Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 26, 2008
A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questions.
There is something about a well-worded question that often penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas and insights.
Questions Stimulate Creative Thinking
Some of the best questions I’ve found for business problem solving are the following:
Clarify Your Desired Result
Question #1 "What are we trying to do?" Whenever you become frustrated with slow progress for any reason, step back and ask this again and again, "What are we trying to do?"
Analyze Your Current Methods
Question #2 "How are we trying to do it?" If you are experiencing resistance, perhaps your method is wrong. Be willing to objectively analyze your approach by asking, "How are we trying to do it?" Is this the right way? Could there be a better way? What if our method was completely wrong? How else could we approach it?
Could You Be Wrong?
It requires courage to face the possibility that you may be wrong but it also leads to your seeing new possibilities. The rule is: Always decide what’s right before worrying about who’s right.
Question Your Assumptions
Another good question is, "What are our assumptions?" About the person, the product, the market, the business? What are our assumptions? Could we be assuming something that is incorrect? Someone once said that "Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure".
What if your unspoken or implied assumptions were wrong? What would you have to do differently?
Put Past Decisions on Trial
Another form of focused questioning is what I call "Zero based thinking." This method requires that you put every past decision on trial for its life regularly by asking, "If I had not made this decision, knowing what I now know, would I make it?" If I had not hired this person or gotten involved in this project, knowing what I now know, would I do it over again?
If the answer is "NO" to one of these questions, then your aim should be to get out of the decision as fast as possible. Be willing to "cut your losses," and try something else.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to trigger more and better ideas.
First, be very clear about exactly what it is that you are trying to do. Write it down and describe it as if it were already achieved.
Second, question your assumptions continually. What if there were a better way? Be willing to try something completely different.
The Power of Branding
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Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 24, 2008
Everyone makes mistakes and the busier you are, the more mistakes you will make.
The only question is "How well and how effectively do you deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life?"
In this newsletter, you learn the difference between a positive and negative worldview. You learn how to benefit from your mistakes and how to remain positive in the face of adversity.
Let the Light Shine In
This is achieved through the simple exercise of self-disclosure. For you to truly understand yourself, or to stop being troubled by things that may have happened in your past, you must be able to disclose yourself to at least one person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed for what has happened.
Using Stumbling Blocks as Stepping Stones
There are two ways to look at the world: the benevolent way or the malevolent way. People with a malevolent or negative worldview take a victim stance, seeing life as a continuous succession of problems and a process of unfairness and oppression. They don’t expect a lot and they don’t get much. When things go wrong, they shrug their shoulders and passively accept that this is the way life is and there isn’t anything they can do to make it better.
On the other hand, people with a benevolent or positive worldview see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive expectations. They expect a lot and they are seldom disappointed.
Flex Your Mental Muscles
When you develop the skill of learning from your mistakes, you become the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move ahead. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.
Two of the most common ways to deal with mistakes are invariably fatal to high achievement. The first common but misguided way to handle a mistake is the failure to accept it when it occurs. According to statistics, 70 percent of all decisions we make will be wrong. That’s an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70 percent of the time, and some people will fail less. It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. In fact, if this is the case, how can our society continue to function at all?
Cut Your Losses
The fact is that our society, our families, our companies, and our relationships continue to survive and thrive because intelligent people tend to cut their losses and minimize their mistakes. It is only when people refuse to accept that they have made a bad choice or decision-and prolong the consequences by sticking to that bad choice or decision-that mistakes become extremely expensive and hurtful.
Learn From Your Mistakes
The second common approach that people take with regard to their mistakes, one that hurts innumerable lives and careers, is the failure to use your mistakes to better yourself and to improve the quality of your mind and your thinking.
Learning from your mistakes is an essential skill that enables you to develop the resilience to be a master of change rather than a victim of change. The person who recognizes that he has made a mistake and changes direction the fastest is the one who will win in an age of increasing information, technology and competition.
By remaining fast on your feet, you will be able to out-play and out-position your competition. You will become a creator of circumstances rather than a creature of circumstances.
Action Exercises
Now, here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, imagine that your biggest problem or challenge in life has been sent to you at this moment to help you, to teach you something valuable. What could it be?
Second, be willing to cut your losses and walk away if you have made a mistake or a bad choice. Accept that you are not perfect, you can’t be right all the time, and then get on with your life.
Third, learn from every mistake you make. Write down every lesson it contains. Use your mistakes in the present as stepping stones to great success in the future.
