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Clarity and Assertiveness

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Do you miss achieving your life and career goals at times?

Then take a second look at how you define your goals and express them.

For some time I have been working with a C-Level Executive who, a few months ago, chucked a plush job he had been holding for a good many years. This happened in the midst of the 2020 COVID pandemic when many others were tightening their holds on whatever was worthy of getting a stronger hold on. Upon questioning, I gathered that he was tired of the job and that he had potential that needed to be unleashed. Therefore, he signed off, took a vacation, took up newer studies, and acquired new skills, which decidedly made him sharper, and a force to be reckoned with in his field of choice was Sales and MArketing.

Lo behold, job offers began to pour in from friends, former colleagues, and companies that knew of his capabilities and character.

One of the calls came from a large, national banking group. My client, let us call him John Doeromeo, was excited and agreed for the first interview. ‘Chat,’ they called it instead of an interview. John came to me and asked for tips and a mock interview. Not that he needed any self-presentation tips, but I guess he just felt it might make me feel good as his coach.

Alright, so what are your reasons for wanting this job?

Actually, I do not think that I want this job. It is not an industry I want to be in.

Huh, so why so the interview?

I just want to test the market test my abilities to respond in an interview.

Will that be fair to them and to the person who referred you?

You are right. No, it will not. Well, since I have already committed to the chat, I might as well hear what they have to say. He defended.

What kind of industry do you want to be in?

Something global, something innovative, and perhaps with a reputable consumer brand. Lego?”

Sure. Okay, good luck with that!

A few days later, on the phone.

Yo coach, that was not the first interview it was their final one. They already made me an offer to join them.

I thought you did not want the job.

Yes, I did not but they were very impressed with the marketing ideas I had for their business.

You presented plans for the first interview. How does that align with you not wanting the job in the first place?

What do you mean, Coach?

You did not WANT the job, yet you shared ideas. What kind of message are you sending?

Right, Coach! I will send them and be as direct as possible. Besides their offer was ridiculously low.

Again, what exactly are we turning down?

The job. The industry.

Another few days later, on the phone again.

Coach, they doubled their offer and it is still Insulting!

They did! Did you state exactly what your career dreams were?

Yes, I thanked them for their first offer and told them that I used to make much more and was not sure about working for a bank.

And, that you think was straight and assertive enough?

I thought I would be polite and break it gently to them.

Since that did not work would you like to try to be more direct?

Hmm, I see your point. They will be calling me soon and I will be firm.

A day later.

Coach that bank person sent an email, threw in a chauffeur-driven SUV, and still want to talk to me. Now what? Help me!

End of story.

John and I then had a long, slow chat about becoming truly clear, about what is that we desire. His words and behavior clouded his true intentions not just to himself but to his audience too. From the viewpoint of his audience, it seemed as if he were interested and his discussions about monetary issues, always, come across as a negotiation for more money.

John saw the wisdom in these exchanges and as of now, I believe he may still be composing his thoughts on how to say a proper, polite, and absolute no.

now an example like this may appear light and easy to spot by many of us but when we are in the midst of conversations such as this one we tend to water down our exact wants, creating confusion and strained relationships.

Becoming squeaky clean and clear about our wants and goals takes intellect and willpower. Expressing our desires in simple, straight and non-offensive assertions may appear harsh to start with, but clears our paths faster.

Five tips for you:

  1. Think through thoroughly. Write down exactly what is it that you want with your career or your business. Taking time out to think deeply and then putting pen on paper provides clarity for yourself and locks down the goal.
  2. Share it with a friend. Expressing our desires in simple terms to a friend has the effect of revalidation upon our own selves. When we hear our intentions being framed into expressions, the effect is like that of a mantra.
  3. Assert the language. State the goals in clear, precise and future-realized words like-“At the end of the 3rd quarter of next year, I will be heading the marketing department of LEGO Asia.” When you do this, you are creating the exact frame to fit yourself into.
  4. Be unapologetic. Many years I came across a concept, “fear of success.” It took me a while to understand it. It is not the first success that we hesitate from but from the facts that we may to sustain the success and continue to strive harder, we hesitate considering the misconceived and ill side effects of say getting rich. Alternatively, we hesitate from happiness fearing the nights that may follow after. These fears are unfounded. We are meant to shine
  5. Stay on the path. Sometimes, after we assign a timeline to our goals we cannot really assess if external circumstances will influence our assessments of time. Take for example, how drastically the pandemic of 2020 set back so many plans and businesses.

The world in all its diverse glory is also quite complicated; the task of connecting the dots in life to move forward is a complex process. Getting a high-resolution clarity on our intentions lays down a very strong cornerstone to build our castles upon. Exerting assertiveness at work and in relationships is not a mean and selfish behavior but is the simplest part of growth and development. The words of Marianne Williamson do justice and act as boosters to being clear and assertive with our intentions: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frighten us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.”

