Successful Blog

10 Ways to Sell your Ideas

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by Patty Azzarello

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Selling Your Ideas

Selling Your Ideas

Are you ever frustrated that no one listens to your ideas?

If your opinions are not appreciated, or your proposals get dismissed, you need to do a better job selling them.

The Harsh Reality


1. Right or Effective? Remember, you can be 100% right and zero% effective. Having good ideas is completely different than getting them acted on. You need to do the work to put yourself in a position to sell your ideas, and then you need to actively sell them.

2. YOU are being judged. People are judging you as much as your content. Don’t spend so much time on your content that you forget your Personal Brand is also on trial. Be mindful of your Executive Presence. The way you present is as important as what you present. What is your strategy?

3. It takes Effort. You need to invest time, energy and personal relating, if you want to gain support for your ideas. Saying you don’t like politics is a cop out. It absolves you of any more effort. Successful people work to actively sell their ideas.
How can you stack the deck in your favor, and get your audience ready to say YES?

Performing Vs. Presenting

4. Don’t miss your 15 Minutes of Fame: My biggest career jumps have come from some very specific opportunities to present to important groups of people. Don’t just present. Use the opportunity to perform. Think about the key differences between performing and presenting and how you can make your communications the most persuasive.

5. Don’t bury the lead. Make sure to put the main point of your communication up front. Don’t bury it with lots of archaeology and context about how you got there to show how smart you are. It back fires. People get bored and you miss your chance.

6. Own the Outcome. Always own the outcome of the communication, not just the communication. What do you want to happen as a result of this communication? Think it through. If nothing is going to happen as a result, why are you communicating? Always ask for something.

Be More Relevant

7. Find a Hook. Make sure you connect your new information with things people already know and care about. Always find a hook that is something already on their mind to hang your information on.

8. Always translate: Be really careful not to use your jargon and your vocabulary when you are trying to convince others of something. Always relate your ideas in their words. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about this is to make the name of the meeting something they would want to come to.

It’s Personal

9. Not just the facts. Even the most analytical people act based on emotion. The facts may make a compelling and persuasive case, but if you want people to act or change you have to also motivate them personally. How do you compel them to act with your data?

10. Get support up front: Know how your ideas impact people, get their input, give them a chance to shape what happens ahead of time. Don’t spring new ideas on people in public. Build a relationship and get their personal support before you start announcing or requesting things in a group setting.

Want to know more?

Selling your Ideas was the topic of a recent webinar I did. There’s a podcast.
I do a Free Webinar each month on a topic of personal leadership and business effectiveness. If you are interested you can get invited.

How do you sell your ideas?

What did I miss? Who do you need to convince? Who are your supporters and adversaries? Please add your best stories and strategies in the comment box below!

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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Social Media Book List: Networking is a Contact Sport and It’s Not Just who you Know

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors by managing their book promotion and publicity. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

This week I will be highlighting two books I found on the new release list in the category of Business and Investing on Amazon; ‘Networking Is a Contact Sport: How Staying Connected and Serving Others Will Help You Grow Your Business, Expand Your Influence — or Even Land Your Next Job’ by Joe Sweeney and ‘It’s Not Just Who You Know: Transform Your Life (and Your Organization) by Turning Colleagues and Contacts into Lasting, Genuine Relationships’ by Tommy Spaulding

The books I discuss in the Social Media Book List Series will cover a range of topics such as social media, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development and inspiration.

Networking Is a Contact Sport: How Staying Connected and Serving Others Will Help You Grow Your Business, Expand Your Influence — or Even Land Your Next Job’

by Joe Sweeney

Joe Sweeney book, Networking is a Contact Sport

“The concepts in Networking Is a Contact Sport have helped me in my post-Olympic years.”
Bonnie Blair
Five-time Olympic Gold Medal Speed Skater

“Joe Sweeney’s networking skills helped to significantly increase my off-the-field income.”
Brett Favre
Three-time NFL MVP and Future NFL Hall of Famer

“When you think about it, life is all about relationships, both personal and professional ones. But relationships don’t just happen by themselves. Many have to be pursued, and that’s where Joe’s book, Networking Is a Contact Sport, comes into play. A great read that proves that networking is hard work but well worth the while.”
Bill Perez
Former CEO of S.C. Johnson & Son, Nike, Inc., and Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company

About the Book*:

How did Joe Sweeney…

…get Bob Costas to come to Milwaukee (in the middle of winter)?
…become the “wingman” to the archbishop of New York City?
…take Brett Favre’s off-the-field income from $65,000 to more than $4 million?

