Entrepreneurs don’t just talk about the things they want; they go after them. Instead of waiting for fortune to turn your way, find ways to influence what you can in order to encourage the results you want. Being a go getter can help you rise through the ranks faster, and it proves that you’re someone who can be trusted to get a job done.
2. Be Resourceful: Don’t let a limited budget stand in your way. Entrepreneurs find ways to make due and produce incredible results with what they have, and they’re clever about negotiating favors and freebees. Developing skills like these are crucial no matter the job, and finding ways to save the boss money is a great way to earn positive attention from those with the power to help you get ahead.
3. Recognize Opportunities: When entrepreneurs see an opening, they pounce on it. This way of thinking will help you choose the projects that can catapult your career by teaming you up with the right influencers or by demonstrating your ability to take the lead. Paying attention to the opportunities around you could also help you identify the perfect moment to ask for a promotion or a raise.
4. Be Fearless: Don’t let potential obstacles or rejection stop you, and don’t let a “no” scare you off. Entrepreneurs take risks and put themselves out there, which gives them an edge when it comes to sales, pitching ideas, and asking for better tools or more resources. Learning to stand your ground at the negotiating table is a skill that is critical to almost any business transaction.
5. Get Comfortable with Change: Fear of change is something that plagues many professionals, and it can prevent them from taking on new responsibilities, trying for a promotion, or applying for a new job. But don’t let fear of the unknown stop you. Instead, think like an entrepreneur, and decide to thrive on change. Accept being out of your comfort zone as a natural part of growth. Being at ease with uncertainty will empower you to say yes when others say no, helping you find the shortest possible route to success.
6. Love a Challenge: Entrepreneurs think adversity is exciting. Instead of choosing the easy road, point at the highest peak in sight and say, “l’ll conquer that one!” Priding yourself on winning in the face of extreme obstacles can be a major advantage whether you’re an intern, a new business owner, or a department head.
7. Know How to Delegate: Stay focused on the important things, and don’t be afraid to relinquish control to allow others to help lighten your load. Entrepreneurs learn that they must share responsibility and accept help when it’s available. Embracing collaboration can assist you in meeting deadlines and preventing burnout to keep you at the top of your game.
8. Be a Lifelong Learner: Entrepreneurs constantly strive to be better, smarter, and more efficient. Learn to maintain a student mentality, and your hunger for information will help you shine at work by keeping you up-to-date on industry knowledge, critical technical skills, and relevant news you can apply to help your employer outwit the competition.
9. Think Big: Entrepreneurs set challenging goals and are constantly striving to improve themselves. Even if you never hope to run your own company, aiming high is a great way to discover how much you can achieve. Thinking about the future can be an excellent way to stay motivated. Push yourself to think about where you might like your career to be in a year, five years, and beyond, and you just might surprise yourself.
10. Trust Your Instincts: Don’t spend a lot of time doubting yourself. Leading entrepreneurs know that negative thinking gets them nowhere. Trust your decisions, and be confident you will figure it out along the way. A great, entrepreneurial attitude will be your secret weapon against self-doubt, and it will help to remind you that you deserve the opportunity to succeed even when others casts doubts on your potential.
Thinking like an entrepreneur keeps you focused on your goals no matter where you are in your career path. It lends purpose to all the hard work you do, allowing you to set aside fear and ego to get the job done. It can help you remember that it will all pay off in the end. Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, and the only person who will determine how successful you can be is you.
Distractions are everywhere! Sometimes it’s hard to believe anyone can get anything accomplished when friends can reach us at any time on our mobile phones, social media notifications nag us to check in, and a 24-hour news cycle means there’s always something new and interesting just one Google search away. But focus, like exercise, eating right, and flossing, is just another habit. It’s a behavior we need to constantly practice and hone, and it IS something we can train our busy brains to do better.
Staying focused at work is something almost everyone struggles with. It’s not an easy thing when everything in our lives seems to be designed to grab our attention. But focus is something you can learn to do better. Start with the tricks above and take it slow. Even if you can only concentrate for five or ten minutes at a time in the beginning, just continue to work at it, and in no time at all, your brain will start to build the defenses it needs to banish distractions for good.
