The Power of Specificity

Ambiguity ruins a relationship.

Anywhere there is a lack of clarity or a lack of specificity in a business relationship it impacts on trust and diminishes the perceived value of the offering.

In negotiation ambiguity works in the favour of the person who is doing the buying - not the seller. One can find oneself committing to discounts and extra offerings after the deal is done because the terms of agreement were not clear.

Yet ambiguity can be banished with a simple word. When asking questions - Rudyard Kipling's '6 Honest Serving Men' (how, what, where, why, when and who) come to mind - we need only to add one small word to change the quality of the conversation. That word is 'specifically' .

The word 'specifically' (as in 'how specifically, where specifically, what specifically') removes ambiguity, banishes doubt and clarifies the obligations and expectations quickly.

In setting your objectives for the coming decade - try it on yourself. This can be the word that raises you and your potential and how you impact with clients to a new level.

Compliments of the season and act to make the world as you would wish it in the coming year.

Kung Fu Business

I've been a student of martial arts for many years and there is a case that business and martial arts share many similarities.

Timing, being balanced, your distance (closeness) to and from your customer - the 'invisible strategies' that make martial arts work have some applications with our clients and customers (and no, it doesn't include the use of violence as and when you might feel like it with certain prospects and clients....!)

My youngest son has recently taken up training and his first martial path is the Chinese art of Kung Fu. Bringing him to class every week I get the chance to learn something of this ancient art (as it applies to 6-10 year olds). They have an excellent young instructor who connects very well with the little guys and each week has a message for his young charges. The two that have struck me most where as follows:

1. Kung Fu actually means 'hard work' - to accomplish anything of value takes concentration and effort.

2.'Horse Mind' is a reflective, attentive mind while 'Monkey Mind' is the 'all over the place', distracted mind - knowing which one to use and when is important.

Effective use of 'Kung Fu' and 'Horse Mind' together with patience and persistence, is what's needed to help us through the challenges we face in business today and emerge victorious from the commercial battlefield.

It is our focus, our intention and our expectations that drive our outcomes. What we hold within our minds is the pattern that we project onto the world.

Creating Focus

Creating Clarity or Focus

© Seán Weafer 2008 all rights reserved

In this blog I cover the second of those C's which is CLARITY. Another way of defining clarity is Focus or that which we pay close attention to.

It's interesting how so many people who come to me for coaching always raise the issue of ‘time management' as a problem for them. When they do I tend to quote my old mentor Dr. Denis Waitley who always said that ‘time management is a fallacy. An hour cannot be made longer than it is nor yesterday called back into today'. Time management is not the problem, he would say, but management of one's focus. When one learns to management one's focus - then time moves to aid you.

When we have taken the time to consider what sort of an environment we are operating in and are likely to operate in for the foreseeable future (see Context) the next step in the game of becoming proactive in business is to define what we are going to do about that and then why that is important to us.

Focus is composed of two things, not just one. It is composed first of the ‘What'; as in what specifically is it that I want to be doing here to make a difference. But there is a second part to that focus which is often overlooked and that is the ‘Why'.

The ‘Why' is the personal reason as to why it is important to accomplish the ‘What'. In coaching, I call it the emotional trigger behind the goal. It is often overlooked or assumed - it should be spelled out every time when defining a goal.

When the ‘what' and the why' are defined and then brought together we now have a very powerful goal and a focus for the future. We are now starting to shape in our minds the kind of ‘context' we want to be working in.

An example of a what and why might be ‘I want to drive sales targets to 110% this quarter so that I can take my kids to Disneyland with my bonus cheque' - the ‘what' benefits the business but the ‘why' benefits the self.

There are other guidelines when setting your focus or goals for the future:

1.     They should be written in the present tense - people often make the mistake of writing their goals with the future tense ‘I will'. This does not take into consideration the motivator behind goals which are the emotions. Emotions are based in the subconscious part of the mind which does not recognise a future tense - only the present tense. So, by writing goals and saying ‘I will' instead of ‘I want' - you have already sabotaged yourself.

