Motivation is the ability to use your deepest emotions to move and guide you towards your goals. This ability enables you to take the initiative and persevere in the face of obstacles and setbacks. The following suggestions might also help.
Focus on what you want – If you’re finding it difficult to motivate yourself, perhaps you are not doing what you want to do. Consider what you enjoy and work towards that.
Also, if you focus on the negative aspect of what you don’t want and spend your time moving away from the bad, you may find that you do not feel happy with where you end up. The ‘away from’ motivator is useful to start with, but it is directionless and you should choose a ‘toward’ motivator at the earliest opportunity.
Set a date for your goal – This is crucial. Without a set date of achievement your goal is left hanging and becomes a vague notional wish. Set a date, and if you don’t quite make it, re-assess.
Make the goal compelling – If your goal is not attractive, then you are less likely to work towards in a positive way.
Set milestones – If the goal seems overwhelming, break it down into milestones. This will help you to achieve it by making it seem less daunting.
If it’s not a fun goal, focus on the end result – When your goal seems more of chore, but it simply has to be done, target the end result rather than the drudgery of the task. This way you can focus on the positive feeling of achieving the goal rather than the pain of the task itself.
This is a short excerpt from the Trainers Notes in the Trainer Bubble Training Material, 'Emotional Intelligence at Work'. Visit Trainer Bubble today to buy this great resource.
Showing posts with label results. Show all posts
Showing posts with label results. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Monday, 6 August 2007
Developing Well-Formed Outcomes with NLP
An outcome is a goal that you develop in such a way that conforms to your subconscious mind. A goal is usually quite general, whereas an outcome is specific to the individual and provides a very clear understanding of what to do. The structure of an outcome should activate our personal resources in such a way that it becomes actionable.
Going through the six questions creates a detailed internal representation in your mind - an important step in creating a belief in your objective. It may not be necessary to go through all of the questions for every objective. Use your discretion and apply the questions that are appropriate at the time.
1) State you outcome positively
You need to be very clear about what it is that you want so that you can remain focused. You should be precise about what you want as ambiguous definitions will not provide you with the direction you need. If you say, ‘I want to be happier’, then a good joke might suffice! However, if you were to say, ‘I want to lose 2 stone’, the intention is clear.
You should also avoid negative statements as your brain cannot process them. If you say, ‘I don’t want to work here anymore’, all your subconscious can here is, ‘work here’. If you start to think, ‘I don’t want…’ consider what you do want instead and write that as your outcome.
A useful technique when coaching is to ask the coachee what the present situation is and follow this up with what the desired future outcome is.
Where are you now? Where do you want to be?
2) State your outcome in sensory terms
The term representational system refers to how we use our five senses of smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing and feeling to represent or experience events. Everyone has a preferred representational system; some are more visual others are more feelings based. Consider what you will see, hear, feel and so on.
As a coach you should quickly establish the preferred representational system of the coachee and adapt your language to suit.
3) Evidence Procedure
Evidence procedure is another way of asking ‘How will you know that you have achieved your goal?’ The following questions should help you to understand this.
How will I know that I have achieved my outcome? What will I be doing once I have achieved it? What will I see, hear, feel etc. when I achieve it?
4) Is it ecological?
This stage is to ensure that the outcome fits in with all areas of your life. You should consider how it will affect your career, family, health etc. What will be gained? What will be lost?
5) Is it self initiated and are you in control of it?
It may be that someone else wants you to change, but it’s really not something that you want. Of course the likelihood of you achieving your outcome in this case is lessened and so you should ensure that the outcome is driven from within.
You may also find that you achieving your outcome is not solely in your control, this could make it difficult for you to achieve your outcome. Try the following questions to help at this stage.
Who is this outcome created for? Is the outcome solely down to me to achieve?
6) Is the context clearly defined?
The context is the way your outcome will happen. When, where how and with who do I want this? Asking these questions will help you define steps that need to be taken to achieve your outcome.
7) What resources are needed?