When my friend, John Doeromeo, was in conversation with the bank, he was saying no in a roundabout way and the bank was reading it as his way of negotiating for more.  Like John, many of us, often, end up short-changing our desires out of courtesy and compassion towards others. There is no harm in that, but do consider the fact that like charity, courtesy and compassion can begin at home.

 

Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash

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Freedom to Choose, Victor Frankl

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For the longest time, I have not just studied this process but over the years I have experienced and played with it a thousand times. The practice has converted the process into a way of life, my life.

The process was born out of Victor Frankl’s words and research as described in his wonderful book, Man’s Search of Meaning. According to Frankl, while the environment that surrounds a person has an impact, he is totally free to choose his own path. Even in the most critical, toxic surroundings, a person always has the freedom to choose his response towards all stimuli, thus towards his life.

What exactly is the process?

Every time, we are exposed to any stimulus, we respond or, often, we react. Not that all external stimulus is harmful and toxic yet responding automatically, quickly and unmindfully we give up control, we end up letting the environment and circumstances take charge and begin to shape our destiny as they please. The external stimulus might be made up of sight, sound, taste, or touch like good music or a beautiful aroma but the moment it grabs and draws us away the future is decided by that stimulus.

On the contrary, every time we are exposed to any such stimuli if we give those oncoming stimuli a moment, a ponder, and take time to mindfully analyze and choose it then we begin to have control over it and, thus, we begin to design our own destinies with faith and confidence.

The process thus involves being mindful of all the stimuli that come towards us and unto our consciousness through our senses without and within. All that comes towards us is really, first, just data. As soon as it hits our senses, we employ cognition and we categorize and label it to be either sight, sound, taste, touch, smell or even a thought-a memory from within. We then check our feelings about this incoming data. Either we like it or we do not or, at times, we make puny efforts to be neutral to it. Finally, once we have sensed and felt it and categorized it we act upon it.

All this happens in fractions of a second; consciousness, recognition, the feeling it derives and the action we take. The actions we take may be verbal or behavioral. The crux of the process lies in expanding this process. That means taking a fraction of a moment longer to recognize sense and then act upon it. Just a wee bit longer every time. This is what those with a monk-like attitude towards life do; this is what great leaders do. Instead of simply, automatically reacting they give incoming stimuli a pause, a breath and an extra thought thus converting most potentially loaded situations to positive and constructive outcomes.

This is human intelligence, our power to choose and gently have an impact on all the interactions and all the moments, ahead of us. Moments that make up for the miracles, we create. By making this habit a consistent practice, we make it our way of life and influence others and our environment.

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Learning to Learn

Nothing Beats Learning to Learn

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A few years ago, I had the honor of interviewing the Director of Application Services of Hewlett Packard, Philippines, one Mr. Noel Mendoza and though the subject of our discussions was information technology and its growing impact on the world, there was something he said outside of the interview that got velcroed to my heart and I share that thought with you here today.

Learning to Learn

Raju Mandhyan at the American Management Association

Noel Mendoza mentioned that his father, the distinguished Professor Gabby Mendoza of the Asian Institute of Management had left an indelible mark on him and that mark stated that nothing is more important in a human being’s life than building and sustaining one’s ability in learning to learn. No diplomas, no degrees or doctorates granted by any institution can match up to one’s ability to become a self-driven learner at work and in life.

And, what applies in our daily lives and in our self-development and leadership initiatives alos applies to selling and serving the needs of our customers.

Years ago there was this humorous story about an inept salesman selling Bibles across the small towns of America was going around the internet. It’s a great story and puts across the point of eagerness and learning.

This Bible salesman would knock upon the doors, mumble his way through his introduction, stumble through his presentation and make an overall mess of what was considered to be an easy sale back in the day.

Upon seeing his inadequacy at his job, most of the people answering the door would get frustrated at his approach and respond with,

“You don’t know a thing about selling, do you?”

“No, ma’am, not really! I am new to this job and also quite clumsy around it.”

“Oh, you nitwit you, there’s nothing tough about selling, you know!”

“Yes, ma’am, you’re absolutely right. I need to trust that fact.”

“Oh, come now,” they’d rebuke, “let me show you how.”

And, the customer would then go about teaching this nitwit of a salesperson how to sell correctly. Well, at the end, you guessed it. His sales multiplied and he often made it to superstar status in his company.

His approach might be considered tricky today, but the essence of the Bible salesperson’s story lies in our wanting to learn.  When your buyer senses and is convinced you want to learn about them to help them improve, then they often lean over backwards and hand you their trust in spades.

