9 Habits of People Who Build Extraordinary Relationships

The most extraordinary professional relationships are built by ordinary actions like these.

Professional success is important to everyone, but still, success in business and in life means different things to different people--as well it should.

But one fact is universal: Real success, the kind that exists on multiple levels, is impossible without building great relationships. Real success is impossible unless you treat other people with kindness, regard, and respect.

After all, you can be a rich jerk... but you will also be a lonely jerk.

That's why people who build extraordinary business relationships: 

Management Skills Pyramid

To be successful, there are many skills a manager needs to master. I adapted Kammy Hatnes' pyramid structure to show the increasingly difficult management skills you must master at each level and to also display how these management skills build on each other to help you achieve success in your management career. The result is the Management Skills Pyramid shown here. Each level of the Management Skills Pyramid is listed below and is discussed in more detail on the linked pages.  

The Successful Secrets of Exhibition Management

According to research from the Oxford Economics Facetime publication the Exhibitions Industry contributes £5.6 billion to the UK economy.  Exhibitions if marketed correctly can provide more business for your company then all other sales initiatives combined. An important statistic from Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) states 88 per cent of exhibition visitors will not have been approached by a sales team in the last year. Therefore providing the right exhibition stand provides potential business for an organization.

There are a number of important elements to consider when putting together an exhibition. The exhibition team will need a strong sales force that can captivate an audience and demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for a product. Put in place a PR strategy that seeks to create excitement before, during, and after the show.  Digital media allows PR to become integrated within social channels; this can build relationships with customers and partnerships. Exhibition management is a crucial factor that will determine the outcome of an exhibit’s success, unless the exhibition is running effectively during the show the exhibition is unlikely to be a success. Top tips to succeed are outlined below. 

Make Big Choices

It’s a small choice to spend time in your email. It’s an even smaller choice to leave your email open all day, every day.

It’s a small choice to open the web browser. It’s a small choice to live in Twitter, Facebook, Google plus, or LinkedIn. It’s a small choice to watch that funny YouTube video. Again.

The One Innovation Rule That Matters Most

While I was editing innovation management, I got to see just about the whole range of opinions on what made for good innovation. The problem was, those opinions kept coming round and round. I mean the same ones with only small variation.

The techniques, the motivation workshops, the imploring of people to be more innovative. But there didn’t seem to be much consensus in these techniques, consensus on what really makes innovation work. I used to ask myself could we all, ever, agree – what are the essential ingredients of effective innovation – or were we just going to keep passing around opinions?

Workplace Culture Is More Important Than Anything Else

This is the third of a four-part series called "Big Ideas Small Business." This new editorial series spotlights the best practices for small business leaders working to grow their companies. "Big Ideas, Small Business" is sponsored by The UPS Store.

Companies sink or swim based on their internal culture. One bad hire can have a huge effect on morale, productivity, and ultimately, the bottom line.

Brad Feld, co-founder of startup accelerator TechStars and managing director at VC firm The Foundry Group, says that too many startups focus on hiring for competency over cultural fit. "Many people default into choosing people who have high competence but a low cultural fit," he writes. "This is a deadly mistake in a startup, as this is exactly the wrong person to hire."

What, exactly, is a Relationship Manager?

There are almost as many definitions of Relationship Manager as there are for ‘social media‘ or ‘sales enablement.’  The term used might be ’customer relationship manager’ or ‘business relationship manager’. Some RMs work with deals, some generate income. Some bring in new customers, some cross sell to existing clients. Some manage ‘new client onboarding’ whatever that means. And then there are the group of sales folks who stopped calling themselves ‘Salespeople’ and began calling themselves Relationship Managers just cuz it sounds like they care.

The term gives the seller a good feeling about themselves. It offers the possibility – the hint –  of offering  the client better quality time, more consideration, more attention. But does it offer the buyer anything substantive? I am having a problem with the term, frankly.

3 Tips For Effectively Growing & Managing Your Online Community

We live in a world where shopping, dating, watching new films and networking can all be done online.  In fact, these actions (and many more) have become a part of our everyday life.  Many of us may experience buyers remorse for purchasing something online that wasn’t within budget, a desire to post a bad review after a terrible movie, or have a sense of regret after a bad date.

Social Media Risks Are Real, Not Managing Them is Irresponsible

Social Media Risk Management is a Neccessity for Regulated and Publicly Traded Companies

For many companies the barrier to adopting social media or expanding their digital marketing strategy is risk. These are not small risks; these companies have come face to face with a reality that many of us can’t even fathom. Social media could literally destroy their companies, it could lead to huge regulatory fines, compliance issues and a variety of other issues that can put a choke hold on how many marketers would consider approaching a social media strategy. But the reality is that all risks can be managed if we look them straight in the eye.

While it may not be sexy, social media risk management is a necessary part of every social media strategy. It is important to understand the potential risks social media can bring to any company and put together a plan that mitigates that risk. There are a few common types of risk that need to be considered. 

Ten Things To Do Today To Be A Better Manager

Listed below are ten things you can do to become a better manager. Pick one. Do it today. Pick another one for tomorrow. In two weeks you will be a better manager.