The answer is simple. Networking.

Master networker Joe Sweeney shares his networking secrets from a long and successful career as a business owner, sports agent and executive and investment banking consultant. His first secret: master networkers are focused on giving, not getting.

With today’s difficult economy and uncertain workplace, networking has never been more important. Sweeney’s simple but effective 5/10/15 networking plan will give you a leg up in the current job market, help you stay employed, or, if you’ve been laid off, find your next job. The cliché that who you know is more important than what you know has never been truer. Sweeney illustrates his insights with dozens of helpful examples from his own life (along with a few fascinating insider sports stories).

With special sections on networking for women and minorities, insights into the usefulness (and handicaps) of social networking sites, how to get (and why you need) a wingman and profiles of other master networkers, Networking Is a Contact Sport is a practical and essential guide for anyone who wants to get ahead in today’s economy.

About Joe Sweeney*:
Joe Sweeney is a businessman, entrepreneur, former sports agent, investment banker and author.

For 28 years, Joe has built a career by combining his love of business and his passion for sports. Joe brings an extensive background in hands-on business experience. Joe has owned and operated four manufacturing companies and has more than three decades experience in the business and sports worlds. Prior to acquiring an equity position in Corporate Financial Advisors, a middle-market investment banking firm, Joe founded and was president of SMG, a sports management firm that specializes in assisting and representing coaches and athletes including three-time MVP, Brett Favre. Joe was also president of the Wisconsin Sports Authority and serves or has served on 23 boards of directors.
Joe received his BA from St. Mary’s College and his MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

He has used his 28 years of business experience as a master networker in the sports and business worlds.

You can purchase a copy of ‘Networking is a Contact Sport’ online at Amazon or on his website, Networking is a Contact Sport.

*courtesy of book website and Amazon

Another book on my Amazon Business and Investing list that I am looking forward to reading is ‘It’s Not Just Who You Know’ by Tommy Spaulding.

It’s Not Just Who You Know

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“Tommy masterfully illustrates case by case, person by person, that we’re all in this together.”
–Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets

“a valuable, reader-friendly guidebook for both business and personal living”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Marshall Goldsmith is a world-renowned executive coach and author of the New York Times bestsellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Read his review of It’s Not Just Who You Know:

To be successful today, leaders need more than an impressive title and superficial “friends” in high places. They need to be able to do some basic things–build partnerships, share leadership, and develop and empower people–-to name just a critical few. The challenge is that none of these are possible if people don’t trust or believe in their leaders. That’s where this new book, It’s Not Just Who You Know, fills an important gap in leadership education. In it, Tommy Spaulding hits on the important issue of building and sustaining relationships–-real relationships, authentic relationships as opposed to those less genuine, selfish relationships that do not build morale in the organization or trust between people. Tommy’s is a great book because he doesn’t just tell you that relationships are important, he tells you why, and he tells you how to practice building them. If you pick up one book today, let it be this one. You’ll be glad you did!

About the Book*:

In It’s Not Just Who You Know, Tommy Spaulding — the former CEO of Up with People — has written the new How to Win Friends & Influence People for the twenty-first century. Success — in business and in life — is all about relationships. In this powerful guide, Spaulding takes Dale Carnegie’s classic philosophy to the next level, showing how, by developing deeper relationships through giving to others and putting them first, we benefit as well.

Among the insights Tommy discusses in the book:

* It’s not just who you know, or what they can do for you, but what you can do for them.
* Motives matter.
* Establishing a deeper connection is about authenticity, not manipulation; reciprocity, not selfishness.
* Every relationship is a two-way street; we never know when a chance encounter can change the direction of our lives.

In the bestselling tradition of Dale Carnegie’s classic, It’s Not Just Who You Knowshows how each one of us can use the power of “netgiving” — of helping others — to expand our worlds and achieve our goals, and make a difference in our jobs, our careers, and our communities.