My belief is this ‘wanting to learn’ is about innate curiosity. This desire to learn and add value is the anti-thesis, the opposite of what has been considered a standard selling process. In the standard selling process, the seller shamelessly shoves features, advantages and benefits to the prospective buyer.  The reversal of this attitude and the desire to learn creates a good vacuum that draws the buyer in to where solutions can be created.

I massively trust and profess success from the process of inquiry and questioning at any time and place.  This is the process of diagnostics and counselling that community workers, therapists, and doctors utilize. It is the process of interacting, learning and understanding our clients prior to prescribing solutions.  Interacting, inquiring deeply to learn about the customer is the true Heart of the Close.

A good teacher makes for a non-intrusive and gentle guide who creates an atmosphere to encourage students to think boldly, to talk freely, and to act judiciously. He makes available opportunities for them to exercise initiative, to grow and shape their own growth and development. A good sales leader does the same for his customers. He helps them create their own solutions and own them for tomorrow.

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

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Raju MAndhyan

Respect, Renunciation and Resilience in Sales

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It’s sad enough that the world is broken up into so many geographical parts. We have drawn lines of differentiation from the North to the South Pole, from the East to the West. Our beliefs, ethnicities and cultural mindset further influence our attitude and treatment of others, putting them into stereo-typed segments. Effective and successful leaders must strive to rise above all this murk. They have an open and supportive mindset backed by immense tolerance for other people who do not reason, romanticize or react to issues the way they do.

Although the human brain is divided into the three functional segments of reasoning, romanticizing and reacting, every single one of us is a unique individual because of different genetic permutations, diverse backgrounds, and variances in education and exposures. Unfortunately, societal programming leads us into generalizing and stereotyping people at first glance.  Effective and successful leaders respect diversity by accepting that people are different. Their behavior is simply different; not necessarily bad or worse than our own uniqueness. In addition, leaders and successful salespeople profoundly recognize that human circumstances and perspectives are in a state of constant flux. Perceived realities vary and these realities change from moment to moment all the time.

A buyer who shows interest in your product on Monday morning may suddenly have a shift in his circumstances and could change his mind on Tuesday afternoon. The ultimate reality is:  different realities and they are changing all the time. It’s easy to say “different strokes for different folks” or “the only constant in this world is change” but it’s totally another matter to live out these truths. To succeed across diversity and constant change, we must live out these beliefs and practice open-mindedness, flexibility and adaptability… all the time, evert time.

In the world of neurosciences and its application to work, there exists a respected group of consultants who do not at all use the word ‘is’ when describing another person in their communications and interactions. Why?  They believe what ‘is’ means to the speaker is simply that particular speaker’s perspective; not solid fact.  What ‘is’ today may not be what ‘is’ tomorrow. Everything and everyone is always changing.

Raju MAndhyan

Respect, Resilience and Renunciation

Respecting diversity amongst people is a challenging habit to live out and practice. Yet it can grant us the power of being a super sales performer and human being above par.  With this habit we can become active learners, early adapters and resilient Samurais of interpersonal skills in every sales and selling interaction. It keeps our proverbial ‘saw’ eternally sharp and smooth so it can cut, softly and subtly, through the hardest of challenges.

An attitude and mindset like this builds resiliency, help us practice Zen-like renunciation from short-term results and instant gratifications common in the business of selling and driving positive change. So go leap of those cliffs every day and should you fall then get up, dust yourself off and get into the pit again and again.  Remember to respect differences, renunciate from the anguish of failure and keep your spirits bouncy.

Article inspired by The HeART of the CLOSE

 

Raju Mandhyan, Author, Coach and Learning Facilitator

www.mandhyan.com

 

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Raju Mandhyan and Ram Charan

What Your Customer Wants You to Know

In his book, What the Customer Wants You to Know, Professor Ram Charan shares the story of Unifi Inc., a textile maker in Greensboro, North Carolina.  This is a company that rolled in serious trouble in the past caused by low-priced goods from China and India flooding the US markets.  Professor Ram Charan writes about how the CEO of Unifi Inc. placed their Chief Information Officer in charge of sales.

Raju Mandhyan and Ram Charan

What Your Customer Wants You to Know

Instead of utilizing traditional methods to motivate and move sales, the CIO assembled his whole sales team and asked them not sell but to instead just focus on gathering maximum information about their customers.  His sales team studied the business models of each of their former customers and their prospects to learn about their supply chain as well as the businesses of their customer’s customer.  Day after day, the CIO  pushed the sales team not sell but to learn, so they hit the road to learn everything, including the end users’ consumption habits of the textile they made.  Unify Inc. represented, by their sales representatives, figured out how mothers, fathers and children perceived the fabrics and the goods made from fabrics they manufactured.

