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Aspire to be a CEO: Avoid travelling with your bosses!

This rule is some what counter-intuitive.
Most aspirants to the top jobs, usually jump at the opportunity to travel with the superiors. They think that travelling with bosses gives them that extra time to shine. Don’t do it. Good senior executives judge on results, not on clever conversations.

Good top managers are also busy and unless you are working ion their projects, in less than ten minutes they get back to what they are working on.
You must spend your travel time working . Airplane time is work time, so you may want to fly by yourself and gain those extra few hours.
If you travel with a top executive and end up working on the flight, they would think you are doing it to impress them. Worse still, they want to read a book, relax, take a nap or may be watch a movie and they will be unsettled by your industriousness. Even if you have to fly the same plane, sit in a different section.
Hotel time is also work time. If you travel with superiors they may be obligated to ask you for dinner. If they don’t you will feel hurt. Either ways your valuable time is wasted.

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Leadership Lesson Uncategorised

Landing a dream job; not any job: Tackling the ‘personal’ questions

Interview – Personal Questions – A boon or a bane
__________________________________

What did they ask?

Pat comes the reply – “personal questions.” … It was too cool. They did not ask about the subjects. I slogged on the course revisions four times in vain. Then all they had to ask was to talk about myself. In ten minutes, they let me go. They must have been very happy.

When the interview results were out, our friend has not even made it to the second round.

After calling the interviewer fools, our friend revised financial management twice over and attended an interview with a bank.

Did he make it? Nay.

The story continues 6 times and out friend has revised his syllabus a dozen times over.
__________________________________

What is happening here is exactly what goes through most of the interviews and campus placements.
The trick and the simple solution lie in knowing about themselves.

In today’s world having skills (read courses) is given. It is necessary any way. If you have a degree/ diploma, you have secured it because you have studied the course and you have the necessary skills. It is necessary criteria for but not qualifying criteria.

What am I saying here?
“Personal questions” are in fact the toughest of question. It requires a lot more than just saying what schools have you studied in or if you go to Sunday Mass regularly. It is more than your grand mother having two puppies or your brother being divorced. When companies ask for personal questions, they are looking for critical talents. Critical talents. Full Stop.

The inner capabilities, the strengths, the attitude – how you have worked in the past with colleagues or how passionate are you about what you say. Do you have the humility? Are you able to have a structured thought process? What triggers you? Can you cope up with failures? Will you fire up to meet the demands? Do you fear success? This and a lot more.

The interviewers look for your understanding of yourself. Your strength and your areas of improvement. That translates into what job you are applying for and why you are doing so. Companies look for if they can provide the rapid growth you aim for or a friendly culture you may prefer. They look for qualities and talents that make you unique, special and wanted.

Wow! You may say that lot.

So where can get all this on the web or can I read a book by rote?
Unfortunately, my friend, there is just NO source. It is about you. And only one person in the world knows you the best. YOU and it is between the two ears.

So what do I do?
You may want to spend some where between 20-80 hours preparing on

  • Who am I?
  • What are my strengths?
  • What is weakness?
  • What triggers me/ ticks me?
  • What sort of a culture in organization suits me?
  • What is the type of job I can do well and passionately?
  • Where are the areas I can add value and demonstrate my strengths?
  • If I am applying for XYZ, will I really fit in their job culture?

Quite a bit of introspection even before I prepare for the specific interview.

Tips:
Write this down on a clean book.
Think if it is your true character sketch.
If you were a movie director, have you communicated through the script on how you are a hero?



Now the Hero of the script has a mission to do. He knows the strengths, weakness, what excites and his weakness.

Based on this, you decide how you will steer the interview. Being honest, taking on questions you can, owning ignorance if you truly are clueless. Giving alternatives, meandering with a positive attitude and solution approach. Confident yet with humility, Assertive yet respecting the audience.
Playing to your strengths.

Victory is yours my friend and you will be there with the offer letter soon.

All the best!

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aspire career CEO Leadership Lesson Uncategorised

Aspire to be a CEO: Four Essentials for Happiness


Sorce: By: Brian Tracy/ email 03/09/09

You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they all will fall into one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas.

  1. The Key to Happiness

The first category is your desire for happy relationships. You want to love and be loved by others. You want to have a happy, harmonious home life. You want to get along well with the people around you, and you want to earn the respect of the people you respect. Your involvement in social and community affairs results from your desire to have happy interactions with others and to make a contribution to the society you live in.

  1. Enjoy Your Work

The second category is your desire for interesting and challenging work. You want to make a good living, of course, but more than that, you want to really enjoy your occupation or profession. The very best times of your life are when you are completely absorbed in your work.