21 Great Ways to Live to be 100
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Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 24, 2008
How to get support for your ideas more easily than ever before.
Many years ago a retiring executive gave me an old pamphlet he had carried throughout his career. It was entitled, "Take Time Out for Mental Digestion."
He told me that this little pamphlet had been one of the most helpful things he had ever read in his business life. At the time I spoke to him he was the president of a corporation with more than 10,000 employees.
The message of this pamphlet was simple. It said that people always resist new ideas and new courses of action, even if the ideas are good for them. However, if they have an opportunity to think about them for a few days, very often they will come around to the new way of thinking with both agreement and enthusiasm.
The pamphlet said that an individual needs about 72 hours to absorb a new idea. Effective executives are those who present their ideas in very casual way, rather than as a decision or a fact engraved in stone. They present their thoughts as ideas for consideration. Effective executives encourage the other person to take the new idea or new way of doing things and think about it for a few days. They say that "we can discuss this later" and they just leave the idea with the other person.
Over the years, I have found this to be a remarkable piece of advice and a very important insight to communicating effectively with others.
People Will Resist Change
It is normal and natural for people to resist change of any kind, even and including a change that they will benefit from. So, allow them to take time out for mental digestion. Present your new idea in a low keyed, non-threatening way and just encourage the individual to think about it for a while and then discuss it later.
Present Ideas As Possibilities
In my early executive career, I was continually frustrated by trying to get my ideas, which I had thought through and which I, of course, thought were wonderful, accepted by my seniors and my co-workers.
When I started taking time out for mental digestion and just presented my ideas as possibilities, I was astonished at how much more readily people turned around and came to see the validity of the ideas. I also found that, if you present an idea with too much enthusiasm, you trigger natural resistance which soon becomes ego-based, irrespective of the validity of the ideas.
Present Ideas in a Low-Keyed Manner
On the other hand, if you present your ideas in a low-keyed manner and just leave them for consideration, people can come around to accepting them in their own time and embracing your new ideas without any loss of face or without any ego problems.
The next time you have a great idea, mention it casually and ask other people what they think about it. Give people time to digest the idea, even if they are totally opposed to it at the beginning.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do to use this principle in practice.
First, think your ideas through on paper before you present them to others. Expect natural resistance. When you do present your ideas, do it in a low keyed, almost indifferent manner so that it stirs up no resistance.
Second, expect your ideas to be rejected initially. When this happens, simply ask open ended questions to get feedback and then present your ideas again at a later time in a different form. It is amazing how effective this strategy will be.
The Life Planning Process
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Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 21, 2008
This is one of the most important of all the laws of money.
The Law of Investing - investigate before you invest. This is one of the most important of all the laws of money. You should spend at least as much time studying a particular investment as you do earning the money to put into that particular investment.
Check Every Detail
Never let yourself be rushed into parting with money. You have worked too hard to earn it and taken too long to accumulate it. Investigate every aspect of the investment well before you make any commitment. Ask for full and complete disclosure of every detail. Demand honest, accurate and adequate information on any investment of any kind. If you have any doubt or misgivings at all, you will probably be better off keeping your money in the bank or in a money market investment account than you would be speculating or taking the risk of losing it.
Money is Easy to Lose
The first corollary of the Law of Investing is: "The only thing easy about money is losing it." It is hard to make money in a competitive market but losing it is one of the easiest things you can ever do. A Japanese proverb says, "Making money is like digging with a nail, while losing money is like pouring water on the sand."
The Best Rule of All
The second corollary of this law comes from the self-made billionaire, Marvin Davis, who was asked about his rules for making money in an interview in Forbes Magazine.
He said that he has one simple rule and it is, "Don’t lose money." He said that if there is a possibility that you will lose your money, don’t part with it in the first place. This principal is so important that you should write it down and put it where you can see it. Read it and reread it over and over.
Time Equals Money
Think of your money as if it were a piece of your life. You have to exchange a certain number of hours, weeks and even years of your time in order to generate a certain amount of money for savings or investment. That time is irreplaceable. It is a part of your precious life that is gone forever. If all you do is hold on to the money, rather than losing it, that alone can assure that you achieve financial security. Don’t lose money.
Be Smart About Investing
The third corollary of the Law of Investing says: "If you think you can afford to lose a little, you’re going to end up losing a lot."