Professor Ram Charan claims the process was unusual and extremely frustrating for the seasoned business-to-business sales persons. They found it unproductive and tiresome. But after several weeks of information gathering and insight accumulation about the consumers and the end customers, business began to gradually pick up. The customers, dealers and other converters of their raw material were amazed by the unusual approach of the Unifi Inc. sales team and they eagerly offered insights and tips for changing the game.  The learning held relevance across industries, business models and economies engaged in all kinds of textile and fabric.  Information and insights into the customer’s business made up the art of giving value for the customer.  Eventually, business picked up for Unify Inc. and they successfully got out of the red.

Find out what they do and how they do it.  Find out how their business systems work–where and how their products and services reach their users.  Discover the kind of corporate culture they have.  How are decisions made? What type of internal communication is used?  How is the company doing in terms of profitability and growth?  How are they perceived by their customers?

Conduct this probing carefully and diligently.  The more focus and time you give to this aspect, the easier it will be to pin-point your customers’ needs. Employ a combination of Research and Reflective questioning.  Refrain from going, “I know exactly what you need.”  Even if you reach this conclusion about what exactly your customer needs, wait until your customer is willing to see the solution you visualize in your mind’s eye.

Often times, the customers themselves try to blur the need because they don’t want to expose their needy, vulnerable side or show their concern about the change and investment they’ll need to make to resolve their needs.  They could be exercising caution against revealing too much while you are searching deeply for details.  Understand this dance and stay focused only on solving and serving rather than on selling at this stage.

Knowing deeply and thoroughly what your customer needs is more than half the journey to serving your customers delightfully.

 

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

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The One, Most Important Thing in Public Speaking

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It did not take me long to think about when I was asked the question, “What is that one, most thing about succeeding at public speaking?”

Well, some people call it the fear of public speaking and the naturally shy people call it nervousness. My choice of the word to represent this malady is anxiety? Most people, whether they are the front-liners or the head honchos of an organization, they are all anxious about having to face an audience.

So, before we go into how to manage it and succeed at the interaction let us consider the source of this anxiety and the cause of this malady.

In my opinion this anxiety is generated from two aspects, two sources.  First, it is generated by the fact that the speaker thinks that the audience may be too good for her. That means, they may be too knowledgeable, way too intelligent and way to classy for her. And, that they may perceive her wrongly and may judge her too harshly. The second source to this is that the speaker may feel that he is too classy, much too knowledgeable and much too advanced for the audience he is to address.

Both these extremes rise from the dimension of a misplaced self-image, a warped self-esteem or the manifestation of a false ego, if I may. This internal misperception and an external behavior that makes an effort to put on a show create a discord, a dissonance and a lack of congruence in the speaker. That lack of congruence is seen and sensed by the audience and thus, they too tune out. When they tune out, the speaker and his performance come crashing down too. This does not just happen on the speaking stage but also occurs on all leadership platforms. Scroll down the history of the world and you will see that leaders came crashing down, when they did not say or do what they meant or meant to do what they had said they would.

How do you manage to survive and thrive through this?

As a speaker just before you speak and throughout speaking you need to be stepping out of your own skin and stay vulnerable. You need to stop excessively focusing upon how good you look or not; how well you speak or not and how perfectly placed your content is for the event and the customer- audience. Your heart, your mind and, sometimes, even your smartphone needs to just living and breathing in kindness and a deep desire for creating value for the audience. To make the customer king, while speaking is to get out of your own way; get out of your own skin.

How is this done?

Considering that you have done all the homework you need to have done before the speaking event, you need to calm down. You need to let go all concerns of not doing a good job. You need, also, let go of the entire negative and excessively brittle and moral self-talk. You need to deflate. You need to bring your attention to how you are breathing. When your breathing stops sounding and feeling like you were pumping iron or when you choked your breath upon the sight of a dog that you were scared. Your breathing needs to even down to like that of a baby at sleep. It needs to go easy in, easy out and through the diaphragm. Rhythmic and calm with your shoulders, eyes and tongue as relaxed as possible.

The moment you deflate, ground and calm down then your attention will stop obsessing with yourself and move towards being present and conscious of your audience’s space, their current state and then their learning needs. It is then that you can and will begin to shine as a speaker, a great communicator and a leader that inspires and makes her world evolve beautifully. At this stage your interaction with your audience becomes a dance of love, of engagement and co-creation.

That which works in public speaking, works in running fruitful meetings. That which works in public speaking works in bringing the best out of others. That which works in public speaking, works in leading your world a brighter tomorrow. This is the one, most important thing in most everything in life; being in the here and now and then taking the world into their future with humility and with compassion.