What people, knowledge, skills, attributes do you need to help you reach your outcome? Some questions to consider…
What resources do I currently have? What resources do I need to acquire? Have I achieved anything like this before? What can I learn from that? What if I act as if I already had the resources I need?
Using this process will ensure you achieve effective results each time.
This is an excerpt from the training course 'Coaching with NLP', which you can purchase and download from our website at Trainer Bubble.
Going through the six questions creates a detailed internal representation in your mind - an important step in creating a belief in your objective. It may not be necessary to go through all of the questions for every objective. Use your discretion and apply the questions that are appropriate at the time.
1) State you outcome positively
You need to be very clear about what it is that you want so that you can remain focused. You should be precise about what you want as ambiguous definitions will not provide you with the direction you need. If you say, ‘I want to be happier’, then a good joke might suffice! However, if you were to say, ‘I want to lose 2 stone’, the intention is clear.
You should also avoid negative statements as your brain cannot process them. If you say, ‘I don’t want to work here anymore’, all your subconscious can here is, ‘work here’. If you start to think, ‘I don’t want…’ consider what you do want instead and write that as your outcome.
A useful technique when coaching is to ask the coachee what the present situation is and follow this up with what the desired future outcome is.
Where are you now? Where do you want to be?
2) State your outcome in sensory terms
The term representational system refers to how we use our five senses of smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing and feeling to represent or experience events. Everyone has a preferred representational system; some are more visual others are more feelings based. Consider what you will see, hear, feel and so on.
As a coach you should quickly establish the preferred representational system of the coachee and adapt your language to suit.
3) Evidence Procedure
Evidence procedure is another way of asking ‘How will you know that you have achieved your goal?’ The following questions should help you to understand this.
How will I know that I have achieved my outcome? What will I be doing once I have achieved it? What will I see, hear, feel etc. when I achieve it?
4) Is it ecological?
This stage is to ensure that the outcome fits in with all areas of your life. You should consider how it will affect your career, family, health etc. What will be gained? What will be lost?
5) Is it self initiated and are you in control of it?
It may be that someone else wants you to change, but it’s really not something that you want. Of course the likelihood of you achieving your outcome in this case is lessened and so you should ensure that the outcome is driven from within.
You may also find that you achieving your outcome is not solely in your control, this could make it difficult for you to achieve your outcome. Try the following questions to help at this stage.
Who is this outcome created for? Is the outcome solely down to me to achieve?
6) Is the context clearly defined?
The context is the way your outcome will happen. When, where how and with who do I want this? Asking these questions will help you define steps that need to be taken to achieve your outcome.
7) What resources are needed?
What people, knowledge, skills, attributes do you need to help you reach your outcome? Some questions to consider…
What resources do I currently have? What resources do I need to acquire? Have I achieved anything like this before? What can I learn from that? What if I act as if I already had the resources I need?
Using this process will ensure you achieve effective results each time.
This is an excerpt from the training course 'Coaching with NLP', which you can purchase and download from our website at Trainer Bubble.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Sales Culture – Beware of the broken window
There’s a park I walk through on the way home each day. It used to be a very pretty park with vast areas of green freshly clipped grass, commemorative benches with gleaming plaques, pristine toilets that won countless awards, trees that have been there for decades and freshly painted playground equipment for the kids to climb over.
About a year ago I happened to notice that one of the windows of the toilets had been smashed, I could have been wrong, but it looked like someone had thrown a stone through it. I tutted to myself and continued on my way. The next day as I was walking, I noticed that someone had added to the broken window with another and someone else had scrawled their name next to it in giant, sprayed on letters.
Over the year, things have got worse. The green grass has yellowed and is littered with rubbish, the benches have become worn and broken in places and the playground is more rust than paint and seems held together by the marker pen graffiti.
A sad tale of urban decay you may be thinking, but what the heck has it got to do with sales?
