Symbiont Performance Group, Inc.
 August 2013
 In This Issue  

 

Why People Buy

  

Mental Toughness

  

YOUR PERSUASIVE EDGE:

The Eyes Have It

 
 

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Pat Iannuzzi

Pat Iannuzzi  

 

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"Don't sell life insurance, sell what life insurance will do."

 

~ Ben Feldman

 

 















 

"The first step in exceeding your customers expectations is to know those expectations."

 

~ Roy H. Williams

 















 

"Know what your customers

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want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet."  


~ Kevin Stirtz
 





























 

"There is a spiritual aspect to our lives; when we give we receive; hen a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!

 
~ Ben Cohen. en & Jerry's











































 

"You can program yourself to be positive. Being positive is a discipline...and the more adversity you face , the more positive you have to be. Being positive  helps to build confidence and self-esteem." 

 

~ Rick Pitino

 











































 

"Confidence is about who puts it on the line, who has the courage to compete like a warrior without fear of failure."

 

~ Jerry Lynch















 

"Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart him, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head

 

~ Joe Henderson

 





























 

 

"In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving."

 

~ William Baldwin 

 















 

"One mistake a lot speakers make including experienced professional speakers is to start talking right away. For some speakers not a half a second passes between the time he's introduced and the time his mouth opens. That's a huge mistake because it misses a fantastic opportunity for connecting with your audience right away."

 

~ Ed Tate, 2000 Toastmasters World Champion Speaker  

 

 





















































































 

"As any speaker will tell you, when you address a large number of people from a stage, and you try to make eye contact with people in the audience, you communicate that you're accessible and interested in them." 

 

~ Simon Manwaring











































 Top

Greetings!
 

Welcome to the August, 2013 edition of Insights. I hope you will find this month's selection of articles interesting and thought-provoking, and that you will take from these words at least one thought or idea that you can use to bring about a positive change in some aspect of your personal or professional life.

 

Living in the Present

 

I'm sure that I'm not alone in the fact that I sometimes spend a good part of a typical day reliving past events or thinking about what the future has in store. While it can be helpful to examine our past actions to learn from our mistakes and to draw confidence from our successes, it can pose a problem if we tend to overdo it because it robs us of the time to focus on what is truly important, namely what we need to be doing in the present. The same is true in regard to thinking about the future. We should certainly always have our goals clearly in mind as we go through each day, but thinking a lot about what we could do or what might happen only serves to detract from what we should be doing now.

 

This is not to say that we shouldn't draw strength from our past successes, or approach the future with a sense of positive expectancy. However, we need to be continually aware of the fact that we usually can't change or duplicate what happened yesterday and rarely can we accurately anticipate what will happen tomorrow. The only things we really have control over and can actually have an impact on are those that are happening in our lives RIGHT NOW.

 

Focusing too much on the past or future can be especially unproductive or often even counter-productive if our thoughts are negative. People who ruminate about past mistakes, failures, disappointments and tragedies can bring a great deal of negative energy to the present, which can diminish self-confidence and meaningfully undermine their current efforts at success and happiness. Similarly, those who worry excessively about the future, not only usually worry unnecessarily, but fail to recognize and fully appreciate the value and joy of their current moments.

 

Everyone has issues dealing with the past and future, but life is lived in the present, one moment at a time. It is the present that is truly important because this is where our memories and our future outcomes are be created. Living in the present means staying focused on what is happening at the current moment and what you can do about it, not what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. Now is the time to capture the moment to hug that child, compliment someone, apologize for something we are sincerely sorry for or take advantage of an opportunity.

 

We need to continually try to stay focused on the now of our life; what we can do now; what we can say now; how we are feeling now, what we believe now and what we want to happen now. Tomorrow will be here soon enough, and today will quickly become a mere memory. Today is the NOW of your life and mine. Today is where our tomorrows are born and our yesterdays are buried. Let us appreciate it and take full advantage of our 'now' for we will not be experiencing it again.

 

If you know of anyone who you think might also be interested in receiving Insights, please forward this issue on.

 

As always, I would be very interested in receiving your feedback.

 

Pat Iannuzzi Follow us on Twitter 

Brand

 

WHY PEOPLE BUY  
 

If you type in "sales books" into the search box on Amazon.com you will come up with roughly 2,553 different books on sales and sales management. Among this collection you will find titles focused on a multitude of specific areas within the discipline of selling such as sales strategy, effective prospecting, the selling process, big ticket selling, cold call selling, sales training and many, many more. And this is only the tip of the iceberg as there are countless other resources available which while not explicitly devoted to 'selling,' nonetheless relate to various aspects closely related to it such as building rapport, persuasiveness, interpersonal communication and personal resilience just to name a few. The reason there is so much material available on selling is because it is such a huge topic and can be approached from so many different perspectives. However, the first and most important key to all successful selling is to understand why people buy.