  1. Become Financially Independent

The third category is your desire for financial independence. You want to be free from worries about money. You want to have enough money in the bank so that you can make decisions without counting your pennies. You want to achieve a certain financial state so that you can retire in comfort and never have to be concerned about whether or not you have enough money to support your lifestyle. Financial independence frees you from poverty and a need to depend upon others for your livelihood. If you save and invest regularly throughout your working life, you will eventually reach the point where you will never have to work again.

  1. Enjoy Excellent Health

The fourth and final category is your desire for good health, to be free of pain and illness and to have a continuous flow of energy and feelings of well-being. In fact, your health is so central to your life that you take it for granted until something happens to disrupt it.

“Relax and allow affirmations to go through your subconscious mind!”

According to whole brain research, you can learn subjects quite rapidly as a result of deep relaxation and music used in a systemized, organized process. Because of this, it is also possible for you to learn new belief systems using the same techniques.

The process of taped affirmations combines positive affirmations with both music and relaxation. This makes it possible for your mind to accept the affirmations at an accelerated rate, resulting in your desired behavioral change.

Peace of Mind is the Key

Peace of mind is essential for every one of these. The greater your peace of mind, the more relaxed and positive you are, the less stress you suffer, the better is your overall health.

The more peace of mind you have, the better are your relationships, the more optimistic, friendly and confident you are with everyone in your life. When you feel good about yourself on the inside, you do your work better and take more pride in it. You are a better boss and coworker. And the greater your overall peace of mind, the more likely you are to earn a good living, save regularly for the future and ultimately achieve financial independence.

Control Your Attention

Life is very much a study of attention. Whatever you dwell upon and think about grows and expands in your life. The more you pay attention to your relationships, the quality and quantity of your work, your finances and your health, the better they will become and the happier you will be.

Action Exercises

Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

  1. First, take time on a regular basis to think about what would make you really happy in each of the four areas.
  2. Second, set specific, measurable goals for improvement in your relationships, your health, your work and your finances and write them down.
  3. Third, resolve to do something every day to increase the quality of some area of your life – and then keep your resolution.
  4. “Recapture the Health, Vitality and Physique of your Youth!”
  5. Discover how to lose a pound a day – and keep it off.

Studies show that health and weight loss are areas of our life we say we need the most improvement in. If what you’re doing on our own isn’t getting the results you’re looking for, I will help you get there.

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Aspire to be a CEO: Learn the Four Rules of Time

Four Rules of Time
There are four rules of time.
1.     The first is that time is perishable.
This means that it cannot be saved. In fact, time can only be spent. Because time is perishable, the only thing you can do with it is to spend it differently, to reallocate your time away from activities of low value and toward activities of higher value. But once it is gone, it is gone forever.
2.     Time Is Indispensable
The second rule of time is that time is indispensable. All work requires time. No matter what it is you want to do in life, even looking out a window or sleeping in for a few extra minutes, it requires a certain amount of time. And according to the 10/90 Rule, the 10% of time that you take to plan your activities carefully in advance will save you 90% of the effort involved in achieving your goals later. The very act of thinking through and planning your work in advance will dramatically reduce the amount of time that it takes you to do the actual job.
3.     The Currency of the Future
The third rule of time is that time is irreplaceable. Nothing else will do, especially in relationships. Time is the only currency that means anything in your relationships with the members of your family, your friends, colleagues, customers and co-workers. Truly effective people give a lot of thought to creating blocks of time that they can then spend, without interruption, with the important people in their lives.
4.     The Key to Goal-Achievement
The fourth rule is that time is essential for accomplishment.
Every goal you want to achieve, everything you want to accomplish, requires time. In fact, one of the smartest things you ever do, when you set a goal, is to sit down and allocate the exact amount of time that you are going to have to invest to achieve that goal. The failure to do this almost always leaves the goal unaccomplished.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, decide today to redirect and reallocate your time away from low-value tasks and toward high-value activities.
Second, make a plan to spend more time face-to-face with the most important people in your life. The more you think about the use of your time, the better you will become.
By: Brian Tracy
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Aspire to be a CEO? Be your company’s ambassador, wave its flag. #LeadershipLessons101

Let me twist this the other way round –
How would you feel if the President of your company is cynical about your organization, its products, its people and its processes? Would you work for that President?
If you want to head this company some day,  would it not be fair that you commit yourself totally to its people, products and services. You must understand the company’s mission and its values. You must live the company culture. You must do this as your second nature. You must at all times be worthy of being a representative of the company that you work for.

  • Use its products. If possible promote them tirelessly to all, especially family and friends.
  • Buy your company’s stock, if available (and affordable).
  • Talk about the great people you work with. Be proud about them as your colleagues and friends.