The thing that tripped off this series of events was the broken window. I would argue that had that broken window been fixed the day after it’s breaking then the person who broke the second window and left graffiti would not have done so. Consequently the park would not have become an area where it was ‘ok’ to treat with disrespect and it would not have fallen into steady decline.
Again I hear you thinking, I get it, but what the heck has that got to do with sales?
Let’s say you have a team and in the majority they are pretty successful with sales. They are all doing ok and you can see that their skills are developing progressively. However, there is one member of the team that is not on board with the concept. They are disruptive, they complain, they challenge every product by comparing it negatively against competitors and they do their utmost to undermine the process at every opportunity.
Many managers will ignore this person in the hope that they will get so fed up that they move on to another part of the business or even to the competitors they so admire. They’ll invest little time in them and ignore their development. This is a mistake. The person we have described is your ‘broken window’ and all the time they are left ‘un-mended’ they will encourage the same negative behaviour in others, until your business looks as tired and worn as the park I go through every night.
Other people will start to model the behaviours displayed by the broken window and you will notice a steady decline in sales development, after all, ’if they can get away with it, maybe I can too’. It is far easier to change the methods of one than it is to alter the habits of one hundred.
I would even go further than this and say that they are the catalyst and, if turned around, they will move your culture of sales on to the next level. When negative obstructers, who generally court a lot of influence, become flag wavers for the business, you have found a method of ensuring that things happen even when the boss isn’t looking.
Like mending a broken window, it’s not fun and nobody wants to spend the time, money and effort on it, but it’s a lot better than having to re-develop the whole damn park.
Trainer Bubble provide some very useful sales training resources, why not visit and see what we have? Trainer Bubble - Training Resources
About a year ago I happened to notice that one of the windows of the toilets had been smashed, I could have been wrong, but it looked like someone had thrown a stone through it. I tutted to myself and continued on my way. The next day as I was walking, I noticed that someone had added to the broken window with another and someone else had scrawled their name next to it in giant, sprayed on letters.
Over the year, things have got worse. The green grass has yellowed and is littered with rubbish, the benches have become worn and broken in places and the playground is more rust than paint and seems held together by the marker pen graffiti.
A sad tale of urban decay you may be thinking, but what the heck has it got to do with sales?
The thing that tripped off this series of events was the broken window. I would argue that had that broken window been fixed the day after it’s breaking then the person who broke the second window and left graffiti would not have done so. Consequently the park would not have become an area where it was ‘ok’ to treat with disrespect and it would not have fallen into steady decline.
Again I hear you thinking, I get it, but what the heck has that got to do with sales?
Let’s say you have a team and in the majority they are pretty successful with sales. They are all doing ok and you can see that their skills are developing progressively. However, there is one member of the team that is not on board with the concept. They are disruptive, they complain, they challenge every product by comparing it negatively against competitors and they do their utmost to undermine the process at every opportunity.
Many managers will ignore this person in the hope that they will get so fed up that they move on to another part of the business or even to the competitors they so admire. They’ll invest little time in them and ignore their development. This is a mistake. The person we have described is your ‘broken window’ and all the time they are left ‘un-mended’ they will encourage the same negative behaviour in others, until your business looks as tired and worn as the park I go through every night.
Other people will start to model the behaviours displayed by the broken window and you will notice a steady decline in sales development, after all, ’if they can get away with it, maybe I can too’. It is far easier to change the methods of one than it is to alter the habits of one hundred.
I would even go further than this and say that they are the catalyst and, if turned around, they will move your culture of sales on to the next level. When negative obstructers, who generally court a lot of influence, become flag wavers for the business, you have found a method of ensuring that things happen even when the boss isn’t looking.
Like mending a broken window, it’s not fun and nobody wants to spend the time, money and effort on it, but it’s a lot better than having to re-develop the whole damn park.
Trainer Bubble provide some very useful sales training resources, why not visit and see what we have? Trainer Bubble - Training Resources
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Improving Sales Effectiveness – The Question is Why?