Attend the one day workshop of The HeART of Public Speaking in Cebu on September 24, 2019. Register Here:

 

 

 

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Our Words Influence Our Worlds

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There are many titles and versions of this fable and the author also is unknown. Inspired by the paradigms of Appreciative Inquiry, a research and a process facilitation method, let’s call this version as, ’Our Words Influence Our Worlds.’

Decades ago, an aged father used to let his ten year old son do some chores around their farm on weekends to keep him away from mischief, and hopefully impart some values into the boy. Much like Mr. Miyagi, the father would have the boy go draw water from the well all day long on one weekend. On another weekend, he would have him go paint the whole fence around the house. And, then there weekends where he would have the boy milk a dozen cows at dawn. The boy, as you may have guessed, needed to be kept busy to prevent him from his mischief and also the fact that he was quick to anger.

One such weekend, the father handed him a bag of nails and hammer and asked the boy to go and hammer all the nails into a large oak tree at the outskirts of their farm. The boy, though a little pesky, was quite obedient.  A few hours later he rushes back to his father claiming the job was done. The father lets him dip into the cookie bar as a reward and allows him go play with his pals.

Come the following weekend, the little boy shows up again in front of the father asking for his assignment for this weekend. The father hands him the empty bag of nails and the same hammer from last week and has him go back to the oak tree and pull out all the nails he had hammered last week. The boy goes off, and in few hours rushes back with all the nails and hands them to his father. His father, this time, flips him a silver dollar as a reward and lets him go play with his pals again. Boy flies off to meet his pals, but halfway to them he stops, turns around to runs back to his father.

“I don’t get it, Father. Last week you had me hammer them’ nails in the tree and this week you had me pull them out. What’s the deal here?”

“Son, if you go back to the tree, you will notice that even though the nails are back in the bag and you have had your cookies and a dollar to boot, but the nail holes in that oak tree will be there forever,” replied the father gently and with love in his eyes. The son, though young, but quick of learning, stood there quietly basking in the warmth of his father’s gentle glance. “The same bunch of nails that can uselessly pierce holes into wood can also build a boat or a bridge. And, in exactly the same our words can draw blood or express kindness and build relationships and communities” added the father, lovingly.

Yes, just like nails, words can draw blood or bring together ideas such that new worlds get built. Words, once uttered out can never be drawn back just like a nails hammered in then pulled out will always leave marks.  Many a times, mindlessly, we pour out words that cut holes into the hearts and spirits. And, there are times that we do such things on purpose.

Whether we do such things consciously or unconsciously the real issue is that the damage we do has a, long-term, systemic effect not just on individuals but on communities, countries and beyond.

What makes a word or a bunch of words put together draw blood or heal wounds? What makes a word or a bunch of words seal the deals to a bigger, brighter future?

There are certain words which are in essence toxic and harmful. No matter where and how you place them, these words are in bad taste and harmful. For example the word ‘hate’ instead of ‘love.’ For example the word ‘problem’ compared to the word ‘challenge.’  When we say ‘problem’ it then it requires digging down, holding back things and worry about resolving. Instead, when we use the word ‘challenge’ then it sounds like something that can be overcome and it has a tinge of possibility and potential built in into it. At the onset it may seem there is barely any difference but think of scores of other such words used in conversations and used in abundance too.

Next, we may use essentially positive words but if they are morphed together in such a way that they influence doubt or mislead people then, too, we are using words not build but to destroy our world. Words and ideas that deliberately employed at the wrong, time and place to distort context are equally harmful.

Then there are words and thoughts that are perfect but the hue and the tone that they are expressed in can give an evil twist to them and deliver disastrous results.  Yes, the words ‘evil twist’ and ‘disastrous’ are words we should refrain from using as far as possible.

And, “Yes, you are right!” said with a sneer and curl of the mouth can still cut and draw blood like a rusted knife would. Even the ‘three little words’ expressed at the wrong time, in a wrong way and with a mean intention create more harm than good.

Think about this. Think about all the times we use all the kinds of word to write, speak or influence our worlds. Choose and study them the way a good mason picks, chooses his bricks and cements them on top of each other with alignment; with care and love. The more cautious and selective we are with every grain, every brick and every wall we build then the better and more beautiful our cathedrals will turn out to be.  Our words will influence our worlds.

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

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Eleven Audience Energizers for Public Speaking

Thousands of executives across the world strive to get a large audience moving, talking, laughing and learning is like King Sisyphus wanting to roll up a rock onto a hill. It is hard, it is tough and like the proverbial rock, the audience can come tumbling down. Yet, there are many who appear to have been born with the abilities to rouse up audiences and work the room naturally. The truth be told no matter how skilled and natural certain speakers appear, they all drill themselves mad through scores of techniques and tricks to rack up engagement and learning transfer.

This is not to downplay authenticity of intentions, quality of content and meaningfulness of purpose in public speaking, but to highlight the fact that the best of intentions and purposes need to be packaged prettily and brandished with fun.