We all want to get ahead, and figuring out what’s keeping your goals out of reach can be tricky. It takes asking a lot of important questions and making sure all the pieces are in place to ensure your success. You’ll want to be sure you’re getting the right training, connecting with the best possible mentors, and working for a company that positions you for growth. But, don’t forget to take a good hard look where it matters most: yourself. Your attitude and the way you approach life, your job, and the people around you can be the critical factor that decides your fate. Luckily, your workplace attitude is the one piece of the puzzle entirely within your control. All it takes is accepting responsibility for the role your attitude plays, along with a willingness to change.
It’s never fun to admit that you might be the source of your own problems, but taking responsibility for your own workplace attitude is an essential step to overcoming those hurdles. Don’t beat yourself up. Instead, take an honest look at yourself and your interactions with others, and make a list of areas you’d like to improve. Write down tangible actions you can take to avoid being viewed as having a bad attitude at work in the future. You may even want to ask your coworkers how they perceive you. While their impressions may be hard to hear, their outside perspective is likely to offer insight into behaviors you weren’t even aware of. Understanding the problem is the first step toward being able to fix it.
Building great teams starts with great leadership. As a manager, your job is about more than just delivering results. Your team members depend on you to help them keep their eyes on the prize. They look to you for support, encouragement, and most of all, for the motivation to deliver more than what is expected of them. Your passion for the work will inspire theirs, and by helping your team stay energized, positive, and driven toward your shared goals, you can position yourself and your team members for unprecedented success.
1. Listen Up: It’s easy to make assumptions about what employees want and who they are, but to truly motivate your employees, you’ll have to start listening. Spend one-on-one time with each team member to learn more about their goals, dreams, and challenges. Take a pause before responding with your own ideas to ensure you’ve fully absorbed what they’ve told you.
2. Ask Questions: Ask team members questions to help figure out what motivates them and what is holding them back. Instead of telling them why they should care, help them discover for themselves what drives them.
3. Create a Positive Work Environment: It’s simple. Happy employees are motivated employees, and unhappy employees find it challenging to stay engaged. Examine the culture at your office, and ask yourself if you were a team member, would you feel supported and excited to come to work? If the answer is no, start brainstorming ways you might be able to change things. If you get stuck, enlist the help of your employees. The simple act of including them in the process may motivate employees to work even harder.
4. Take a Personalized Approach: One size does not fit all when it comes to motivation. Relate to your employees on an individual level and adjust your leadership approaches according to what works best for each of them.
5. Set High Expectations: It’s hard to feel motivated when your supervisor does not seem to believe in you and expects you to fail. Instead of focusing on what the employee is doing wrong, reassure your team member that you know he or she can blow it out of the water.
6. Earn their Trust: Employees need to believe you when you say you have their interests at heart. Managers who expect employees to work hard just because it makes them look good, quickly foster resentment that can infect and demotivate the whole team. Make it clear that you want them to succeed, not for your benefit, but for theirs.
7. Offer to Help: Setting clear expectations is great, but employees also like to know that their managers have their backs. Let employees know you’re there to support them in any way they need.
8. Focus on Growth: Studies have shown that money alone, is not an effective incentive to drive performance. While it may seem counterintuitive, employees are far more motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. To get your employees charged up, talk about their hopes and dreams for the future, recognize their improvements, and rally around your purpose as an organization.
9. Check in Often: Motivation is not something you can set and forget. Let employees know you’re paying attention. Acknowledge progress, praise accomplishments, and help team members look for potential solutions to their challenges.
10. Be a Good Example: Wanting your team to perform is a no brainer, but are you leading by example? You can’t expect your employees to feel motivated if you’re not fully invested too. Give employees something to aspire to by maintaining a positive attitude and by constantly looking for ways to go above and beyond.
Remember that high-performing, motivated teams start with great leaders. Most employees want to do well. They just need good managers who can help them keep their eye on the things that matter. Following these simple steps can help fuel your team members’ drive to succeed.
Working in sales can feel like the career equivalent of boot camp. It puts your mental toughness and endurance to the test, but if you’re brave enough to give it your all, working in sales can transform you from a career weakling to a business powerhouse. Whether you're interested in a sales career or not, taking a job in the sales industry build critical skills that are necessary for success whether you’re a recent graduate, trying for a big promotion, a small business owner, or a top executive.
1. Knocking on Doors…Literally and Figuratively
The scariest part of a job in sales is approaching people you don’t know and asking something of them. What if they slam the door in your face? What if they get mad? What if everyone you talk to says no? But succeeding in business is all about hearing no. You have to learn to deal with rejection if you ever hope to succeed in the real world. Working in sales is the perfect training ground for building that thick skin you need to apply for a job, ask for a promotion, close the deal, or solicit new clients.