There is something about the attitude of a person who feels that he has enough money that he can afford to risk losing a little. You remember the old saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted." There’s another saying, "When a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with the money is going to end up with the experience and the man with the experience is going to end up with the money." Always ask yourself what would happen if you lost one hundred percent of your money in a prospective investment. Could you handle that? If you could not, don’t make the investment in the first place.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:
First, think back over the various financial mistakes you have made in your life. What did they have in common? What can you learn from them? Accurate diagnosis is half the cure.
Second, invest only in things that you fully understand and believe in. Take investment advice only from people who are financially successful from taking their own advice. Play it safe. It’s better to hold onto your money rather than to take a chance of losing it, along with all the time it took you to earn it.
Negotiate the Best Deal
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Tags: Financial Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 20, 2008
Is your business struggling?
Are you looking for a way to ramp up sales and keep your business growing, even in this economy?
If you’re like most entrepreneurs and business owners, you know that a website should be part of your marketing strategy. And you also are smart enough to know that most websites don’t work.
Most websites are like boats: holes people pour money into. I should know; I pour money into my boat on a regular basis…but I don’t mind because I don’t expect to make a profit from my boat.
My website is different. The purpose of my website is to maximize revenue, not swallow up cash.
Are you pouring time and money into the hole that is your website?
Do you want to know how to use your website to maximize your revenue?
The Secret To Making Money In This Economy
Want to know the secret to making money with your website?
Simply having a website isn’t going to help you make more money. And if you think all you need is more traffic, you’re wrong (although that can help)…lots of visitors doesn’t equal lots of money.
So what’s the secret to making money with your website? The secret is having a system that converts prospects into profits.
Ready to discover how easy it is to convert more prospects in profits?
The #1 way to make money online is to use a simple set of steps to convert website visitors — your prospects — into profits. That’s the simple strategy we’ve used with incredible success here at Brian Tracy International.
Making money online isn’t rocket science, but it’s not obvious, either. If it were, everyone would be doing it. So how, then, do you create a system that turns prospects into profits?
The System We Use
Our website at Brian Tracy International has always had a good conversion ratio, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t always looking to improve it.
In early 2007 my staff discovered the "Insider Secrets to Creating Web Sites That Sell", created by Internet marketing expert Charlie Cook. What we discovered was an easy-to-implement, step-by-step system that helped us turn our web visitors into massive web profits.
Want to benefit from the same online success strategy?
Within just a few weeks of using Charlie’s system, our conversion ratio had increased — along with our profitability — and our business was growing.
Even today — with the economy struggling — we are turning huge profits by converting online prospects into paying customers.
The "Insider Secrets to Creating Web Sites That Sell" spells out the steps you need to take in order to create a system that will convert prospects into profits. It is easy to use and it works.
Find out for yourself how much more you could be making with your website.
How You Can Turn Prospects Into Profits — Fast
With a tough economy, I know you can use higher profits without increasing your costs. That’s why I convinced Charlie Cook to make a special offer to Brian Tracy subscribers.
Charlie’s "Insider Secrets to Creating Web Sites That Sell" is the fastest way to increase your profits in this market and he has agreed to offer Brian Tracy subscribers an exclusive risk-free 30-day test drive for only $2.95.
If you want to make more money with your website and maximize your profits, I highly recommend you pick up Charlie’s system today.
Use this web marketing system to transform prospects to profits.We did. Take action today. I’ve persuaded Charlie Cook to give Brian Tracy subscribers an exclusive, risk-free 30-day test-drive for only $2.95.
Claim your trial copy here.
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Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 20, 2008
Building and maintaining long-term selling relationships is the key behavior and skill of the top ten percent of the money earners in sales, in every field, selling every product and service.
If you could take everything we know about communications, put it all in a large pot, boil it and distill it down into its critical essence, it is about the importance of relationships in successful selling.
The Reason for Success
Most of your success in life will depend on your ability to get along well with other people, and on the quality of your relationships. Psychologist Sidney Jourard, found that 85 percent of a person’s happiness in life comes from happy interactions with other people. The reverse holds true as well: 85 percent of a person’s unhappiness or problems in life comes from difficulties in getting along with others.
Sell to Lots of People
Anyone can sell to a few people, some of the time. But only the very best human relations experts can sell to a wide variety of people, and sell to them repeatedly. The only way that you can make the kind of big money that you are capable of is by selling more easily, and more often, to the prospects you talk to, and by having those prospects open doors to others through testimonials and referrals. All top salespeople build and maintain high quality business relationships with their customers and sell to them repeatedly year after year.
Outselling Your Competition is easy when you have built long-term relationships with clients.