 

Three Basic Approaches to Buying

 

A purchase is the last step in a marketing process during which a buyer exchanges money for a seller's products or services. From a buyer's perspective, there are three distinctly different buying motivations depending on a prospect's disposition and receptiveness to being sold. I call these fulfillment, displacement and inducement buying

 

Fulfillment Buying. Fulfillment buying is the type of purchasing that is involved when a prospect actively seeks out a product or service such as a new car, home, appliance or computer system. In fulfillment buying the prospect has an acknowledged need and has already made the decision to buy. The salesperson's challenge is solely to demonstrate to the prospect how and why what he or she has to sell best meets the prospects needs and desires. Fulfillment buying usually applies to the purchase of tangible products, but could also be involved in contracting for a service such as in interviewing for lawyer or accountant. The salesperson's role in fulfillment buying is much less of a factor today than it used to be because most purchasers of small ticket items nowadays have done extensive online research and know exactly what they want before making a purchase either in a retail outlet or on the internet.

 

Displacement Buying. In displacement buying, the prospect believes his or her needs are being satisfied by the product or service he or she is currently using. Unlike with fulfillment selling, the prospect does not have an acknowledged need to change and may in fact be resistant to change. The challenge of the salesperson with such a buyer is first to uncover a prospect need that is important and not being effectively filled by a current supplier and then motivate the prospect to want to change. This is essentially the situation buying most commodities (office supplies, cleaning services, home heating oil, etc.) where a buying decision to displace a current vendor is usually based on a minor but desirable product or service features or on factors such as price, terms of payment or delivery schedules.

 

Inducement Buying. Inducement buying deals with purchases made by people who are neither using, seeking nor consciously thinking about a particular product or service. Buying a policy as a result of a cold call from an insurance salesperson or making a donation in response to a solicitation call are buying situations that would fall into this category. In addition to uncovering a need and demonstrating appropriate product and service benefits, a successful salesperson must generate a genuine interest in the prospect for even entering into a sales dialog. Buying innovative new products and services also falls into this category. Inducement buying usually involves a significant amount of product information and buyer education. 

 

All Buying is Driven By the Desire to Satisfy Needs

 

While the three buying approaches differ significantly. They all have one basic factor in common: customer need satisfaction. While the road to satisfying customer needs may be different, the destination is the same. All buying is motivated by the desire to satisfy needs. People become customers and remain customers only if their needs are met and maintained, and sellers can pay a high price when they lose sight of this underlying, foundational principle of sales

 

The concept of need satisfaction is usually more formally expressed in terms of a selling value proposition. A selling value proposition is a marketing statement that summarizes why a potential consumer should buy a product or use a service. It should be designed to persuade a prospect that a company's particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings. Companies use value propositions to target customers who will benefit most from using the theirs products. The ideal value proposition is concise and appeals to the customer's strongest decision-making drivers.

 

The Importance of Accurately Identifying Customer Needs

 

Identifying and customer needs can be a challenging process for a number of reasons. One challenge is that we often view customer needs only in terms of the tangible benefits a product or service provides while other important factors can also be in play. Ben & Jerry's makes great ice cream, but it is rather expensive. Other companies also market excellent ice cream and at a less expensive price. While Ben & Jerry's ice cream may not taste better, many consumers prefer to pay more for it because the company uses a portion of its profits to promote peace in the world and tackle other global problems, a practice that aligns with their own personal sentiments. So here the need being satisfied is customer values rather than customer value.

 

The drive toward innovation can be another distracting influence in correctly identifying customer needs. Companies innovate for two basic reasons. For those with established products or services, innovation is the evolutionary response to competition. They devote resources to improving their products in order to maintain and grow their core businesses, but in the process sometimes lose sight of their customers' needs. Such organization become so focused on their own internal business needs that their priorities move away from that of providing value to their customers.

 

For new companies or initiatives, innovation is about creating entirely new ways of addressing human needs and inventing the "what's next." Often this means generating new business models which may or may not be in sync with what customers really want and expect. This isn't because there aren't smart, capable people working in such organizations; it's just that it's fundamentally easier for companies to define what creates value for them and their stakeholders rather than for their customers. Reading the hearts and minds of ever more diverse customers is a difficult thing to do, especially when trying to predict future conditions.