Achieving sales success is crucial to every business, after all sales is the only revenue generating function within a company, everything else costs money. So what do we do to ensure that our key players in the sales arena are doing all they can to develop this most important of areas?
Much is said about the process and techniques of sales and there are many books and courses written on the topic of sales strategy. However, I believe the key to improving sales is not what we tell our sales people to do or even how they should do it (although I agree they cannot be overlooked). No, for me the answer is not aligned to things you can teach or processes you can explain. I believe the answer is much simpler and at the same time much harder. The simple fact is that most businesses do not achieve the sales they expect through their people because they never answer the why, or to put it in clear terms ‘Why should I sell this product if I am not motivated to do so by my leaders?’
I have seen many a sales meeting where the sales manager carefully explains what the product does and how it works without once explaining why it is important that the team sell the product at all. What’s in it for them? What’s in it for the business? Why should I sell this product!?
We’ve all heard of features, advantages, benefits and you can be sure that the customer is only interested in the benefit to them of buying a product, so why should this be any different for a salesperson selling a product? They need to know the benefit to them of selling the product, otherwise why should they?
Now I know there are some cynics reading this who will answer the question, ‘Why should I sell this product?’ with the much fancied response of ‘…because you are a salesperson and that’s your job.’ To that I say ‘great’, if you are getting results in this way then carry on doing things just the way you are, but if you’re not getting results using this method I have another response…
…If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.
Now I mentioned earlier that what a product does and how a product should be sold should not be overlooked and I think that is very true, but when you only focus on these you will be left scratching your head as to why your sales team aren’t getting the results. So, a simple way to deal with the issue is to use the following formula…
What + How + Why = Sales
In this formula, ‘What’ is the clarity around the product or service, i.e. do they know the features and benefits of the product? ‘How’ is the capability to sell the product, i.e. do they have the correct skills and techniques? ‘Why’ we can call motivation, i.e. do they understand the benefits to them and the business of selling the product?
You may find that results still come in with one of these elements missing. However, when you combine the elements you will be truly blown away by what you can achieve.
So next time you hold that sales meeting, remember the reasons why.
Much is said about the process and techniques of sales and there are many books and courses written on the topic of sales strategy. However, I believe the key to improving sales is not what we tell our sales people to do or even how they should do it (although I agree they cannot be overlooked). No, for me the answer is not aligned to things you can teach or processes you can explain. I believe the answer is much simpler and at the same time much harder. The simple fact is that most businesses do not achieve the sales they expect through their people because they never answer the why, or to put it in clear terms ‘Why should I sell this product if I am not motivated to do so by my leaders?’
I have seen many a sales meeting where the sales manager carefully explains what the product does and how it works without once explaining why it is important that the team sell the product at all. What’s in it for them? What’s in it for the business? Why should I sell this product!?
We’ve all heard of features, advantages, benefits and you can be sure that the customer is only interested in the benefit to them of buying a product, so why should this be any different for a salesperson selling a product? They need to know the benefit to them of selling the product, otherwise why should they?
Now I know there are some cynics reading this who will answer the question, ‘Why should I sell this product?’ with the much fancied response of ‘…because you are a salesperson and that’s your job.’ To that I say ‘great’, if you are getting results in this way then carry on doing things just the way you are, but if you’re not getting results using this method I have another response…
…If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.
Now I mentioned earlier that what a product does and how a product should be sold should not be overlooked and I think that is very true, but when you only focus on these you will be left scratching your head as to why your sales team aren’t getting the results. So, a simple way to deal with the issue is to use the following formula…
What + How + Why = Sales
In this formula, ‘What’ is the clarity around the product or service, i.e. do they know the features and benefits of the product? ‘How’ is the capability to sell the product, i.e. do they have the correct skills and techniques? ‘Why’ we can call motivation, i.e. do they understand the benefits to them and the business of selling the product?
You may find that results still come in with one of these elements missing. However, when you combine the elements you will be truly blown away by what you can achieve.
So next time you hold that sales meeting, remember the reasons why.
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