We have all seen this enough times

    • customers do not buy from salesmen who do not believe in their product.
    • candidates do not join companies where HR does not believe in their own company’s values
    • employees do not want to work for managers who do not believe in the company
    • prospective employers shun candidates who talk ill of their previous organizations

If you do not believe in your company’s products, values, services or vision – DO NOT work for that company. There is no point in having you go through the dissonance each day, personally and with people around you. If you do not believe in smoking or explosives or that addictive video game, don’t work for such companies.
Cynicism about ones own company, its people and products is hallmark of a loser, not its future President.
PS: I am not suggesting that you must blindly advocate the wrong, if the company does one. If something is amiss, critique it constructively, offer to help and share with your superiors on the disconnect and how you plan to fix them. Do all it takes to fix it.  Or, may be there is a reason for the way things are that you may not know. By all means avoid the gossips and cynicism.

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aspire career CEO Leadership Lesson Uncategorised

Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople

Steve W. Martin
Steve W. Martin teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business. His latest book on sales linguistics is Heavy Hitter Sales Psychology: How to Penetrate the C-level Executive Suite and Convince Company Leaders to Buy.
If you ask an extremely successful salesperson, “What makes you different from the average sales rep?” you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally.
Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of interviewing thousands of top business-to-business salespeople who sell for some of the world’s leading companies. I’ve also administered personality tests to 1,000 of them. My goal was to measure their five main personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) to better understand the characteristics that separate them their peers.
The personality tests were given to high technology and business services salespeople as part of sales strategy workshops I was conducting. In addition, tests were administered at Presidents Club meetings (the incentive trip that top salespeople are awarded by their company for their outstanding performance). The responses were then categorized by percentage of annual quota attainment and classified into top performers, average performers, and below average performers categories.
The test results from top performers were then compared against average and below average performers. The findings indicate that key personality traits directly influence top performers’ selling style and ultimately their success. Below, you will find the main key personality attributes of top salespeople and the impact of the trait on their selling style.

  1. Modesty. Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91 per cent of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility. Furthermore, the results suggest that ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.
    • Selling Style Impact: Team Orientation. As opposed to establishing themselves as the focal point of the purchase decision, top salespeople position the team (presales technical engineers, consulting, and management) that will help them win the account as the centrepiece.
  2. Conscientiousness. Eighty-five per cent of top salespeople had high levels of conscientiousness, whereby they could be described as having a strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. These salespeople take their jobs very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results.
    • Selling Style Impact: Account Control. The worst position for salespeople to be in is to have relinquished account control and to be operating at the direction of the customer, or worse yet, a competitor. Conversely, top salespeople take command of the sales cycle process in order to control their own destiny.
  3. Achievement Orientation. Eighty-four per cent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to their goals.
    • Selling Style Impact: Political Orientation. During sales cycles, top sales, performers seek to understand the politics of customer decision-making. Their goal orientation instinctively drives them to meet with key decision-makers. Therefore, they strategize about the people they are selling to and how the products they’re selling fit into the organization instead of focusing on the functionality of the products themselves.
  4. Curiosity. Curiosity can be described as a person’s hunger for knowledge and information. Eighty-two per cent of top salespeople scored extremely high curiosity levels. Top salespeople are naturally more curious than their lesser performing counterparts.
    • Selling Style Impact: Inquisitiveness. A high level of inquisitiveness correlates to an active presence during sales calls. An active presence drives the salesperson to ask customers difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information. Top salespeople want to know if they can win the business, and they want to know the truth as soon as possible.
  5. Lack of Gregariousness. One of the most surprising differences between top salespeople and those ranking in the bottom one-third of performance is their level of gregariousness (preference for being with people and friendliness). Overall, top performers averaged 30 per cent lower gregariousness than below average performers.
    • Selling Style Impact: Dominance. Dominance is the ability to gain the willing obedience of customers such that the salesperson’s recommendations and advice are followed. The results indicate that overly friendly salespeople are too close to their customers and have difficulty establishing dominance.
  6. Lack of Discouragement. Less than 10 per cent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness. Conversely, 90 per cent were categorized as experiencing infrequent or only occasional sadness.
    • Selling Style Impact: Competitiveness. In casual surveys I have conducted throughout the years, I have found that a very high percentage of top performers played organized sports in high school. There seems to be a correlation between sports and sales success as top performers are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses, and mentally prepare themselves for the next opportunity to compete.
  7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness is the measurement of how easily someone is embarrassed. The by-product of a high level of self-consciousness is bashfulness and inhibition. Less than five per cent of top performers had high levels of self-consciousness.
    • Selling Style Impact: Aggressiveness. Top salespeople are comfortable fighting for their cause and are not afraid of rankling customers in the process. They are action-oriented and unafraid to call high in their accounts or courageously cold call new prospects.

