Words of Wisdom

Words of wisdom for this week

“Men learn while they teach.”
~ Seneca

One of the biggest weaknesses of poor managers is their inability or unwillingness to delegate tasks, responsibilities or outcomes to employees or other departments. In order to be an effective manager, you need to know what you can delegate, when you can delegate it and whom you can delegate it to. The role of a manager is not to do everything but to get other people to take on some of the tasks that free them up to spend time on some of the critical responsibilities like planning and coaching that often are left undone because managers have too much on their plates. They might have less on their plates if they would give some of this stuff to qualified and motivated employees.

There are some exceptions to this, such as personal producing managers and self-employed business owners who have a small or no staff at all. Even these people can delegate some things to someone else. You can use subcontractors, cottage help or temporary employees.

Here are a few of the keys to effective delegation.

First, why don’t managers delegate more? Here are just a few of the reasons.

1. By the time they show someone else how to do it they feel they could have done it themselves.
2. They don’t trust their employees.
3. They feel like they will lose control if they give up some of their tasks or responsibilities…
4. Doing all of this stuff helps them justify their job.
5. They use the lack of delegation as a manipulative tool.
6. They are afraid their subordinates might show them up.
7. They are insecure in their position.

Here are a few simple rules to follow when it comes to effective delegation.

1. Delegate it – if someone else can do it, wants to do it, needs to do it or likes to do it or can grow in their position with this new role or responsibility.
2. When you delegate responsibility, also delegate the authority to use the resources to get it done.
3. Delegate results, not necessarily the methods.
4. When you delegate something, don’t take it back.
5. Ensure the person understands what and why you have delegated to them.
6. Set benchmarks or checkpoints and then leave them alone.
7. Reinforce positive results and give feedback on negative results.
8. Communicate clear instructions, expectations and guidelines in advance.
9. Recognize and accept it won’t be done the way you would do it.
10. Use delegation as an employee development tool.
11. Resist the tendency to over inspect.
12. Put your expectations in writing, if necessary.
13. Ask for regular written or verbal reports.
14. Remember what you delegated and to whom.
15. See failure not as a negative, but necessary if people are to be willing to stretch, learn and grow.

One of the biggest frustrations of many managers is the lack of time to perform all of the work required of them in their role as a manager. Think of delegation as nothing more than giving yourself the opportunity to spend more time in the vital areas of your job such as: planning, organizing, inspecting, innovating, coaching and developing people.

Why not take a serious look at how you are spending your time and what tasks you are involved in that could be delegated to someone else. Track your use of time for a week, logging all of the repetitive activities, problem solving routines, crisis management issues and routine stuff. Ask yourself at the end of the week: Could someone else (or some other department) have done this? What did I not complete because of these actions?

I personally guarantee that you can free up at least an hour a day if you will find creative ways to delegate something – anything.

Quote for the week
“All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.”
~ Juvenal

Tim-bit for the week
The sting of failure sooner or later touches everyone regardless of their background, financial status, age or gender. The fear of failure is a common attitude that almost everyone brings to life and all its uncertainty as the years unfold. No one is immune to the consequences of plans gone wrong, dreams left behind, goals unfulfilled, hopes dashed or desires left unfulfilled.

Sound negative? Well most people see failure as a negative life experience to avoid but I ask you to see failure in a different light, as an opportunity to grow and learn.

Reading assignment
What Happy People Know, Baker

Weekly question
How do you define failure?

Copyright: 8/2010 – Tim Connor, CSP

October 4th. from 9AM to 4PM – Charlotte, NC

A Personal and Career Development Learning Experience – With Tim Connor

Best Selling Author and Globally Renowned Speaker and Trainer

Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you feel would benefit from attending this program, with my gratitude.

Everyone sooner or later in life experiences adversity, problems, challenges and even failure in their career, relationships, health or life in general.

There are two ways to define these events or circumstances in your life – as a victim or as a learner.

Victims always – blame, complain, whine, point their finger at others and give up control and responsibility of their life and its outcomes to outside circumstances or other people.