 

Even when soliciting for donations to a worthy cause, it's important to remember that the giving process itself fills a customer need, usually the need for altruism. Solicitors then, might be more successful focusing on the benefits of the donation to the giver (customer) than on the benefit of the donation to the recipient charitable organization.

 

All buying is motivated by the desire to satisfy needs, and all selling efforts should, therefore, be focused thereon.

 

 

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Know 

MENTAL TOUGHNESS

  

Mental toughness is one of the most common terms used by athletes, coaches, spectators and the media in discussing sports. Generally speaking, mental toughness has to do with having a natural or developed psychological edge or mindset that enables a person to cope more effectively than opponents with the many demands (competition, training, and lifestyle) that sports places on performers. It is essentially composed of a collection of personal values, beliefs, and emotions that not only enable a person to persevere and overcome obstacles, adversity or pressure to consistently achieve athletic goals, but also to maintain concentration and motivation to play at his or her best when things are going well.

While the concept of 'mental toughness' is usually associated with competitive sports, in has also come to be applied to how effectively people respond to stress, pressure and challenges in accomplishing goals and overcoming challenges in all aspects everyday life. While mental toughness can be defined in many different ways, it basically involves the establishment and maintenance of a sense of positive expectancy about ourselves and our outcomes in life in spite of the challenges that confront us. Having mental toughness means having such unwavering self-confidence in our capabilities that we will let no adversity, frustration or threat intimidate us or diminish our positive beliefs and expectations.

Why Mental Toughness is Important

Our cultural ideal is to be strong in in the face of adversity, not just because it's a nice attribute, but because it's essential to success. While mental toughness may not be something we all exhibit on a regular basis, it is a behavior that most of us can demonstrate and should demonstrate because it is almost always in our best interest to do so. It is also a trait that can be developed.

 

We all face difficult problems and challenges that have the potential to negatively affect out thinking. Most of us handle some circumstances well but may get overwhelmed by others. What good does it do to succumb to such difficulties by doubting our capabilities to handle a particular situation? Doing so will only causes negative circumstances to take a bite out of our self-confidence and self-esteem and limit our ability to handle similar challenges in the future.

 

There's a famous saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Harland David Sanders, perhaps better known as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, had his famous secret chicken recipe rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it. Just about everybody knows who Jerry Seinfeld is, but the first time the young comedian walked on stage at a comedy club, he looked out at the audience, froze and was eventually jeered and booed off of the stage. But Seinfeld was mentally tough. He knew he could do it, so he went back the next night, completed his set to laughter and applause, and the rest is history. As coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Tom Landry has the distinction of having one of the worst first seasons on record (winning no games) and winning five or fewer over the next four seasons. He also has the distinction of having two Super Bowl victories, five NFC Championships and holds the record for most career wins. What would his legacy be if he gave up and quit after his fourth year?

 

Think of some of the successful people you know of in sports, business, the arts and in the entertainment industry. Clearly such individuals encountered a significant negative feedback over their careers which, had they not exhibited mental toughness in their steadfast beliefs in their capabilities, would have stymied or totally prevented their accomplishments altogether.

 

Developing Mental Toughness

 

A key component of mental toughness is learning how to condition your mind to think confidently about your ability to successfully handle a situation. This involves overcoming frustration and dismissing self-critical negative thoughts. Here are four key steps for accomplishing this:

 

1. Develop Unwavering Self-Belief. Start with the right attitude and state of mind. Confidence comes from knowing you are prepared and having an unshakable belief in your abilities to reach intended goals. Know what your core confidence is all about. Concentrate on the key qualities that make you better than your opponents. Expect the best from yourself and continually affirm what it is you are going to do to be successful. Program your mind for success ahead of time with positive affirmations and expectations. Visualize yourself performing the way you want by focusing on those things you want to happen, rather than things you're afraid might go wrong.

 

2. Develop an Insatiable Desire to Succeed. You have got to want it. Otherwise it simply won't be worth it to be mentally tough. Think of the times in your past when you really, really, really wanted something. Recall how steadfast and resolute you were in going after it. Focus on the wonderful benefits of succeeding and the dire consequences of failing in your quest. This will boost your motivation. Continually replay and reinforce these opposite outcomes in your mind to strengthen your resolve. Perform with the mindset that failure is simply not an option.

 

3. Maintain Intense Concentration.

Remain fully focused on the task at hand. Do not allow your attention to be distracted or your self-confidence to be shaken by conditions or competitors. Mental toughness is about building the daily habits that allow you to stick to a schedule and overcome challenges and distractions over and over and over again. Mentally tough people don't have to be more courageous, more talented, or more intelligent, just more consistent. Mentally tough people develop systems that help them focus on the important stuff regardless of how many obstacles life puts in front of them. 
 