About Tommy Spaulding*:

Tommy Spaulding is president of the Spaulding Companies LLC (www.SpauldingCompanies.com), a national leadership development, consulting, coaching, and speaking organization. Spaulding rose to become the youngest president and CEO of the world-renowned leadership organization, Up with People (2005-2008). In 2000, Tommy Spaulding founded Leader’s Challenge, which grew to become the largest high school civic and leadership program in the state of Colorado. He is also the founder & president of the Spaulding Leadership Institute (www.SpauldingLeadershipInstitute.org), a non-profit leadership development organization which runs National Leadership Academy, a national high school summer leadership academy, as well as Kid’s Challenge, Global Challenge and Colorado Close-Up.

Previously, Spaulding was the Business Partner Sales Manager at IBM/Lotus Development and a member of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program.
Spaulding received a BA in Political Science from East Carolina University (1992); an MBA from Bond University in Australia (1998), where he was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar; and an MA in Non-Profit Management from Regis University (2005), where he was a Colorado Trust Fellow. In 2007, Spaulding received an Honorary PhD in Humanities from the Art Institute of Colorado. In 2002, he received the Denver Business Journal’s “Forty under 40 Award.”

In 2006, Spaulding was awarded East Carolina University’s “Outstanding Alumni Award,” the highest distinction awarded to an alumnus of the university. Spaulding is the Chairman of East Carolina University’s External Leadership Advisory Board and is the university’s first “Leader in Residence.”
A world-renowned speaker on leadership, Spaulding has spoken to hundreds of organizations, schools, and corporations around the globe. His inspiring book about how to create relationships that make a difference, It’s Not Just Who You Know, will be published by Random House in August, 2010. He and his family reside in the Denver metropolitan area.

*courtesy of book website and Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘It’s Not Just Who You Know’ on Amazon or on his website, Tommy Spaulding.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

Ten Minute Rambles: A Tool To Jump-starting Your Blog

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A little over a year and a half ago, I decided to take charge of my health.  Honestly, I decided to take charge of my weight gain and that blossomed into taking charge of my health.  Although I had exercised mildly in high school and had taken the ever-so-vigorous “Walking Class” in college, in the nearly ten year interim I had slipped away from any type of exercise routine that didn’t involve the Wii. 

So, I decided to use the Wii to lose weight rather than as an excuse for lazy exercise habits.  I started with ten minutes of running each day.  Let me tell you, those were the most miserable ten minutes of my day.  I remember running in place, swinging my arms around wildly and complaining very loudly that I couldn’t stand it any more.  But I persevered through those ten minutes.  Flash forward eighteen months or so.  I exercise one hour each day, alternating running and weight training.  I’ve lost around fifty pounds, and I love to exercise (Most of the time!).  That ten minute jump-start was all I needed to make a lifetime of changes.

Jump-start Your Blog

Does this sound familiar?  You’re sitting in front of your computer, your hands are on the keys, and you are doing nothing except staring a blank screen.  Let’s face it.  Sometimes we don’t feel like blogging.  It may be that we don’t have a topic that inspires us or it may be that we have so many other distractions and demands that we just don’t feel like taking the time to blog.  Or maybe we’re new to blogging and we’re feeling a bit intimidated.  We need to do something to get us going.

Try this:  start typing.  Set aside ten minutes to just ramble.  You can write about anything.  Take it out of the realm of blogging.  Write about your bad day.  Write about your kids, your dog, pizza, a sailboat, anything.  Write gibberish.  Don’t filter.  Don’t worry about polishing your work or what others may think.  This may sound like a junior high writing assignment, but it is mentally freeing and may be just what you need to get motivated.

What is the worst that can happen?  You’ll have spent ten minutes writing and you still don’t feel like blogging.  Chances are that won’t happen.  What is likely to happen?  Likely, you will strike upon something that you really want to write about.  You may even strike upon several ideas, leaving you something to store away for future use.  You may even decide to make this exercise part of your writing routine!

Tell us, what do you do to get your creativity flowing when you are in a writing slump?

Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas .

Thanks, Jael

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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How Will You Find Out Whether Your Community Is Bored, Broken, or Inspired to Take on the World?

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(Updated in 2020)

10-POINT PLAN: Assessing and Setting a Benchmark

Finding Out Before You Start

Ever asked someone to change something she’s been doing for years? It’s not the easiest endeavor. Even when we hate what we’re doing it’s become comfortable to us. For some people in some circumstances, it might even be part of our identity. Change is heady stuff.