Learners always – grow, overcome, try, reach, believe, risk, have faith, experiment, learn, re-invent, take responsibility for all that is in their life and keep control of their attitudes and behavior.

Are you a learner or a victim? Which have you been in the past? Which will you be during your next crisis or challenge – and there will be MORE OF THEM – you can count on it!

Regardless of your attitudes, approaches or beliefs about what is right or wrong in your life right now, this program will help you or a friend bring a more positive, hopeful, productive and optimistic outlook to whatever is in your life, now or will be – in the future.

What we will discuss during this interactive and upbeat session;

• The value of developing patience and inner peace as a way of life.
• The relationship between appreciation and health, happiness and success.
• Finding the ability to overcome challenges, adversity and difficulty with courage, confidence and faith.
• How and why your mind plays tricks on you and keeps you stuck in or returning to fear mode rather than confidence and self-belief.
• Why many people choose to play the role of a victim in life rather than a learner.
• The role personal power plays in your choices, decisions and actions.
• Staying positive and optimistic no matter what is going on around you.
• How the people in your life influence you and your behavior, beliefs and attitudes.
• How the choices you believe you have influence your decisions and how those decisions determine the quality of your life.
• Learning to see past limitations and to let go of the destructive self-talk that keeps you stuck in the negatives of the past or fears about the future.

And a whole lot more…

Plus you will receive free – one of Tim’s best selling books and a program workbook. (A $40.00 value)

This program is limited to only 25 participants – so if you want to join us – please register early. This program will sell out quickly and this is the only time it will be offered this year.

Program Details:

October 4th. – Monday – 9AM – 4PM

Location: Hilton Executive Park Hotel, Charlotte

Registration Fee: ONLY – $59.00 per person.

___ Please register me for the Oct 4th Program in Charlotte;

Your Name:_________________________________________________________

I’d like to bring a friend – Name:_________________________________

I’d like to bring a (Relative/Co-worker) – Name:_______________________

You’re Contact Information:

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To Register:

Call: 704-895-1230

Email this form to: tim@timconnor.com

Mail your check to: CRG, Box 397, Davidson, NC 28036

**There will be no refunds for no-shows or cancellations.**

Words of wisdom for this week

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein

When is never? I will bet that you have said that at least once in your life and it wasn’t true when you said it as you discovered at some later time in your life.

Why do people feel the need to say, “I will never (whatever).” How about a list. I love lists, they are easy to read and relate to or disagree with depending on your perspective on any given day. (Those of you who have read my latest book, Emerging From Life’s Valleys with Confidence, Patience, Courage and Faith will relate to this, those of you who haven’t read it are missing a great book, seriously, it’s really good.)

People say ‘I will never’ because:

1. They don’t know when never is, so they are safe.
2. It is a habit.
3. It makes them look good, strong, wise or yes, even stupid.
4. They really don’t mean it, they just are setting you up.
5. They really believe that they will never…
6. They don’t know what never means.
7. They know you will forget they said it.
8. It sounds good.

Never, means never.

Not later, once in a while, if conditions change, if I change my mind, if something happens. Don’t set yourself up. It is sort of like saying to someone, “I will try.” When someone says that to you they are setting you up for failure. Because when they don’t come through, they can always say, “I tried.”

No one knows what the future holds. No one can predict how the roll of the dice can change a life. In an instant our entire future can be changed because of some unexpected failure or achievement. So, learn to embrace the unexpected and release the expected.

There are six ways we can express this never attitude:

• It will never.
• It can never.
• I will never.
• I can never.
• You will never.
• You can never.

Don’t be guilty of assuming someone else will or can never and don’t short change yourself and your future by allowing the “never” syndrome into your thoughts.

Words of wisdom for this week

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Ellen Parr

What if for the rest of this year;

You made one more prospect phone call every day?
You asked every prospect and client for a referral?
You eliminated one destructive sales habit?
You increased your market awareness with better networking skills?
You attended a sales seminar or sales boot camp that your company didn’t pay for?
You stopped accepting prospect’s excuses?
You became one of the most knowledgeable person in your industry?