2. They should be personal - written with the personal pronoun ‘I' - we have to take ownership of our own futures.

3. They should be particular - so the more specific you make the goal the more likely it is to happen. If you say ‘I want to make more money' then you will but without a specified amount it could be anything. Whereas if you say ‘I want to make an additional £100,000' that's the goal that the mind now sets out to achieve.

4. They should be passionate - in that they should have a powerful ‘Why' attached.

5. They should be positive - as in written with the positive outcome in mind. Words have power and we should ensure that the words we use when crafting the business future should be words that attract success. So choose your words carefully, for whatever you ask for shall be given.

Setting the goal - and defining clearly it's ‘what' and ‘why' components is the first stage of creating success. The next stage is taking ‘Control'.

Managing Your Business Environment

The 6C's of Success - a Road Map to Successful Business in Challenging Times

© Seán Weafer 2008 all rights reserved

As entrepreneurs and sales people, success is something we strive for everyday, so here is a simple model for business success that should help to serve as a ‘road map' in the current challenging times.

I call it the 6C Model and it is comprised of the following: CONTEXT, CLARITY, CONTROL, CONFIDENCE, COMMUNICATION AND COMPETENCE.

CONTEXT: The first part of the model deals with Context or, to be more specific, the environment in which we find ourselves working.

In recent months that environment has changed beyond recognition. Not only have world economies moved officially into recession but the global banking crisis has impacted on what liquidity there might have been in the markets - causing a credit squeeze on businesses looking to ‘gear up' while ‘scaling down' to face the worst of what is yet to come.

All of this we know from the constant bombardment of the media - a key factor of our context or environment. We have come to live in the ‘sound byte' world where sensationalism and instant gratification for news become the rules by which we are delivered information. Yet at what cost?

This form of information can cause many of us to react to our environment by making rash or wrong decisions. We quickly find ourselves working in constant fire-fighting mode, simply holding the line against the rapidly changing world and working at such a pace of change that we find ourselves reacting to the changes rather than being proactive.

Fear can start to take hold. We start to believe what others would have us believe. Nervousness dictates our decisions and eats at our confidence - at the precise time when we need to take very rational decisions in order to stay on top of the situation.

When pressurised we often tend to "Reflex", or simply unconsciously respond to stimuli, when we should "Reflect", or consciously choose the course of action that is most beneficial.

It is at times like these, more than at any other time, that we need to be creating the environment in which we work. We have to take control of our context by determining what we allow to colour our perceptions, who we choose to associate with or listen to, to take the time to review our needs and to define our objectives and our wants.

It is also at times like these when we need to review the other factors that make up our business environment.

The markets we are working in - are they too narrow or too broad, are we developing effective pricing strategies, effective cost reduction strategies, where do we shift our spend, do we decide to ‘hunker down' and ride out the storm or do we develop aggressive sales strategies now that everyone else is retrenching?

What about our staff and our teams? Do we have the right mix of people? Are we carrying people we know we should have let go long before this? What are the hard decisions that we need to be making? Are we investing in the skills that they will need to be productive or cutting back on that as an unnecessary expense?

Our business systems and our office environment - what are we doing here?

One final key area that we need to reflect upon is the future context that we may find ourselves operating in. Are we simply relying on what the media and market pundits are telling us or are we engaged in researching our customers and our markets? Are we asking the people who matter to our business the kinds of questions that allow us to start to build forecasting models and sales funnels as to what business is likely to be there in the next 3-6-9-12 months? Are we taking control of our own destiny?

Being aware of the dynamics of what creates the environment allows us to take control of that environment. A critical part of that taking control is making the time for effective reflection so that we do not simply respond on reflex.

Once the environment has been assessed we now move to the next level which is Clarity which we will look at in next week's blog.