Every year in July my team and I take time to reflect on the first half of the year and all it has brought forth. Reflecting on the past is not something we do as often as we should. Perhaps the past is full of pain or sorrow and the thought of remembering the struggles and challenges is too difficult. Often though, we don’t reflect because we just don’t take the time. We are so caught up in dealing with the tyranny of the urgent we forget what we were doing just a few hours maybe even minutes ago. This year I’ve asked my team to reflect on the first half of the year and I’ve provided them with the following five questions to help them in this process.

I encourage you to take the time to answer these questions for yourself and to share them with a loved one or client. They create great conversation around the dinner table, a client meeting, or small group setting.

If you are a person of faith a final question for you to ask yourself would be, “Where have I seen God working in the past six months, and how can I jump in to help Him?”

Wherever you find yourself after the first six months of this year, take time to reflect and answer the questions above. Make sure you have surrounded yourself with people that love and support you, a coach/mentor, and that you are focusing on your personal health. If I can be of help, don’t hesitate to ask.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

MID-YEAR REFLECTION is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

We all have those days when nothing seems to be going right and the world is literally against us. The words people use, their actions, and their body language tell us “you suck!” and are the cause of what I’m going through and pain I’m experiencing right now. Whether you are to blame or not, there are days when you will be treated badly for no reason. The question we have to wrestle with and answer is, “How do we respond in situations like this?” Should we lash out and attack back or endure, knowing that we are innocent?

My first inclination is to lash out and attack back. I don’t like being accused of something that is not true. I don’t like being blamed for something that is not my fault. This weekend though, I was challenged to put that natural inclination aside and to respond instead with endurance and a gracious heart. My pastor spoke on 1 Peter 2: 18-25. It’s one of those passages in the Bible people don’t like quoting or even reading too often because of its message.

In this short letter to a group of people experiencing extreme physical, financial, and emotional persecution we learn four ways to respond to unfair treatment and unwarranted personal attacks.

1. Our mindset should be one of perseverance and not revenge.
2. We must remember that our actions will be an example for others to follow and speak louder than our words.
3. The words we speak must not be harsh, derogatory, or inflammatory. If we choose to speak up, then our words should seek to bring about reconciliation.
4. We must remember the grace that has been to shown us in the past and struggle to show grace to others as well.

This is a tough teaching but one that we all can strive to apply in our lives when a customer yells at us for no reason, a boss mistreats us at work, a loved one accuses us of something that is not true, or a friend gossips about us behind our back.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

FOUR WAYS TO RESPOND TO UNFAIR TREATMENT is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

The world of sales is a complicated one right now. There are new regulations, tax implications, guidelines that have to be followed, and service expectations that need to be met. While information is readily available, certain clients still do not know how to protect their interests and negotiate a successful closing of a sale. Now more than ever, clients need sales professionals that are great advocates for them, take on their vision, and help them achieve their goals.

How does one become a great advocate? How do you create the mindset needed to represent your clients in a way where they feel you were as invested in the process as they were? It takes a lot of hard work, self-sacrifice, and training. Consider these five steps to becoming a great advocate for your client:

1. Know their wants, needs, and expectations. The first rule of sales is to ask questions and find out what your client is trying to achieve. When you know this the battle is already half won. Take good notes, review them frequently, and follow up regularly to make sure things have not changed.
2. Understand how the process affects them. Going through any sales or service process can be very stressful. It affects not just your clients but their entire family and possibly company. Again, ask them questions about how the sale impacts the ones they love, what are their concerns, what are they stressed about, what does failure look like to them?
3. Know their vision and make it yours. As sales professionals it is easy to have your thoughts consumed by dollar signs and forget the needs of your client. It is not uncommon for our focus to shift from achieving our client’s goals to how much am I going to get paid when this deal is done. Clients are looking for a professional that is loyal to them and becomes a co-owner in their vision for success.
4. Receive their permission to passionately advocate for them. I used to always ask for permission to be aggressive in negotiations for my client. I would start the conversation by restating their goals, dreams, and expectations. I then laid out how I was going to structure negotiations in way that led to the highest probability of success for them.  I did all of this because I wanted them to feel like they were in control and that they had hired a passionate professional to represent them.
5. Take into account their reputation. Never forget that your client has a reputation that is impacted by your actions, your words, and the way you advocate for them. Always be a professional and treat people with respect. Failure to do this will not only burn bridges for you but can lead to future failure for the client you are serving. When the deal is done, will the people you worked with and negotiated against say you and your clients conducted yourselves professionally and with integrity?