These questions are endless and I won’t give you more to think about than you have time for today or even this week.

But I will share with you a simple truth – if you want to sell more every year you have to get better every year.

Let me get to the heart of the matter. If you have been receiving my tips for more than a few years you know that I have spent little time promoting my books, CD’s and boot camps. If you enjoy my tips and benefit from just a few hundred words once a week I would ask you – have you yet purchased one of my over 200 books, manuals or CD’s?

If yes, I hope you have enjoyed them and benefited from them. If not, why haven’t you? Is it the money? Remember the cost of not learning is far higher than the investment in learning. Is it the lack of time? Or some other reason or excuse?

Let me repeat at the sake of sounding redundant. If you want to sell MORE every year you MUST get better every year.

So let me ask you;

What is on your agenda this year to improve your skills?
What is your budget this year for improving your abilities?
What time have you allocated to learning and improving?
What career development organizations are you going to join this year?
What books are you going to read this year?

Let me leave you with some of the statistics and concepts that have driven my personal development philosophy for over forty years.

• Less than ten percent of the population gets what they want from life.
• Less than five percent of the population routinely invests in the improvement and development of their skills and attitudes.
• Less than five percent of the new ideas you are exposed to are remembered after only two weeks.
• The cost of failure is always higher than the price of success.
• You have 24 hours a day to create a worthwhile life. How much of that time is allocated to your getting better?
• If you want to beat the competition you have to be better than the competition.
• If you want to increase your sales and income you have to increase your learning.
• Less than four percent of the population have specific written goals for their life and career.
• Where you end up in life has more to do with the direction you are traveling every day than where you have been in the past.

I hope you have a successful and prosperous 2010. But if you don’t, please don’t point your finger at anyone or anything. Just look in the mirror.

I have a few seats left in my September 27th Sales Boot Camp in Charlotte. If you don’t increase your sales by over 50% in less than 120 days I’ll refund your program investment! There – no more excuses…

Quote for the week
“Life is just one damned thing after another.”
~ Hubbard

TimBit
Regret weighs tons. Living with words spoken or unspoken, deeds done or left undone, and actions taken or not taken is one of the biggest burdens many people carry with them through life, and some to the grave.

To live each moment in life with a happy perspective and disposition requires that we live in such a way that there is no need to carry regret into the next minute, let alone the next year. Why do people choose to live with regret? A better question is why do people act or speak in such a way that requires them to experience the constant negative pull of regret in their life? My friends, if I had an answer to that one, I wouldn’t be sitting at my computer slaving over each word. I would be cruising the Caribbean on a 60-ft dream yacht.

I, too, have known the sting of regret. I can only tell you that living with it will not let happiness and peace into your life. Regrets will be like a long shadow darkening the way ahead, as well as the path behind you. Their stretch is well into the future, and they cloud your past with pain, anger, resentment, grief, blame, or fear.

Question
What regrets are you living with today?

Reading
The Art of Thank You, Leas

Copyright: 7/2010 – Tim Connor, CSP

Words of wisdom for this week

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Show me two people in a relationship who don’t have conflict from time to time and I will show you a couple who:

• are passive aggressive
• spend very little time together
• have hidden agendas and are unable or unwilling to share them.
• no longer care, are in apathy
• are insecure
• were raised to believe that conflict is negative

Conflict is not a function of whether your relationship is new (you are still on your honeymoon) or has lasted for years.

Conflict can be a positive tool for building and strengthening a relationship or it can destroy one in pretty quick order, Then of course there are those relationships that hover in the middle in no-mans land. People who – are afraid of the conflict, avoid the conflict, run from the conflict. But, these people also live in a constant state of frustration, anger, disappointment, unhappiness, uncertainty and even fear.

Conflict is not good or bad, positive or negative. It is two different ways of looking at the same issue, subject or circumstance. What determines whether the outcome of any conflict is healthy or unhealthy is not what caused the conflict, but both people’s reaction or response to the conflict itself.