2. Becoming a Master of Improvisation
Working in sales teaches you to think on your feet. You never know exactly what the customer might throw at you, and you have to learn how to listen and adapt to their objections and concerns on the fly. Entry level sales experience teaches you to be nimble minded and improves your public speaking skills, so you can help pitch a new idea to a team, respond to a real-time public relations crisis, or scramble for options when project funding falls through.
3. Relating to Others
In order to make the sale, you have to learn how to build rapport and find common ground with people you’ve never met before. The ability to understand where others are coming from and relate to them on their level is handy in almost any work scenario. Customers prefer to do business with people they like and they tend to trust people they relate to. This skill can help you in your job search too as you meet prospective employers and try to impress hiring managers.
4. Asking the Right Questions
Great salesmen know how to find peoples’ hot button issues. Not everyone will tell you what their objection is; sometimes you have to probe a bit and do some investigating to find what’s really holding them back. Being a good detective and understanding how to do research are sales skills that are critical to overcoming roadblocks and achieving success in business.
5. Highlighting Benefits
Whether you’re selling something door to door or selling yourself on a blind date, the fact remains the same, people want products, companies, and people who will make their lives better in some way. Learning how to appeal to people’s needs and wants is a powerful tool that can help any time you need to make a case for something, whether it’s donating to a great cause, investing in your feature film, or offering you the salary of your dreams.
6. Sounding Like an Expert
The best sales people understand that people want to buy from someone who knows what they’re talking about. But as important as it is to thoroughly know your product; it isn’t really what you say that matters, but how you say it. Being confident and sounding like you know what you’re talking about is the secret to building trust and gaining consensus. Work experience in sales is the perfect way to practice sounding like an expert, even when you’re not.
7. Talking Numbers
Negotiating makes a lot of people uncomfortable. We feel like we’re being impolite when we ask people to pay for something, especially when the price is higher than they’d prefer to pay. Working in sales forces you to face that fear, and learning to stand your ground at the negotiating table can help you finally get that big pay bump, large investment, or executive title you’ve wanted.
8. Capturing and Keeping Attention
To be a good sales representative, you have to know how to turn it on when you enter a room. Entertaining your audience and telling a good story is one of the most effective ways to build rapport and get the customer on board with your message. Learning how to engage others can be invaluable for public speaking, networking, or pitching ideas.
9. Earning Trust
People are naturally suspicious of strangers, and they’re especially suspicious of salespeople. That’s what makes earning a customer’s trust such an impressive feat. It’s also a powerful tool. People buy from people they trust. Learning how to convince others to put their faith in you has limitless benefits in business and in life.
10. Setting and Achieving Goals
The life of a sales person is all about setting targets and hitting them. You learn how to dig deep, stay self-motivated, and set challenging, yet achievable goals because achieving them can often mean the difference between having a great week and struggling to pay your rent. And strategizing how to meet them is key to succeeding at almost anything.
Sure, working in sales can be tough, but as anyone who has tried their hand as a sales rep will tell you, it’s also worth it. Sales experience hones indispensable career skills that can help you get ahead and overcome challenges for years to come.
Discover how student mentality breeds success, and personal development, for employees in this article from Cydcor. Lifelong learning helps exceed goals.
When you’re a student, your whole job is to learn. That’s why companies like their employees to maintain a student mentality. And while organizations want to hire expert talent, employees who think of themselves as experts may miss the opportunity to continue growing and improving. By encouraging employees to think of themselves as students, employers foster a culture of ongoing personal development, inspiring employees to seek out valuable lessons in every task they’re given.
Here’s how a student mentality creates better employees:
1. Teaches Them to Listen
Unlike seasoned veterans who may be less open-minded to new ideas and approaches, students are in a constant state of openness. They pay attention to people and experiences, absorbing information and searching for valuable takeaways. Staying on the lookout for new ideas creates a fertile breeding ground for innovation.
2. Keeps Them Humble
There is no employee, no matter how senior, who can’t improve in some way. Adopting a student mentality reminds even executive level employees that they always have more to learn.
3. Keeps Them Focused on Growth
Students have a hunger for information and a drive toward personal development that people often lose as they move ahead in their careers. A student mentality challenges employees to set the bar higher. It pushes them to perform at their best and continue redefining what their best might be.