Not all salespeople are successful. Given the same sales tools, level of education, and propensity to work, why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? Is one better suited to sell the product because of his or her background? Is one more charming or just luckier? The evidence suggests that the personalities of these truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success.

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aspire career CEO Leadership Lesson Uncategorised

Tips for those with a Sales Career: Creative Selling

In this post, I want to share with you a few key characteristics of successful sales people and how they differ from the normal sales people.
You would probably agree the majority view that successful sales people meet their quotas, are happy with their profession and are enthusiastic about their customer satisfaction. On the contrary, those struggling to meet quotas (quarter on quarter), that are stressed and worried each day and have a habit of constant complaints about their customers are possibly unsuccessful sales persons.
Having seen thousands of sales people and managed and coached hundreds of them, I thought it would worthwhile to share my experience in a simplistic six-point format. I share these based on my observations on what happens when the sales person meets their customer – where the rubber hits the road.
A successful seller has a distinct approach to selling. He/ She

  1. concentrates on buyer’s need and solving their pain
  2. is focused on customer satisfaction; The  purchase order for them, is means to an end.
  3. always, converts features into benefit statements for the prospect
  4. is an active listener; asks questions to clarify his own understanding
  5. cooperates with the prospect in making the buying decision
  6. congratulates prospect on making the right choice

A normal salesperson is very unlike the above and usually demonstrates the following traits –

  1. is focused on the product
  2. is only interested in getting the order
  3. can rattle out product features tirelessly
  4. talks endlessly, never missing a beat
  5. pushes for the sale, oblivious of what is running in his prospect’s mind
  6. thanks prospect for the order

These fundamental differences almost always do sift between the rice and husk.
Happy Selling!

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Motivational video

Aspire to be- the BEST!

Nothing comes easily – especially success.

I found this video – very simple and supremely inspiring.

What makes the difference between the person who is first and who comes behind!

Watch this everyday!

Go through this every single day- and motivate yourself to put in that effort- to bring the passion to the fore- that will propel you to bigger things in life!  

All the best. Happy Viewing.

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Aspire to be a CEO: Learn differentiated decision making.

One of those big myths about business decision making is about the inherent admiration of a aggressive, super-sure, quick decision maker. This strategy may be great in certain situations – not so good in others.

Some decisions in haste can be reversed, altered or has little impact. These haste decisions are necessary if there is a fire in a factory. Decisions made for the sake of speed is a little different from decisions that require swiftness. Understanding the difference is critical.
There are two kinds of decisions – revocable and irrevocable.
Revocable decisions are changeable decisions that can be made relatively fast and if it is wrong or needs to be altered, can be changed again relatively fast wit comparatively minimal impact. Examples would be – Office layouts, Advertising schedules, Not making a decision, Pricing, Phone service provider, Choosing an insurance company, even hiring a contract staff or a tier 2 reseller.
Irrevocable decisions such as brand name, acquisitions, executive hires, buildings, IT architecture are usually not easily irrevocable. Exercise caution while taking irrevocable decisions. Even if you need to take these decisions under time pressure, then you need to read fast, assimilate information fast, analyse fast, think fast and then decide. The decision may seem fast – but as a manager – you know you have done your due diligence.
Sounds easy! The essence of understanding the difference is the situations under which you operate in a particular mode that will make you successful.
Tim to decide! Merry Christmas!

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Aspire to be a CEO: Get closer to your customer. Be a salesman.

Is it a coincidence that majority of corporate Presidents started as a salesman or were sales people at some point in their career?
Selling is a super critical function. Selling possibly is the only function that gets up close and personal to your customer. A sales person starts to  understanding customer’s likes, dislikes and idiosyncrasies. They get to know the precise reason why a product or company clicks or why it ticks.
And as the salesperson grows in the organization to increased responsibilities, they start shaping products, teams and organization structures to address their customer’s need. They have first hand experience and the conviction required to fix things that generates revenue for the company. Over time and not surprisingly, the successful salesman becomes an star within the company. He is well recognized, for the sales man knows their customers the best.
When management wants to hire for a position on the management team,

  1. who do you think would be on their A-list – A star salesman.
  2. Secondly, since organization exist because of their customers, management would prefer some one who has been with the customers for senior positions.
  3. Thirdly, in all probability the current CEO and the executive team were salespersons themselves in the career. It is only natural for biases towards star salespersons.

Whatever be the case if you are a salesman you are in good hands. You have the inherent advantage to get to the top. If not, get a role in sales to fill up that gaping hole in your otherwise impeccable record.