Decide Emotionally, Justify Logically
We are all sensitive to the quality of our relationships with other people. We are primarily emotional and we make most of our decisions on the basis of how we feel inside. We may carefully consider all of the logical and practical reasons why or why not with regard to buying a product or service, but in the final analysis we tend to go with our gut feeling. We listen to our inner voices. We obey the dictates of our hearts. We buy on the basis of how we feel about the relationship that we have with the other person. Where there is no relationship, there is no sale.
Focus on the Key Variable
Everything that you ever learned of value in the profession of selling, regarding your product or service, or personality, is only helpful to the degree to which it contributes to the building of high quality relationships with customers.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, become a relationship expert in sales. Focus first on the relationship, above all, and the sale will take care of itself.
Second, take care of your relationships once you have built them. Never take them for granted. Tend to them as you would to a flower garden.
Outselling Your Competition *** Plus Bonus CDs
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Tags: Sales Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 17, 2008
Get Better Results than Ever Before
There are several principles of military strategy that you can apply to your business, every single day. These can help you to think better and get better results than ever before.
Do the Unexpected
One really helpful military principle that can be applied to business is the Principle of Surprise. The principle of surprise says, "do the unexpected!" In sales and marketing, this means to be continually seeking ways to out-flank or upset your competition.
Do the Opposite of Before
Sometimes doing exactly the opposite of what you have been doing up till now can turn out to be the perfect solution. The natural tendency for a person, when they find themselves in a hole, is to dig deeper. In many cases, the solution is to go and dig somewhere else. Remember, the first law of holes is, "When you find yourself in one, stop digging."
Follow-up and Follow-Through
A second military principle that applies to business is the Principle of Exploitation. The principle of exploitation emphasizes the importance of follow-up and follow-through. In business, this means that, when you get an opportunity, you exploit it to the fullest extent possible. If you have a great promotional idea or product or service, you sell all you can. You take advantage of your idea or breakthrough and use every opportunity to capitalize on it.
Work Harmoniously With Others
The third principle of military strategy that applies to personal and corporate thinking is the Principle of Cooperation. In business, this is often called the principle of synergy. In military terms, this is often called the principle of "concerted action." In business terms, your ability to work effectively and harmoniously with other individuals and groups is more responsible for your success than any other quality.
Win the Cooperation of Key People
A key part of strategic thinking is for you to identify the individuals, groups and organizations whose cooperation you will require to achieve your goals. Make a list of them and then organize the list in order of importance. Then ask yourself, "How am I going to win their cooperation?"
Answer Everyone’s Favorite Question
Everybody wants to know, "what’s in it for me?" The effective executive is always looking for ways to help or assist others knowing that this is the only sure way to create within them a desire to help you to achieve your goals.
By doing the unexpected, by following up and following through, and by constantly looking for ways to get other people to cooperate with you, you will accomplish more in a shorter time than you might ever have imagined.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to apply these ideas in your business and in your work:
First, look at your job, especially the areas where you are experiencing frustration, and question whether or not there is a completely different way of approaching your problem or situation. Do the unexpected. Perhaps you should be doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing today. All success in business comes from surprising the competition in some way.
Second, identify the people, groups and organizations whose assistance you will need to achieve your goal. Continually look for ways to earn their support and cooperation by thinking in terms of what is in it for them.
Power Networking
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Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 17, 2008
You Get What You Give
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay, "Compensation," wrote that each person is compensated in like manner for that which he or she has contributed. The Law of Compensation is another restatement of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. It says that you will always be compensated for your efforts and for your contribution, whatever it is, however much or however little.
Increase Your Value
This Law of Compensation also says that you can never be compensated in the long term for more than you put in. The income you earn today is your compensation for what you have done in the past. If you want to increase your compensation, you must increase the value of your contribution.
Fill Your Mind With Success
Your mental attitude, your feelings of happiness and satisfaction, are also the result of the things that you have put into your own mind. If you fill your own mind with thoughts, visions and ideas of success, happiness and optimism, you will be compensated by those positive experiences in your daily activities.
Do More Than You’re Paid For
Another corollary of the Law of Sowing and Reaping is what is sometimes called the, "Law of Overcompensation." This law says that great success comes from those who always make it a habit to put in more than they take out. They do more than they are paid for. They are always looking for opportunities to exceed expectations. And because they are always overcompensating, they are always being over rewarded with the esteem of their employers and customers and with the financial rewards that go along with their personal success.