Let’s say you and your partner disagree on how to discipline one of your kids. One person wants to punish them the other to help them use the mistake as an opportunity to learn and grow. Your reaction can vary from: You disagree or you just listen and don’t talk. You argue and defend your position or you are willing to see the other point of view as valid. You fight raising your voice(s) getting nowhere..
You stomp away or start crying or, yelling or whatever your typical reaction to conflict is. A negative response can be a trigger for increased conflict or a positive response can contribute to the gradual movement away from confrontation and toward resolution.

Your reaction to any confrontation or situation, either positive, neutral or negative, that has the potential for disagreement or conflict is usually due to one or more of the following contributors.

• Your ego(s) and your need to manipulate or control.
• Your perceptual filter(s) and that fact that you both see things differently.
• Your level of self-confidence.
• Your self-esteem.
• Your need for approval or validation.
• The history of your relationship and its approach to conflict.
• Your ability to have your emotional buttons pushed easily.
• What is really going on inside one or both of you in terms of the quality of the relationship.

So, what can you do the next time you and your partner find yourselves in a heated disagreement? Here are a few things to consider.

1. See the conflict as your partner reaching out to you for understanding, support, validation or compassion.
2. See past the anger and see it not as anger directed at you but the expression of their inner fear about some issue or circumstance.
3. See past their words and look into their heart for the cause of their pain.
4. Recognize that regardless of the subject, it is not about someone being right or wrong, but about the willingness to learn and grow.
5. Inject a Quality Pause in between their comments and your reaction. During the quality pause you quietly say to yourself, “I have a choice on how I react. Then respond accordingly. This quality pause takes you out of ‘auto-pilot’ and into the present moment.
6. Develop a psychological anchor to stay calm and loving no matter what is being said or how it is being said. This anchor can be a thought, phrase or action you take that keeps you in control of you. This anchor could be anything from picturing the last time you were on vacation together and having a wonderful time to a simple phrase or mantra – ‘I am in control of my emotions. I am in control of my reactions. I am in control of my feelings.’ Anything that keeps you centered and in control.

The key is to learn to use conflict as a personal growth tool for yourself and your relationship. Not always an easy task when someone is berating you or screaming, and swearing at you at the top of the Richter scale, but the question is:

Do you want to keep control of your emotions and reactions or do you want to give that up to someone else?

Words of wisdom for this week

“The tragedy of the world is that men have given first class loyalty to second class causes and these causes have betrayed them.”
~ Lynn Hough

There seems to be a trend today – many employees are jumping ship at the first sign of a better opportunity elsewhere, or if they feel that their organization has somehow let them down or wronged them in some way. (i.e. financially, in terms of promotion or career path opportunities, or any number of other disappointments due to either real or imaginary expectations on their part.)

Several friends of mine have written entire books on this subject. Management seminars are conducted with regularity on this topic. The approach I would like to take this week is: how can better hiring prevent a lack of employee loyalty?

There are a number of factors that influence employee loyalty. Here are just a few.

• the general state of the economy.
• the availability of trained workers in a particular discipline.
• the rapid growth of technology.
• the increase of entrepreneurial enterprises.
• the 4 major age segments in the marketplace – boomers, X & Y generation, the over 60 crowd, and men vs. women.
• peer pressure for more, better, sooner, faster.
• the need for personal identity and autonomy.
• changing/increasing spiritual awareness/values (the desire for personal freedom, congruence, wholeness, free time, family etc.).
• a lack of commitment on the part of many people today.
• what I call the ‘teenage mentality’ – a short attention span or the need for constant stimulation from new experiences, sources, or circumstances.
• the opportunities alluded to and communicated to new hires.
• the availability of entry level unskilled talent.
• the growth/decline of an industry or organization.
• parental, societal, peer, or education driven expectations/attitudes.

So, what can you do in the hiring process to ensure you are not looking for a replacement for last month’s new hire?