To back up an article, Large Crowd Energizing Techniques, that I wrote a few years ago, here are eleven more easy ideas we can use. Besides the science that is explained in the aforementioned article the simple reason behind energizing our audiences is that every speech, every presentation and every conversation is an exchange and play of energy. When the speaker steps up to the lectern all eyes are on her and, thus, so is all the energy upon her. Call it the burden of leadership at that moment. Now when a speaker begins to dialogue or engage with the audience the energy begins to churn constructively.

To unburden and then brace your-self to rock and roll, here are eleven ideas:

  1. Ask a few positive closed questions with good chances of ‘yes’ as an answer. Keep these questions closed, short and simple. Like, “all feeling good?” “Looking forward to a fun day?” “Feel this quarter is going to be a better than the last one?” Manage to keep this activity less than 90 seconds.
  2. Ask them to talk to the person next to them and share, for less than 60 seconds each, “how they started their day this morning?” While they are at it, take a sip of water, check your clicker and slides and manage to keep the whole thing less than three minutes.
  3. Ask them simply to stand up, stretch and greet and welcome a few people they haven’t yet met. The hustle, the bustle and the smiles will unburden the energy off your shoulders and churn it around the room. Keep this activity also under three minutes for larger crowds and short keynotes, but allow five to seven minutes for smaller training sessions.
  4. If you are conversant with mindfulness meditations then have them sit up, sit silent, close eyes, focus upon their in and out breathes while thinking about how they want their day to turn out. Give them a minute of silence. Have them open their eyes and share their thoughts with the person next to them. Keep the whole activity down to less than three minutes. It is called a ‘minute to arrive.’ A minute to let their awareness and focus blend in and settle into their bodies.
  5. If there is paper and pencil available, have them caricature a self-image and add an event expectation. Something like, “today, Joseph the accountant, wants to learn how to authentically influence others.” This will generate laughter, relax and cue you into your topic of the day, ‘Authentic Leadership Influence’ or whatever. Manage to wrap this up, also, in less than five minutes.
  6. Flash a sensational statistic, a report or a headline on the screens and pause for them to grapple with it for a ten to fifteen seconds. An example: An average person spends One Hundred and Twenty Minutes, or better still, Seven Thousand Breaths a Day, on social media. That is like taking a shower twenty times in a day! And, when the surprise and murmuring tones down you can plunge into your talk.
  7. Flash a very rare and unique photograph that has some sort of relevancy to the audience or to the subject matter at hand. The picture can also be of incident that you will tell a story about during your presentation. Make sure the picture is not unpleasant, is easy to recognize and recall but carries meaning and purpose to the topic at hand. A good and a relevant picture works like a good prop. It takes the eyes away from you and directs them onto the picture. Thus, it moves the energy around.
  8. Display a real prop, a model or a gadget. Years ago, a motivational speaker friend of mine, Harry Pound, used to carry an old-fashioned, hand-operated water pump in the back of his car. At every speaking opportunity he’d place it on stage and mime pumping it while explaining that water, results only flow when effort is consistently made. Effort and hard work in, results and water out. The physical activity takes away attention and helps you, the speaker, get over herself and become one with the audience and vice versa.
  9. Employ gentle and benign humor. The powerful science behind humor is that the speaker has to herself the target of the joke. She has to belittle and humble herself, this deflates self-consciousness and endears the audience to the speaker. Refrain from trying complex humor. Keep it simple and light. Manage proper timing between setup and punch. Make an effort to relate it to the event. Years ago, I was to greet a guest speaker at the gates of a hotel and then escort him in and introduce him to the audience. Somehow I missed him at the gate and he was already on stage. At his introduction, I claimed that I was so dense that I’d never get a job in the immigration services. That earned me a lot of laughs because our guest was the then commissioner of immigration in the country.
  10. Tell an analogical story that somehow relates to the subject at hand. A friend of mine tells a story about how tigers when cornered fight back ten times more ferociously than normal. He takes his time in describing the mindset and the fighting nuances of a tiger. He then goes on to add how his sales and marketing teams work with ferocity during bad times. Spend just a few minutes painting a word picture of a cornered tiger. During the rest of your talk, compare how cornered tiger-like traits are found in salespeople. Spend three to paint the word picture and throughout your speech make a call back to it, like “rise and roar like a tiger!” It acts like a non-tangible prop and keeps your audience hooked for good.
  11. Tell a story which kind of spins off into a question. Years ago, I made up a fictional story of a farmer who digs for oil and fails several times and then eventually succeeds. At the near end of the story I ask the audience why he fails so many times, and where was the wealth during all those times. While they ponder upon possible answers, I deliver my message about discovering strengths and at the end of it give out the correct answer to the story. A roar goes through the audience because they then see the connection between the story and my presentation.