No matter the value of the reward. It comes with the thought, “maybe the situation I’m leaving is somehow better. I wonder …”

One way to overcome the psychology of change is to measure.

Measurement proves to the people involved that the change is providing the progress that was promised, even when the progress only feels like work.

But before we can measure progress, we have know where we are when we start.

How to Benchmark Who’s Bored, Who’s Broken and Who’s Inspired to Take on the World

It’s an art and a science to gather the people who help our businesses thrive into a true community.

A community isn’t built or befriended. It’s connected by offering and accepting.
Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.
Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.

How do we know whether any of this is truly happening? How do might we benchmark our community connections before we start moving forward?

Evaluating Individual Relationships

A few years ago, Gallup came up with the q12, a 12 question survey to measure employee engagement. Though they were intended for employees, they work well for any person, any barn raiser involved in creating a working community — employee, manager, vendor, partner, customer, friend of the business. Here they are:

  1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
  2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
  3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
  4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
  5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
  7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
  8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
  9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
  10. Do you have a best friend at work?
  11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
  12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

In the Q12 test it becomes easier to see which points of performance are being frustrated by resources and which are being frustrated by personnel issues.

Evaluating Social Relationships and Networks

When the q12 is paired with a simple informal social test called a sociogram, we can lay out an important picture. A sociogram points out channels of influence, communication, and interaction. Simple questions such as

  • Which person would you ask to teach you something new?
  • Which person would you ask to attend or a gathering of your friends?
  • Which person would you want to offer you a recommendation on the quality of your work?

Those choice that receive many choices are stars. Those who receive none are isolates. Groups who mutually choose each other have formed cliques.

Whether we’re working with few freelancers, a team, or a corporation having firm idea of where we stand before we move forward is ideal. If we find someone from outside the system — someone who looks something like me, easy to talk with and sure to keep thing confidential, we can learn by using these two two sets of questions how people feel about the community that is forming. We’ll draw an idea of how bored, broken or inspired the community might be.We’ll be well on our way to pick out the champions who can pick up the tools and begin building new things with us.

They will raise a barn, not work away as they build our coliseum.

What are you doing to find out whether your community is bored, broken, or inspired to take on the world?

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Why B-2-B Is B-2-C … And Social Media is Biz Dev!

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What Do Business Customers Want?

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I sneaked into publishing through the back door, first I freelanced. Then I worked for a contractor who built products for bigger publishers. It was definitely a b-2-b business. I was all about serving my customers. I was also clueless about how to do it.

I thought my customers were the clients who paid me.

It wasn’t until I became a publisher hiring other contractors that I realized how off my thinking had been. I’d been looking a short-sighted wrong direction.

Why B-2-B Is B-2-C … And Social Media is Biz Dev!

The business to business model (B-2-B) isn’t that hard to understand if you think a few seconds about it. What do business people want most? They want to grow their businesses. They want to know what successful people in their jobs at other businesses are doing to be successful. We can bring that to them in two simple ways:

  1. We can use social media tools to connect them to other people who do what they do. Social media tools are fabulous for starting and building deep networking relationships. Great social media strategists are fluent at making those relationships happen.
  2. We can use social media tools to build occasions online and offline where they can learn about companies like theirs who are growing. Webinars, seminars, teleconferences about business development, integrated marketing, reaching out to customers in new and more relational ways can be key to helping our clients’ business thrive and grow.

What I didn’t get then is that if we stop with thinking of our client as our customer we leave them to do all of thinking about how their customer might respond to what we suggest, offer, and recommend. But if we look through our customers to the people they serve we become their partner in business development.
We grow our own business by aligning our goals to help them grow theirs.

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Do you know how to serve your customers’ customers? Do you think B-2-B and B-2-C at the same time and turn social media marketing into business development?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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The Carlsen Resources Social Media Strategy Contest! Win a FREE trip to SOBCon2011!

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A Contest

On September 18th, at SOBCon Colorado, we announced a contest featuring our Colorado sponsor, Carlsen Resources.

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The prize?

A FREE trip to our flagship event, SOBCon 2011 in Chicago!  (registration, 3 night’s hotel, air up to $750)

The contest?

Propose, in 500 words or less, a Social Media strategy for Carlsen Resources.