1. Select the best people
As a manager, you are only as good as the people on your team. Give yourself a better chance to succeed by picking the best people from the start.

Read Job Interview Questions to Ask to learn to be better at selecting the best candidate for the job.

2. Be a motivator
Human beings do things because we want to. Sometimes we want to because the consequences of not wanting to do something are unpleasant. However, most of the time we want to do things because of what we get out of it.

7 Steps to Regaining Your Focus

Daphne Vandergrift Elizalde had been running her Newport Beach, Calif., art consulting business for 12 years when she decided to start a second company. For this lifelong multitasker, running two businesses didn't seem too daunting

But after she founded her customized chocolates business in 2010, juggling multiple tasks seemed more distracting than productive. Taking a phone call while also working on a packaging design, for example, meant she either focused too little on the conversation or had to go back and double check her work.

Elizalde finally decided to quit multitasking. When she began thinking of other unfinished tasks, she no longer tried to juggle multiple things, but instead jotted down whatever came to mind and returned to it later. “Cutting out that multitasking is very hard in the beginning,” she says, “but it makes a world of difference.”

Strategic Marketing of Managing Expectations

“Happiness is in expectations management.”

Let’s try to apply this wisdom to Product Marketing and Marketing Strategy. For example, your company expects a product to generate specific and positive cash flow over a period of its life, and your customers expect the product to reliably perform functions you have promised them in your marketing communications.

I would like to pose that pro-active management of  your customers expectations will dramatically improve the probability of your product’s success.

It is important to take a look at the entire cycle of creation and management of expectations process:

Mystery Shops: Retailers – Now Is The Time

Have you heard of the runaway success of the burger franchise Five Guys?

What’s one of the big reasons Five Guys is wildly successful? They send mystery shoppers out twice a week to all locations. The brothers who run the operation also constantly visit the restaurants.
Five Guys knows you need to inspect what you expect.

High standards each and every day ensure the right employees do the right things.

Training new retail employees to 100% and then making them work for managers who don’t run the shifts up to high standards is spinning your company’s wheels and lowering the brand perception in customers’ eyes.

Talent Management: Are You Missing Your New Product Sales Quota?

If you’re like most VPs of Sales, the company has released some new products and you’re missing the first year quota. The question you’re asking is “do I have the right people”?

A Talent Management article in the McKinsey Quarterly cited this statistic: 54% of senior managers interviewed agreed they didn’t spend enough time on talent management.

How to use Social Media for Employer Branding and Recruitment

Strategic HR entails attracting, developing and retaining high-performing candidates to your company. Previously, companies would communicate with employees and candidates via traditional push messages, but now they are required to adapt to the changing consumer and employee behavior, where the tendency is to rely on and trust peer recommendations.

10 Reasons Why Your Employees Hate You

In the world of employees, a good boss is differentiated from a bad boss by the way the boss makes the employees feel. They also assess the boss based on his or her contribution – or lack thereof – to their ability to get their jobs done successfully.

Employees tolerate a lot of bad boss behavior. Many bosses are untrained, uncaring, and not held accountable for their actions and interaction with employees. Some were promoted to jobs above their competence to perform. Bad management practices weigh heavily in whether your employees hate you.
If any of these practices spell out your actions and behaviors as a manager, it is true. Your employees probably hate you. Oh, they may like you as a person and hate you as a boss, but that’s treading on a narrow line. If you bungle management long enough, or badly enough, they will hate you as a person, too

How to Find a Great Sales Coach

Today’s post outlines how you can find the best sales trainer or coach for your particular situation.

Disclaimer: In case you think this is a post to promote my services, I very rarely do one-on-one coaching with sales people because it simply isn’t part of my business model. I would much rather coach a sales manager or someone who supervises a sales team.

There are hundreds of sales trainers, coaches and companies in North America. In fact, I personally know at least 50 people who specialize in this area.

5 Tips to Manage & Reduce Web Design Costs

It is important to have a strong web presence to keep ahead of the competition. However, some of the costs associated with website design are prohibitive. Here are five ways to help lower costs and keep them down:

1. Use freelancers: Freelancers will often produce quality work for less money than a design firm will charge. Why? Because they need to undercut the competition to compete. Whether you need a writer, a graphic artist, back-end programmer or concept artist, a good web design freelancer can do better work for half the cost.  Elance.com has some great freelancers that you can work with, and also offers an escrow system so that your funds are safe.

Debunking the Brochure Myth

Promotional material doesn’t influence prospects. Advisors are their own brand.

Few things seem to attract a financial advisor’s attention more than brochures.  The reasoning is straightforward—advisors operate in a world of intangibles, so they need something tangible to showcase themselves, their practice/team, and what they deliver.  The idea is that brochures are so professionally compelling that they make clients proud and entice prospects to join the advisor’s book.

Surprising Secret to Time Management

Many time management systems encourage you to waste time. Here's a simple way to spend time more wisely.
When you draw up to-do lists, set schedules, make appointments, and so forth, chances are you're wasting most of your time.

Turn out there's a mathematical law called the Pareto Principle, which says that (in most situations) 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

The most famous example of this is the oft-repeated factoid that in sales groups 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the team.  (There are dozens of other examples, ranging from wealth distribution to damage from natural disasters.)