Counter Assertion

Did you know that every successful professional has one thing in common? They all possess a strong level of emotional resilience.
We’re they born with it? No, in most cases they learned it as an ability necessary for survival in business.

What is emotional resilience:

It is the ability to quickly return to a state of poise, confidence and ease no matter what curves are thrown your way. How do you get there?

Here are the 7 Steps:

1. Have a strong level of belief in yourself:

Know that whatever happens, you are offering to the marketplace something that is extremely valuable. Know your uniqueness and communicate it clearly.

2. Have strong boundaries:

You don’t need emotional walls in business but you do need to set and maintain strong boundaries. This especially includes the ability to say “no”

3. Always go for a win/win:

Give yourself permission to know what you want and go for it. Make sure it is a win/win.Rule of thumb—if the interaction is not going to be a win/win, refuse to be involved in it.

4. Keep an attitude of high intentions and low attachment:
When you’re in negotiation, you need to be strong and assertive with a high intention to succeed. It may sound paradoxical but you must be detached from the outcome, knowing that you did your best.

5. Remain focused on the task and keep your emotions in check:

In your personal life, live it up! Have a ball! Allow yourself to laugh, cry and get angry. It’s good for your soul. However, in your business life, keep cool and keep your emotions in check. This will make it easier for you to attend to the task at hand.

6. Stop trying to make your clients into your friends:

If you really want to be emotionally resilient, don’t create dual relationships. They tempt you to get emotionally involved and then take everything personally. To be resilient, you need to stay impersonal, i. e. centered and calm.

7. Create positive self-talk:

Don’t let your Inner Critic run the show. Develop the voice of your Inner Ally so that you are always tuned into positive self talk. You’ll hear statements like :
“Good Job” or “Don’t sweat the small stuff”

How good are you at keeping your Inner Critic at bay and filling up your mind with positive self- talk, like “I’m proud of myself for…”?

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In my travels across North America speaking on motivation and human potential I hear the same question asked repeatedly, “How can I become more assertive?” There is no doubt about it, there are people in our lives who are harmful to our health and we don’t like it one bit.

I wrote the following report in response to the question, “How can I learn to cope with the difficult people in my life?” From the reaction I have had to this report it is proving helpful. I do want to say emphatically that what you read here won’t do a thing to improve your situation unless you have the courage to use the suggestions given. Go for it! You’re worth the effort.

TOXIC PEOPLE………

rob us of our dignity.

destroy our self confidence.

increase our stress levels.

destroy our morale.

erode our self esteem.

foster negativity.

decrease productivity.

make life hellish.

are abusive.

are toxic because they can get away with it and it works for them.

HOW TO DEAL WITH TOXIC PEOPLE

Remember that you can’t change toxic people, but you can learn to cope with them. Here are some effective strategies to try.

* Always stand at eye level with the person you are confronting. Never have them standing over you looking down.

* Respect the toxic person and always expect respect in return. Settle for nothing less.

* Remain calm.

* Listen attentively.

* Don’t argue or interrupt, just listen.

* Don’t accuse or judge, just state how you feel.

* If the toxic person tries to verbally bully you, just say, ” I don’t allow people to treat me this way.” Then slowly and calmly walk away.

* When someone is being toxic to you here is a powerful response and one that is easy to use because you don’t have to say a word. In the midst of a toxic attack just PAUSE….LOOK AT THE PERSON, WITHOUT EMOTION……TURN AND WALK AWAY. It works!

* Anger is sometimes a valid response.

* If all else fails you might be left with only one option; to separate yourself from the toxic person in your life.

YOU DON’T EXIST TO BE SOMEONE’S PERSONAL GARBAGE DUMP.

This is an excerpt from Mike’s manual DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE. http://www.motivationalplus.com/store.html

Mike Moore is an international speaker and writer on ” Humor and Stress Management” ” Humor in the Workplace” and ” Humor and Human Relations”

Criteria Elicitation

This is without a doubt the most important persuasion skill that you can learn. If you’ll learn to apply this to every situation in which you find yourself you’ll be amazed at the positive results! Many of the hypnotic skills I’ll be sharing with you have a parallel in old sales training techniques. This one is no exception! Lets say that you are needing to convince someone to do something, accept something, or behave in a certain way. You will need to communicate with their powerful subconscious to get your desired agreement. Once a person’s subconscious “buys in” to what you are proposing they will just naturally seem to come over to your way of thinking. The question then becomes “how do I get my message to the person’s subconscious?” Here’s your answer-elicit their true criteria. Simply put, ask. Try this one SALESMAN John what’s important to you when shopping for a new car? JOHN Well I like to know that the person I’m dealing with is honest.” SALESMAN Yes honesty is the best policy. What else is valuable to you when you are making the decision about a car? JOHN I like to know the car has a high reliability rating from Consumer Reports SALESMAN an unreliable car is not an acceptable situation. What else is important john? JOHN I want to know that I got a really good price.