Provide the Causes, Enjoy The Effects
One of your main responsibilities in life is to align yourself and your activities with Law of Cause and Effect (and its corollaries), accepting that it is an inexorable law that always works, whether anyone is looking or not. Your job is to institute the causes that are consistent with the effects that you want to enjoy in your life. When you do, you will realize and enjoy the rewards you desire.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, remind yourself regularly that your rewards will always be in direct proportion to your service to others. How could you increase the value of your services to your customers today?
Second, look for ways to go the extra mile, to use the Law of Overcompensation in everything you do. This is the great secret of success.
Flight Plan *** PLUS Bonuses
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Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 13, 2008
Listen Attentively When Others Speak
There are books, articles and multi-day courses on listening. There are audio/video-learning programs that include hours of instruction and a variety of exercises. They are all valuable and helpful, but what they teach can be distilled down into a key skill. Your mastery of these skills, through discipline and practice, is all you need to become an excellent listener, with all that that entails.
Listen Attentively When Others Speak
The best listening skill is to listen attentively. Lean forward; face the prospect directly rather than at an angle. Focus your attention on the prospects face, on his or her mouth and eyes.
Hang On Every Word
Listen without interruption. Listen as though you were hanging on every word the prospect was saying. Listen as if the prospects were about to give you the winning lottery number and you would only hear it once. Listen as if this were a million dollar prospect who was just on the verge of giving you a major order. Listen as if there were no one else in the world to whom you would rather listen at this moment than this prospect, and to what this prospect is saying.
The Most Important Skill of All
The ability to pay close, uninterrupted attention to a person when he is speaking is the primary listening skill. It is the hardest facility to develop and is simultaneously the most important of all. It requires continuous practice and discipline. And it’s not easy. It is hard to keep your thoughts from wandering, but the payoff is tremendous.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, imagine that your customer is the most fascinating person in the world. Hang on every word as if he was about to place a million dollar order.
Lastly, lean forward when your customer speaks. Nod, smile, agree and be both active and involved. Listening builds sales relationships.
Communicate With Power
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Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 11, 2008
Are you wondering what to do to attract clients and create a surge in sales?
Are you frustrated by getting minimal response to your advertising or online promotions? Are you asking yourself,
"How can I avoid having my sales and profits dry up in this market?"
"Should I reduce spending on marketing to preserve cash?"
If you’re like most business owners and marketers, you’re doing everything you know how to bring in more sales, and you’re still not realizing the profits you want. You’ve worked for years to grow your business and now a financial meltdown that you had nothing to do with is making it harder.
What can you do? You could bury your head in the sand and hope you’ve still got a business in a few years. You could copy your competitors’ marketing, but their sales are hurting, too. Or you could ask yourself,
"Is there a way I can actually grow my business in this economy?"
Yes, there are easy and inexpensive ways to increase your profits.
Start with these 3 steps:
1. Change Your Marketing Strategy
When we get the rare cold spell here in San Diego, I change the clothing I wear. I put on a sweater or even a jacket. The same is true for your marketing strategy; when the economic climate changes, you need to respond.
In good times you can get away with fairly ineffective marketing, and the rising tide will float your boat along with everybody else’s. In an economic downturn, you can’t afford to be haphazard about your marketing. You’ll pay the price in reduced sales. Spending money on ads or mailings that barely generate sales isn’t affordable anymore.
2. Focus Your Efforts
While fusion food is popular here in San Diego, we don’t have a single restaurant that is a combination of French, Italian, Mexican and Chinese cuisines. Can you imagine a pasta dish with jalapeno cream sauce and a ginger root topping? It’d taste terrible. That’s not a time-tested combination of flavors; it’s a mess in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, most small business marketing isn’t much more than a mess in the kitchen, a collection of sales and marketing activities that don’t work together. Many businesses don’t grow as fast as they could because they don’t have an optimized marketing strategy or a system for implementing it.
3. Use Cost Effective Marketing Strategies
Let me tell you a secret. Some of the most effective marketing and selling tools are inexpensive or even free. Most people don’t use them, so when you do, you can easily beat the competition. 92% of businesses overspend on marketing. They’re wasting money on marketing that isn’t getting results.
You may be doing all the right marketing activities, but without an effective marketing system, you could be struggling for a long, unprofitable time. Now, thanks to marketing expert Charlie Cook, there’s an easy way to transform your marketing, grow your business and maximize your profits.
Magical Marketing
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Tags: Sales Success
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