1. Don’t hire under pressure.
2. Hire attitudes – not talent or skills.
3. Have several people interview the candidates.
4. Have an employee contract.
5. Create an organizational culture where people don’t ever want to leave.
6. Have a CLEAR and ACCURATE understanding of the expectations, attitudes, desires, and agendas of the candidates.
7. Don’t allude to or promise that which you can’t deliver.
8. Don’t rush the hiring process. Be patient.
9. Have a clear understanding of the roles/responsibilities you are looking for.
10. Know the general trends/attitudes/expectations of the above four groups.

Quote for the week
“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.”
~ Rubinstein

TimBit
My first book of self-help fiction, titled “The Voyage”, was about how to learn to live life from the inside-out vs. the outside-in. Several people, after reading the book, asked me what I meant by that concept. I would have thought that reading the book would have made it abundantly clear –

Inside-out means taking responsibility for the quality of your life: i.e., its successes, failures, achievements, outcomes, risks, happiness, financial position, lifestyle, relationships, etc. People who live outside-in turn the responsibility for their happiness, success, failures, etc., over to someone or something outside of themselves. They blame the weather, the government, their spouse, the economy, their company or organization, where they live, their parents – the list goes on and on.

Question
Are you living inside-out or outside-in?

Reading
The Book of Secrets, Chopra

Copyright: 7/2010 – Tim Connor, CSP

Words of wisdom for this week

“Doing what’s right is no guarantee against misfortune.”
~ William McFee

Sooner or later, every salesperson experiences a down period of sales results. These periods, where your continued activity seems to yield less than satisfactory results, are normal and to be expected. None of us can keep up a pace of 200 miles per hour day after day, month after month, year after year. The key is to keep your attitude positive, your focus on what is working, and your activity levels high regardless of the results.

In my best selling book, Soft Sell, I share the idea that there are a variety of sales slumps. In this short tip, I will only discuss four. They are:

1. An attitude slump.
2. A prospecting slump.
3. A presentation slump.
4. A closing slump.

An attitude slump is where you find it difficult to maintain your confidence, poise, commitment, dedication, persistence and motivation. This can be due to a number of causes. Some of them are: a) you have lost belief in your organization’s products or services. b) you are not reaching your goals or objectives according to your schedule c) You are under a great deal of stress due to deadlines, expectations or loss of control of the sales process, and d) you have other issues in your life that are impacting your attitudes.

A prospecting slump is where you lack adequate qualified leads and are spending a great deal of time calling on poor prospects. As a result, your close ratio is a disaster. This could also be caused by your poor prospecting strategies: i.e. you are still (after several years selling your products/services) spending a lot of time cold calling.

A presentation slump can be caused by your lack of up-to-date product knowledge, poor presentation skills, or poor communication skills: i.e. listening, speaking or writing. This can also be caused by your lack of knowledge of the prospect’s needs, use of, or applications of, your products/services. You, therefore, give an organization-driven rather than a customer-driven sales appeal.

A closing slump can be caused by your lack of control of the sales process, poor prospecting, poor sales presentations, or many of the items in the attitude area we have already discussed.

As you can see, there are a number of areas where you can experience a down cycle in your sales approach. The thing to consider is that all of them are related to each other. In other words, if you are experiencing an attitude slump, it will have an impact on your prospecting, closing, etc. If you are in a closing slump, it will impact your attitudes, as well as other areas of the sales process.

The thing to remember is that you can’t pull out of any of these slumps by just focusing on the one area that you feel might be the problem. You have to work on all of them. The way out of a slump is to go back to what works, or has worked for you in the past. It is also an excellent time for reflection and self-evaluation of your progress, success, weaknesses, strengths, etc.

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Copyright: 8/2010 Tim Connor, CSP – Connor Resource Group

REPRINT PERMISSION: Feel free to reprint this article in any publication as long as you give proper credit to the author: Please include all of the following in your credit line: Tim Connor, CSP World renowned Speaker, Trainer and best selling author of 75 titles, Box 397, Davidson, N.C. 28036 USA, 704-895-1230 (voice) – 704-895-1231 (fax) – tim@timconnor.com (email) – www.timconnor.com (Website)