In the above can you put John’s criteria in order of importance? If you chose 3, 2, 1 you were right! Our hypnotically trained sales man knew to ask at least three times what was really important or valuable. He agreed and parroted each answer so that John’s SC would react to him as a friend (rapport) John’s SC would give increasingly important info each time he was asked what’s important. So our salesman needs to focus on showing John that he is getting a good price on a reliable car from a trusted advisor. When you need to convince someone first you should establish rapport. The easiest way to do that is to ask some questions about things important to that person. Some people go after rapport by starting with stuff like “how do you like this weather?” A great way to establish rapport is to share some detail from your own life first. “John you should have been with me last week at the golf range! I was hitting them long and straight! Or “my daughter just got the lead in the school play!” People usually respond with instant liking for you when you share a detail from your life. Once you have conversed for awhile (small talk?) then you can get to the elicitation stage. “Bosswhat’s important to you about how my sales job is performed?” What else? What else?

Surveys are formalized attempts at criteria elicitation.

Once you know someone’s criteria then you have the roadmap to structure your persuasion attempts. By focusing on their criteria you will be seen as perceptive, insightful and caring! “Honey what’s valuable to you in a relationship” What else? What else?

Structure your communication to take advantage of the criteria that you have elicited and you’ll always come out a winner!

Any Questions?

About The Author

John M. Satterfield is a certified hypnotherapist and the marketing director for a small chain of nursing homes in North Central Arkansas. He is married and lives in a home in the woods with his wife and his “little blond psychiatrist” the cocker Spaniel Sir Lancelot His web site is www.Hypnosisucanuse.com You can sign up for his free ezine called Hypnosis You Can Use at hypnosisucanuse@getresponse.com

hypnosispower@yahoo.com

Read any business magazine or newspaper and what you will see are stories about large corporations and their executives. What you will not see, except in a few specialized journals, are stories about small businesses. There are many things that large corporations can learn from small businesses.

Sales

Everyone is in sales. Most large corporations have sales organizations with sales managers and executives. They also have extensive sales processes and infrastructure. The key for a small business is that it is up to everyone to sell. All the time and regardless of role.

Customers

Customers are the beginning and the end and everything in between for small businesses. Somehow large corporations lose sight of that fact. They create special, complex and inflexible points for touching new and existing customers. In a small business, everything is about the customer. Part of that includes making things as easy for the customer as possible.

Planning

Large corporations are not the only businesses that do planning. I have yet to meet a small business owner who does not have a business plan on their desk on in their brief case. The difference is that in a large corporation they are organizations that handle business planning. And there are designated people in each organization who do the business planning. In a small business, business planning is above and beyond the “day job” of the business. And all the key people are directly involved in creating the business plan.

Costs and Expenses

Large corporations are famous for saving on nickels and dimes and spending millions. They often squeeze the workers and spend money on lavish perks for executives and sales conferences. Small businesses look at every single expenditure. They view the expenses like it was each employee’s own checking account. Each expense is reviewed to insure it is absolutely essential and to determine what revenue benefit it will bring to the business. Small business is not trying to keep up with the joneses but rather be as profitable and successful in their market space as they can be.

Ideas and Innovation

Large corporations have two streams for ideas. One is dubbed “research and development”. The ideas people. The scientists and professional innovators. The other is the executives. They are up their and make a lot of money. They must be smart and have great new ideas. In small businesses, the ideas of everyone count. This includes all the employees, customers, suppliers and basically anyone who touches the business. No one person, role or function has a monopoly on new and innovative ideas for growing the business and making it more successful.

Executives

In most large corporations today, the executives are well educated and have worked for many other corporations of a number of years. Some are sales people, some are financial people and some are from a professional background such as law. Most are long removed from dealing with entry level workers and their interaction with customers is at a level equal to their rank and status. The leaders of small businesses often have had other small businesses. Some have succeeded. Often others have had businesses fail. Most love building businesses and creating something from nothing. They love dealing with customers directly. And they love creating value whether it is a product or a service for the marketplace. Most small business leaders value rank and its trappings less than the satisfaction of creating jobs, satisfying customers and generating wealth. When they tire of this they sell it and create something new rather than move from the pinnacle of one enterprise to the pinnacle of another.

Large corporations do many things right. But large corporations would be well served to step back and evaluate what makes small businesses successful. Many of these traits and practices could make large corporations even more effective and less self-serving.

George F. Franks, III is the founder and President of Franks Consulting Group - a Bethesda, Maryland based management consulting and leadership coaching practice. He is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants (USA) and the International Coach Federation. George can be reached at:
gfranks@franksconsultinggroup.com

Franks Consulting Group is on the web at:
http://franksconsultinggroup.com

George’s weblog is:
http://consultingandcoaching.blogspot.com