4. Reminds Them to Study
Encouraging employees to think like students reminds them that it’s important to stay abreast of the latest industry trends and take advantage of resources such as trade journals, white papers, blogs, and events for their own personal development.
5. Forces Them to Question
Being a student means admitting that you don’t know all the answers. Employees who think like students become attuned problem solvers. They’re willing to challenge assumptions, and they learn to probe for new approaches that are better, faster, and more cost effective.
6. Keeps Them Competitive
Students are constantly learning and applying new skills, maintaining a student mentality urges employees to keep their abilities and knowledge finely tuned and up to date with industry trends. This may mean learning new software, attending seminars, or taking online training courses.
7. Makes Them Better Leaders
Students often make the best teachers because they learn how to effectively communicate with others. By asking employees to think like students, employers also provide opportunities for employees to mentor each other, which helps them become even better leaders.
8. Keeps Them Open Minded
As employees advance in their careers, it’s easy for them to become rigid and set in their ways. After all, doing things the old way got them this far. But an environment that values constant learning pushes them to consider new ways of thinking and reminds them to stay flexible and open to change.
Employees who maintain a student mentality don’t assume they already know everything. They understand that useful new ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. By staying open to innovative thinking, and constantly striving to learn more and improve, employees who think of themselves as lifelong students have the kind of forward thinking that helps organizations reach their goals and beyond.
Attending Keys to Success? Enter Cydcor's photo contest for a chance to win $200 cash! Share your best photos using the hashtag #KTS2017 for a chance to win! Read more about the contest's rules and regulations below.
Terms and Conditions (Facebook)
Post a photo on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook using the hashtag #KTS2017 anytime from Wednesday January 25th (4:00PM PST) until Saturday, January 28th (8:50 PM EST) and you will be automatically entered in the Keys to Success photo contest for a chance to win $200 cash awarded on site. To be eligible, entrants must be (i) at least 18 years of age and (ii) a member or affiliate of a Cydcor independent corporate licensee attending the event (Cydcor employees not eligible). Multiple submissions per participant are allowed. Profanity or inappropriate language or images, as determined by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, will be disqualified. There will be one winner selected by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, and announced via Cydcor’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/CydcorLLC?ref=hl) as well as on Cydcor’s Instagram (@Cydcor), and on Cydcor’s Twitter (@Cydcor) Saturday, January 28th any time after 9:00PM EST and no later than 11:59 PM EST. This promotional offer is not intended to create a partnership, joint venture, co-ownership or other association between Cydcor and the participant.
This promotion does not have a connection with Facebook in any way and is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. By entering the contest, participants agree to fully release Facebook from any and all liability.
Terms and Conditions (Instagram)
Post a photo on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook using the hashtag #KTS2017 anytime from Wednesday January 25th (4:00PM PST) until Saturday, January 28th (8:50 PM EST) and you will be automatically entered in the Keys to Success photo contest for a chance to win $200 cash awarded on site. To be eligible, entrants must be (i) at least 18 years of age and (ii) a member or affiliate of a Cydcor independent corporate licensee attending the event (Cydcor employees not eligible). Multiple submissions per participant are allowed. Profanity or inappropriate language or images, as determined by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, will be disqualified. There will be one winner selected by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, and announced via Cydcor’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/CydcorLLC?ref=hl) as well as on Cydcor’s Instagram (@Cydcor), and on Cydcor’s Twitter (@Cydcor)on Saturday, January 28th any time after 9:00PM EST and no later than 11:59 PM EST. This promotional offer is not intended to create a partnership, joint venture, co-ownership or other association between Cydcor and the participant.
This promotion does not have a connection with Instagram, Inc. in any way and is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram. By entering the contest, participants agree to fully release Instagram from any and all liability, and agree to Instagram’s terms of use.