Why does Carlsen need a strategy?

Right now, aside from their website, they have no other Social Media presense or activity.

How to enter?

Post your proposal on your blog by October 31, 2010  (make sure you link it back to this post, and/or Tweet it with the #sobconCarlsen hashtag)

Update (10/19/10): Or, just e-mail it to sobevents@gmail.com

How will the winner be selected?

A team at Carlsen Resources will review and determine which proposal best suits their business. The SOBCon social media team will act in an advisory role only.

Any other rules to know about?

The 500-word limit INCLUDES text in any illustrations that are part of the proposal (graphs, charts, pictures, etc)

How do I find out more about Carlsen Resources?

Click here to visit their website.

Meet Carlsen Resources

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Founded in 1989, Carlsen Resources, Inc. is a premiere executive search firm in the ever-expanding arenas of cable television, global media and telecommunications. Carlsen offers an array of executive search, candidate assessment, workplace diversity, career development and HR services across a wide range of business disciplines.Carlsen Resources helps its clients grow their business using innovative techniques, over two decades of experience and the broadest network of quality professionals in the industry today.

Carlsen has developed a reputation for delivering superior client service with uncompromising integrity, attention to detail, and an always professional , yet uniquely personal approach to the science of executive placement.

Recently we also interviewed Ann Carlsen, founder and CEO, and Sandy Ramunno, President and COO, about the company and their desire to use Social Media to help their business:

 

SOBCon: 

We understand you’ve built your business and your contact list the traditional “analog” way, and most impressively at that (a list in the 10’s of thousands).  How did you do this?

Ann:

  It was one person and relationship at a time. We started with lower levels, and built relationships through a methodic process of staying in touch once a month through the phone, sending out birthday and all holiday greetings,  and most of all, being there for them when the chips were down. Then it was “Rinse and repeat”.  The database was 120 people when we started.

SOBCon:

Sandy, tell us about Ann – describe her personality, and the values she brings to the company.

Sandy:

 Ann is one of the smartest, most generous, and funniest people I’ve ever known.  She is extremely hardworking & well read, has impeccable integrity, and is steadfast in her commitment to our clients.  She has grown up with the industry so knows its history, evolution and people.  She sets the tone and pace for the entire team.

We all take our work very seriously – strive to always under promise and over deliver. I have the utmost confidence in every last person on our team and the job they do each and every day.   We measure our success by our clients’ success.  We are constantly evaluating the process so that we are confident that we are doing the job better than anyone else.  And we have a lot of fun while we do it.

And, I love this story despite all her successes– 5 years ago – 6 kittens were born under my house and something had happened to the mother.  We bottle fed them for about 2 weeks before I had to go to what must have been my 5 year HS reunion. 🙂  When I told Ann that I was on my way to Petsmart to find a pet sitter she asked what was going on.  To make a long story short – she and her kids bottle fed them while I was gone….and for the next month… AND 4 of the 6 never left her house again!  Huge heart, wonderful person.

SOBCon:

  Let’s talk about the business itself.  What is the “extraordinary value” Carlsen brings to their clients?

Sandy:

 Our mission statement is to build enduring relationships to create great matches of opportunity and talent that grow businesses and careers. We know the people in the industry better than the competition and understand the business.  And we make every effort to keep it that way.

Ann:

 It’s high touch, caring about the person above all else, understanding the business from the inside out, and performance and results.

SOBCon:

  Lastly, can you describe why you are interested in using Social Media, and what you believe you can get out of it?

Sandy:

We KNOW we need to use it and it’s not like we’ve done nothing but we don’t have an overall strategy on how best to approach it.  I’ve heard all the reasons TO use it and know that a traditional website is 90s technology…still good to have but not exactly cutting edge.  The “reasons” for using it that are most compelling are that we could better communicate with our market – both to speak TO them and to hear FROM them.   We learn more from feedback than anything else.

Ann:

We want to expand our reach among younger people. As AC (Ann) has gotten older, so have her contacts.  The team is all about the same age, so we all have similar contact base.  We need to cultivate the younger people who will be the decision-makers of the future.  We want to stay relevant and on top of things.

Any More Resources to Share?

Click here for a great interview with Ann Carlsen by The Cable Center.

Good luck, and may the best proposal win!

Remember, the deadline for entries is October 31, 2010