ATTENTION DECODED

Sometimes you can't do much to change the asking price of something you are selling.   What you do have control over is people's perception of the value they are getting for the price of something. That sometimes requires knowing what your customer wants because you listened. It also can mean knowing what they might want before they do because you got to know them as an individual. You made an attempt to understand them. Now you can think that them. You will need that when value is what you have to sell to make the sale.

Have you ever noticed that the last person you extend your forgiveness to is sometimes yourself? When someone hurts you, you need to hear him or her say they are sorry. There is good that comes from hearing the communication: “I was wrong”. As humans we forgive others but once we make a mistake, we hold it against ourselves for a long time. It is a long-standing human tradition. Most golden rules advise that we should forgive the people in our lives that have mistreated us. When did that start not including us too? Ourselves. You are a person in your own life after all. It is in our best interest and the interest of those around us to extend forgiveness and positive self-talk. Including us . I have found this works best when you say it out loud. You are the only person you have to spend every moment of your life with. You may as well be friends. I find that the better I am to myself, the better I can be for other people. We promise to be good part...

What if you thought about prospecting as giving away free advice? If you are an expert in your field then what you have to say on that topic is valuable. That is all Lawyers do. They talk about the topic they know best (law) and people consider that a valuable service. People also pay significant amounts of money to get a Lawyers advice. What if one day you got free legal advice from a Lawyer who never attempted to sell you her services? All that schooling, expertise and time invested…and they give it to you free of charge. The Lawyer never tries to sell you her service. The only reason what she does for a living even came up is because you were two strangers that knew nothing about each other. A conversation started because your paths crossed and she asks what line of work you were in. You…she asks about you. She showed genuine interest in you , just because. You in return ask what she did for a living. You happen to mention a situation/comment that ...

Passive aggression is sugar-coated anger. It is a cover up. A sneak attack. A covert way of getting someone back. Some people turn it into a behavioral art form they become so good at it.   But passive aggression is a no-win power struggle. A no-win means no productivity, and there is usually some form of pain involved. Passive aggressive people satisfy their own anger by pushing another person to publicly displaying anger.   It is nothing more than a coping mechanism.   Displaced anger stemmed from a long time of being directly ignored.   Before you label a colleague, client or partner as passive aggressive and throw your hands up feeding the negativity with more negativity… Try assertive communication. Call a spade a spade. Talk about the elephant in the room, and resist any urge to do this with sarcasm—passive aggression’s evil twin. The reality is that a person who is passive aggressive is not being heard and acknowledge...

Gratitude and gravity have a few things common. Both hold you to things other than yourself. Both will keep you grounded. Being grounded helps you remain humble. To be humble is an admission. That your success is due in part to more than you alone. Including the people you serve and work with. The people who see you as a partner and trust you. Having expectations for outcomes is fine. It is hard to reach your full potential without a positive attitude and goals. But don’t confuse expectations with rights…or feelings of being owed something just because you expected it. Problems arise when your expectations require sacrificing your virtues. Tarnishing the brand that is you. Bending in your virtues runs the risk of losing clarity of who you need be in business. The customer. Winning should never get in the way of what your client needs. That goes for winning an argument. Winning should not be a goal. Creating a win-win situation for a deal to ...