Understand this, the sight of any audience can give the heebie-jeebies to the best of us on stage. Lawrence Olivier, Meryl Streep and Amitabh Bachchan all claim rights to stage fright. Winston Churchill would claim to have bats in his belfry before any talk. To get nervous is normal. To be in awe of the energy pulsating from crowds is also normal. There are across the world scores of speakers who know how to motivate large groups by using the energy that emanates out of crowds.

Some methods work and some fail. There is no silver bullet solution to this malady and there is no such thing as the perfect and ultimate formula for success in delivering keynotes. The ones that you, sometimes, see and hear have been well planned, well-rehearsed and choreographed such that they appear as extremely natural. Only after a lot of practice will you become unconsciously competent with the sciences audience engagement and motivation. Even then you will always be striving for perfection but never reach it. Nobody has reached it. No, not even Socrates, Demosthenes, Twain, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Mandela, Obama or Trump. They have just done well with what they had, and then created their own styles.

Study all the flavors, try the ones you like often and mix your very own cocktails. Just remember to be kind, courteous, compassionate and refrain from laughing at your own jokes.

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

Raju Mandhyan

www.mandhyan.com

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The HeART of Public Speaking

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MANY A TIMES in my workshops on public speaking, sales, negotiations and other soft skills, I have stressed the importance of acutely aligning our internal resources like our mood, our state of mind and most importantly our authentic agenda behind the conversation.

I have also stressed, referring to the 55+38+7 percentage rule of Dr. Albert Mehrebian which highlights the impact of body language, nonverbal behavior and words used in our conversations.. The 55+38+7 percentage rule on impact and effectiveness states that of a 100% impact upon our listeners, 7% comes from words, 35% from tonality and other nonverbal behavior and 55% from our bodily movements and total presence.

Now this is only partially understood by many and completely misinterpreted by many a trainer and coach of interpersonal communications. When Dr. Mehrebian, originally, conducted studies on communication patterns the results of the studies were widely circulated in the press, in abbreviated form, leading to blithe acceptance and generalization of his thesis.

Think, Edit, Speak!

Dr. Mehrabian’s research was to decipher the relative impact of facial expressions and spoken words. His subjects were asked to listen to a recording of a voice saying the single word “maybe” in three tonalities, to convey liking, disliking and neutrality. The subjects were then shown pictures of the faces conveying the same three emotions. Then subjects were asked to guess the emotions portrayed by the recorded voice, the pictures and both combined. The subjects’ assessment of the picture plus voice drew more accurate responses.

In another study, subjects listened to nine recorded words, three meant to convey liking (honey, dear and thanks), three to convey neutrality (maybe, really and oh) and three to convey disliking (don’t, brute and terrible). The words were spoken with varying tonalities and subjects were asked to guess the emotions behind the spoken words. The finding was that tone created more impact and meaning than words alone.

Thus the 55+38+7 rule was born and has been promoted around for years and decades across disciplines and other learning interaction. Years later, Dr. Mehrebian declared he never intended his results to be applied to everyday conversations and public speakers cannot just depend on 55+38% impact alone. The truth is that the spoken word has several intangible components and a flat out application or the assumption of this rule would be a fallacy. All interactions must equally depend on the three factors, i.e., body, nonverbal and the words. The percentages of each may resemble the rule for 100% impact but in reality will vary upon depending on the medium and the context.

What true and heavy impact will really depend upon is the clarity, the purpose and the authentic agenda of the speaker. Through the filters of the body, the tonality, the gestures, the micro-gestures and flowery language what are truly seen, heard and sensed well are the purpose and the agenda of the speaker. Getting an alignment and agreement between what we truly want, feel and need helps make the outward expression of it more viable, acceptable and impact heavy. Alignment of our internal resources: spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical is guaranteed to create resonance and consensus easily.

In public speaking this is the heart of it. When any speaker or business leader manages to dive deep into her own self and surfaces with valuable insights and resources that will serve and please her audience then she just doesn’t communicate effectively but evokes great emotions and drives transformations. Back in the day, they used to say that when Socrates spoke people claimed “great speech, great speech!” and when Demosthenes spoke people used to get on their feet and claim “let’s march!”

In today’s milieu people experience anxiety, doubt and fear when it comes to facing large audience because we feel we will be judged and truly so. Yes, we will be judged by several pairs of eyes and ears. These eyes and ears and other senses will zero in and probe into what exactly you wish to achieve as speaker and a leader. If you wish to benefit and authentically serve your audiences then most all anxiety, doubt and fear will fizzle away because your heart and mind will move away from being self-focused and more into serving the gift of your knowledge and wisdom to others. The heart of public speaking, as a leader, may be yours but it beats because of your audiences and your world.