Sales professional are blessed with the opportunity to help people achieve their goals and dreams. If you are one of them, I encourage you to get to know your clients and understand their vision so you can become a great advocate for them.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

5 STEPS TO BECOMING A GREAT ADVOCATE FOR YOUR CLIENTS is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

The first quarter of the year is in the records books. If you have a goal of living a life and running a business with purpose, then you know how important a 90 day review of your overall progress and results can be. I’ve blogged in the past about the simple and powerful exercise called Keep – Start – Stop. I highly recommend this exercise to those I coach and everyone on my team.

Next week I am going to be asking myself and my team one key question, “Who hasn’t heard your message?” We spend an enormous amount of time each day emailing, calling, going to coffee, and “Facebooking” our existing sphere of influence. This is a good thing and a key part of business development. However, it is only half the equation in a successful business generation formula.

The rest of the equation requires that you form relationships and share your message with people that have never heard your story or know your value proposition. These leads can be generated from sphere of influence referrals, but I want to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and focus just as much time on sharing your message with strangers.

In the next week, take some time to review the first 90 days with Keep-Start-Stop. Then go an extra step and identify the people you are not talking to about your service or product. Practice delivering your message and then engage them with tenacity. Create opportunities for you to share your vision, value proposition, and demonstrate why you are the best choice for helping a prospect achieve their goals.

You have a message that is worth sharing, now get out there and let people know about it.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

WHO HASN’T HEARD YOUR MESSAGE? is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

Building trust with clients is extremely challenging in a world where people are becoming more and more cynical about corporations and professional service providers. One mistake (or perceived mistake) and trust can be lost in a matter of seconds over Twitter, Facebook, or a chat room. Because of this, having a strategy to deliver your message and build trust with your clients is more important than ever.

We have to be careful not to force a confidence or trust onto someone that is not prepared to give us either. In a world of instant gratification, learning how to effectively build trust over time can be difficult. People have to hear your message before they can begin to trust you. They cannot just hear your message once or in one particular way. Clients need to hear it repeatedly and in many different ways. Consider these five tips for delivering your message and building trust with clients:

1. Deliver your message through a print media campaign. Utilize print ads that highlight your vision, values, and purpose. Write articles for you industry journals, ask to be interviewed, and issue press releases on important news events effecting clients and your industry.
2. Express your message through social media. This can be done through a personal or corporate blog. Utilize the speed and effectiveness of Twitter for getting your message out to hundreds – thousands – and hundreds of thousands of people instantly. Create a Facebook Fan page where you can provide a place for raving fans to share the great experience they had working with you.
3. Connect with prospects and past clients for personal conversations. This can happen over the phone or in one-on-one meetings for coffee or lunch. The key is to connect with prospective and past clients for intimate conversations where you can get to know each other and see if your services will meet one of their current or future needs.
4. Hold events for past and prospective clients. Group events are a great opportunity to deliver your message through speaking, training, workshops, etc. Allow your guests to see your culture, vision, and purpose on display. Provide them with opportunities to build community with each other and discuss how your services have impacted their life.
5. Hold to your convictions in all your actions. Our actions speak louder than any words we can express in print, online, or even in person. People know that anyone can make promises but only the best can actually keep them and exceed their expectations in the process. People are watching us even when we don’t expect it. What we say and how we conduct our lives must be a reflection of whom and what we claim to believe in.

Building trust requires time and being intentional in your message delivery. People are listening but they may not be hearing your message because you’re only delivering it one way. I encourage you to think outside the box and create a new strategy for delivering your message and building trust with your with clients.

Question: What did I miss? How are you delivering your message in unique ways to build trust with current or prospective clients?

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

How to Deliver Your Message and Build Trust with Clients is a post from: Coach Dan Foster