Terms and Conditions (Twitter)
Post a photo on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook using the hashtag #KTS2017 anytime from Wednesday January 25th (4:00PM PST) until Saturday, January 28th (8:50 PM EST) and you will be automatically entered in the Keys to Success photo contest for a chance to win $200 cash awarded on site. To be eligible, entrants must be (i) at least 18 years of age and (ii) a member or affiliate of a Cydcor independent corporate licensee attending the event (Cydcor employees not eligible). Participant may not create multiple accounts to enter the contest – the creation of multiple accounts will make participant liable to have all accounts suspended by Twitter. Any participant found creating multiple accounts to enter the contest will also be disqualified. Multiple submissions per participant are allowed; provided, however, that the participant posts a different tweet each time. Participants may not post the same tweet repeatedly (no duplicate tweets). Posting duplicate tweets is a violation of Twitter Rules and jeopardizes search quality. Profanity or inappropriate language or images, as determined by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, will be disqualified. The winner will be selected by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, and announced via Cydcor’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/CydcorLLC?ref=hl) as well as on Cydcor’s Instagram (@Cydcor), and on Cydcor’s Twitter (@Cydcor) on Saturday, January 28th any time after 9:00PM EST and no later than 11:59 PM EST. This promotional offer is not intended to create a partnership, joint venture, co-ownership or other association between Cydcor and the participant.
This promotion does not have a connection with Twitter in any way and is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter. By entering the contest, participants agree to fully release Twitter from any and all liability, and agree to read and abide by Twitter’s Rules.
Cydcor’s annual ‘Keys to Success’ event is almost here for 2017! Every year, Cydcor and its network of sales offices and leaders come together to build on their excellent business skills, jump-start the year with new relationships and ideas, and recognize top performers.
To spark up our excitement, Cydcor is pleased to announce a special contest for the Keys to Success attendees on the Cydcor Facebook page. You can win a Front of the Line Pass. Yes! You can go right to the front and skip the line at registration, and the best part is that we have 5 passes for five winners!
To enter, all you have to do is head over to Cydcor’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/CydcorLLC) and share your best and original “Keys to Success” tip.
To win, you must be a Keys to Success 2017 registered attendee (Cydcor employees are not eligible). Multiple comments per entrant will be allowed. The contest begins at 4:00 PM PST on Friday, January 20, 2017 and runs through Tuesday, January 24, 2017. The winners will be picked by Cydcor, and announced on Cydcor’s Facebook page on Wednesday, January 25, 2017.
Terms and Conditions (Facebook)
Valid entries are comments that caption the related post on Cydcor’s Facebook page. To be eligible, entrants must be (i) at least 18 years of age and (ii) a registered attendee of Cydcor’s Keys to Success event (Cydcor employees are not eligible). Multiple comments per participant are allowed. Profanity or inappropriate language, as determined by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, will be disqualified. Five front of the line passes will be awarded. Contest begins at 4:00 PM, PST on Friday, January 20, 2017 and ends at 11:59 PM, PST on Tuesday, January 24, 2017. The five winners will be selected by Cydcor, in its sole discretion, and announced via Cydcor’s Facebook page on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 no later than 6:00pm PST. This promotional offer is not intended to create a partnership, joint venture, co-ownership or other association between Cydcor and the participant.
This promotion does not have a connection with Facebook in any way and is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. By entering the contest, participants agree to fully release Facebook from any and all liability.
About The Coaching Habit: say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
Coaching is an important skill for leaders, but often, managers are too busy or overworked to coach their direct reports well. However, author Michael Bungay Stanier argues that coaching can be done in increments of 10 minutes or fewer.
Drawing on years of experience on training managers through his consulting company, Box of Crayons, Bungay Stanier argues that coaching can be a regular, informal part of every day by asking seven essential questions:
Why Cydcor Recommends This Book
In 242 easy-to-read pages packed with anecdotes and explanations of the seven essential questions, Bungay Steiner offers a fresh and innovative take on the classic how-to manual. He combines insider information with research based in behavior and neuroscience to provide a new way to coach mentees. The book contains question-and-answer sections that will help readers identify old habits and start new behaviors.
The seven essential questions are also a great tool for sales professionals. They’ll help them get past the five basic objections to a product: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. By using the seven questions to uncover what is actually important to a customer, it’s much easier to get to a “yes.”
Our Favorite Part
Each of the seven essential questions has its own chapter. The graphic design, including bulleted lists, pullout quotations, and other visual aids, helps readers to understand the highlights of each question. The book even has spaces and lines for readers to write about their thoughts and the actions they can take to develop the habits Bungay Stanier recommends. At the end of each of the seven chapters is a “Masterclass” section that helps to solidify the points the author made, allowing readers to strengthen their new habits.
Check out this book and tell us what you think. Share with us on Twitter and follow us @Cydcor.
We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.