#publicspeaking #authenticity #leadership #influence #authenticinfluence

Raju Mandhyan

Author, Coach and Facilitator

www.mandhyan.com

 

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Authenticity and Influence in Sales

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The other day at a business gathering someone asked me, “Raju, what, according to you, has changed in sales and selling over the decades?” Slightly offended by the inclusion of the word decades in the question I quickly brushed it aside by saying “nothing has changed” and moved on. Late at night, I lay wondering and thinking about my experiments and experiences in selling.

At my first honorary job with my father, which was to run errands and try selling for his small school-bag making business, I’d sell nothing at every interaction. I’d walk into his customer’s shops and stand against the wall; tongue-tied praying the shop-owner would leap out from behind his glass counter and beg me to send him school bags. That never happened. I sold zilch. Dad lost hair worrying about my future as a business person.

At my second job, after making it as an engineer, I was assigned to sales. Sales in the engineering company I worked for meant filling up a large wad of papers with numbers, descriptions and a covering letter called proposals. There were templates to follow, listed prices to tally up but there was barely any people to people interaction. The wheeling, dealing and the closing was done by those big-bellied guys called bosses.

At my third job selling futures in pork-bellies, orange juice, barley, copper and gold my then ‘balikbayan’ boss Ricky Ho saw me suffer at selling and called me aside and said, “Hey Raju, recognize this, people sell for two reasons: one to get rid of something and two to make a profit. What do you want to’ do?” I owned nothing and thus nothing had to be gotten rid of, so I supposed I’d had to make a profit. After that epiphanous moment I learned to sell.  The need to survive taught me how to make cold calls, how to qualify, analyze, integrate, pitch, offer, present, solve, offset objections, sooth, meander, negotiate, upsell, cross-sell, resell, negotiate, close, re-open, serve with maximum subtlety and suaveness.

Thus, decades ago, uh-oh, there is that word decades again. Decades ago, or before the turn of the century, the “ABC” selling was, as Alec Baldwin screamed in the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross, was to “Always Be Closing.” But as the previous century began to wind up entered the ‘internet of things,’ and Alibaba, and explosions of access to all avenues of humongous information. The days of just selling to get rid of something or make a profit out of something began to slowly and steadily began to be replaced by terms like relationship selling, consultative selling, solution selling, ethical sales, selling to serve, selling to solve, selling to not just create value but to co-create value. Sales and selling had merged into resolving needs and serving customer desires. No, it really had moved beyond finding solutions and serving needs. The seller and the buyer had to tear down walls of privacy and secrets between themselves. It wasn’t just one against another but both, together, towards a faster, better and a cheaper world.

Individuals and companies which did not adapt to this reset got covered in cobwebs and then in white sheets. Rest in peace names like Kodak, IBM, Mattel, Tower Records, Sears, etc.

Yet there was a certain element of truth to my response of “nothing” to the question, “Raju, what, according to you, has changed in sales and selling over the decades?”

Yes, the sales environment has changed. Yes, the rules of the game in the marketplace are different. Yes, the tools of the trade are niftier and swifter. Yes, even the attitude has taken a turn and is still transforming for the better. What hasn’t changed is that every transaction whether it is to get rid of something, to make profit out of something or to serve a need and find mutually beneficial solutions is that all of them require trust. Trust, raw and unadulterated trust.

The oldest profession in the world requires a certain element of trust. The used car salesman, no matter how sleazy, requires to become worthy of trust. Ricky Ho my former boss, needed to earn a lot of trust to sell bellies of pork upon which all his big time investors never laid eyes upon. The guy who sells Boeing airplanes to the airlines of all nations needs to acquire trust and so does every other sales and service professional that sits behind a monitor and hacks away at a keyboard to sell unseen products to unmet customers.

The why and the how of earning trust from one to another hasn’t changed and might never change till the end of time.

The prelude into earning trust is authenticity. Here, not just the salesperson but every person and every leader needs not just have an attitude but believe and act out of a hutzpah made out of originality, honesty, openness, courage and vulnerability. A person with that kind of a hutzpah stands out because he stands up and steps in the right direction consistently. He now becomes trustworthy. To earn trust he needs to blend consistency with competence and compassion for the customer, for the stake-holders. Overtime such a leader becomes a champion at earning trust.

The obvious postlude to trust is that your people, your followers, your partners, customers gently and surely move in the right directions that you and them take together. That is influence.

In the coming decades and eons all that we see and hear as innovation, may innovate further, but the backbone of all growth and positive change in sales or any service will always be authentic influence.

Raju Mandhyan

Author, Coach and Trainer

www.mandhyan.com         Unleashing Inherent Excellence!

http://twitter.com/RajuMandhyan

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