Sales can be an extremely rewarding and lucrative profession. In order to reach that stage in your career, think about the things the best sales professionals do and emulate them in your daily work. Here are some things they do every day to be masters of their careers.
They create goals and persist until they reach them
When the best sales professionals set a goal, they commit 100 percent to achieving that goal. Then, they don’t stop until they do what they set out to do. Obstacles are normal, so they expect them and work hard to push through until they achieve success.
They do the hard stuff first
It’s easy to do the least effort-intensive tasks first, thinking that will leave you plenty of time to focus on the harder tasks later. But instead, you might find yourself without enough hours in the day to accomplish a difficult task that really needs to be done. Instead, the best sales professionals do the hardest, highest-priority task first and reward themselves for accomplishing that by doing smaller and less intense tasks afterwards.
They only check their email a few times a day
It’s easy to get used to responding to every beep or vibration from your phone, but the most successful sales professionals keep their phones in their pocket and focus on making sales. They set aside some time during lunch, or at the beginning and end of the day, to go through their emails and respond to those that need their attention.
They study their craft
You might think of sales as a profession that doesn’t require a lot of education to do well. The truth is that the best sales professionals continually learn. They do this by talking with teammates to learn about successful sales techniques, or by reading books to learn the art of persuasive speaking and making effective sales pitches.
They learn from their mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, but the best sales professionals learn from them. It’s natural to want to hide your errors to prevent being judged by others or even to drown in negative self-talk after making a mistake. Instead, take some time to think about the mistake and see what you can do better in the future.
They take care of themselves
The best sales professionals establish a healthy morning routine. They get enough exercise and sleep, make time to spend with their family and friends, and don’t skip meals. They also “unplug” at night so they can wake up refreshed and ready to hit the streets.
They don’t use to-do lists
This may be surprising and even counterintuitive. However, according to Entrepreneur magazine, only 41 percent of items on to-do lists ever get done. Why? Again, it comes down to the fact that people tend to do the easy tasks before the difficult ones. The best sales professionals schedule their “to-dos” on their calendar because it holds them accountable to complete tasks at a specific time.
What do you do every day to be an excellent sales professional? Share your tips in the comments or tweet @Cydcor with your stories.
We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services located in Agoura Hills, CA. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.
In this age of technology, we’re constantly surrounded by information about what we should do and when we should do it. There are so many conflicting opinions and things to consider about every decision we could make that it’s easy to get sucked into “analysis paralysis” and never make a decision at all. But sometimes, trusting your gut may be the way to go.
So how can you develop your decisiveness and get better results? Here are some tips from the experts.
Use your emotional intelligence. When presented with a high-stakes decision that needs to be made quickly, it’s easy to respond with emotions such as fear, overwhelm and anger. These emotions can cloud your ability to make a good decision, so make a point of reining in your emotions to allow yourself to do more clear-headed thinking. Instead of denying the emotion, which will only make it stronger, acknowledge the emotion and allow it to move through you until you reach a state of calm.
Manage uncertainty. Don’t waste time with dozens of choices, because that will lead to the infamous “analysis paralysis” mentioned earlier. Instead, use your intuition to narrow the number of choices down to two or three, and then study those in more depth. By trusting your intuition, you’ll be more satisfied with your decision in the long run.
Listen to your team members. Their thoughts can help you consider the consequences of various choices. It also makes them part of the process so they too will be more satisfied with your decision.
Act quickly. Business moves fast, so your decisions need to be made quickly, too. ”When decisions need to be made, effective managers gather the facts, analyze the situation, consider alternatives, and decide on the best course of action—and they do it quickly!” say Denny Strigl and Frank Swiatek, authors of Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?: Hard-Hitting Lessons on How to Get Real Results. “They don’t procrastinate, and they certainly don’t stand around wringing their hands.”
Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Much indecisiveness is caused by the fear of making a mistake. However, the ability to make important decisions quickly is the key to achieving success. “Business is a contact sport, and you can’t be afraid to make a mistake,” says John Wittaker, marketing director of information management solutions at Dell Software. “You can always course correct if you need to, but you can’t make up for failing to take action when action is needed.”
It can be difficult to make tough decisions whenever they arise, but it’s worth it in the end. Decisiveness is a needed trait for every aspiring leader, and by doing so, you set an example for your team to follow.
How has decisiveness helped you achieve better results? Please share your thoughts in the comments or tweet @Cydcor with your stories.
We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services located in Agoura Hills, CA. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.