Start with the awareness of situations that cause you to get frustrated, rushed, intimidated or lose focus. Then reframe the negative into a positive, mentally tough self-suggestions. Instead of thinking "I don't have as much experience as the other candidates for this job," think "My desire to succeed will shine through and win me this position."

 

4. Master Personal Composure. It is critically important to exhibit poise and self-composure in your daily personal interactions and to be able to quickly regain mental and emotional control following unexpected events and distractions. Accept that anxiety is inevitable in challenging and ambiguous situations and prepare for how to cope with it. Know what plans B and C are in case plan A doesn't work. Be aware of 'focal points' you can use to steer a discussion back on track to the issue at hand. The key to personal composure is being relaxed and comfortable in what could potentially be a difficult situation, and the key to being relaxed and comfortable is to anticipate, prepare, and plan for potential eventualities beforehand. Anything worth going for is going to involve pressure at one time or another. Mentally tough people are at their best under pressure. Calmness under fire isn't something you just switch on.

 

Mental toughness comes mainly from the decision to consistently apply traits such as we've discussed here. You can start today and reach levels of your game, relationships, and success that you may not have thought possible. Outstanding athletic ability, superior intellect and musical talent will take someone only so far. Without mental toughness people are unlikely to reach their full potentials.

 

 

persuadeYOUR PERSUASIVE EDGE   

 

THE EYES HAVE IT

Both what you say and how you say it are critical elements for persuading others. Of significant importance is the way in which a persuader employs eye contact. Eye contact has to do with the extent and manner in which a speaker looks into the eyes of a listener during personal interaction. The nature and style of a person's eye contact communicates a great deal about the speaker's beliefs, feelings, intentions and attitudes and can have a powerful impact on his or her persuasiveness.

If you have ever had a conversation with someone who has avoided eye contact with you, reflect on how you felt about the experience and what your perceptions of the other person were. Chances are you did not feel very connected to your conversation partner and that you did not perceive him or her to be a very confident or secure person. Generally speaking, increased eye contact is associated with credibility and dominance. Lack of contact and blinking are interpreted as submissive.

 

The Eyes are Always in Play

The way we look at someone when speaking communicates a lot to another person. If we use intense and constant eye contact, this usually makes our listener uncomfortable and causes him or her to draw certain conclusions about us. On the other hand, if we make infrequent eve contact or avoid it completely, this sends another message. There is really no way to take eye contact out of the equation when communicating face to face with others whether it be with another individual, a group or a large audience. Unlike words, eye contact is simultaneous communication that is always in play both when we are speaking and when we are listening.

 

Making effective eye contact with others can significantly increase our persuasive success in face-to-face interactions. Effective eye contact can make us appear more attractive, confident, trustworthy and sincere. Being able to look people in the eye and hold their gaze can help us in developing relationships, land a job, make a moving speech and even intimidate adversaries. In short, effective eye contact can make us more appealing in many ways and usually improves the quality and productivity of our interactions.

 

Our Eyes Reveal our Thoughts and Feelings.

 

We have probably all heard the old expression: "The eyes are the window to the soul." While that may not be literally true, our eyes do reveal a great deal about what we're really thinking and feeling from moment to moment. Also consider all the eye-related maxims used in everyday conversations: We're" wary of "shifty eyes," and afraid of getting the "evil eye." We're attracted to people who have "kind eyes" and eyes that "sparkle," "glow," or "twinkle," while we're usually repelled by those who are "dead behind the eyes."  When someone is eager and lively we say they're "bright-eyed;" and when we refer to someone who appears bored, we describe their eyes as "glazed over."

 

That we give so much weight to the idea that we can read someone from what's in their eyes is due to the fact that even when we hide what we're really thinking and feeling through our body language and facial expressions, it's often still revealed in our eyes. "The eyes don't lie." This is why poker players often wear sunglasses in order to disguise their reactions to the hands they're dealt.

 

The human tendency to look to someone's eyes in order to understand what they're really thinking starts very early in life. At around 9-18 months, infants will begin to look to their parents' eyes to figure out what they're trying to convey when their face is may otherwise be ambiguous. And we continue to do this for the rest of our lives. Even our pets will look us in the eyes when they are responding to our words. Besides serving us for vision, it appears that our eyes were made for us to connect.

 

Our Eyes Reveal If We Are Listening

 

The ability to maintain appropriate contact to someone as they speak is an especially powerful tool these days for demonstrating active listening. It has become so common for people to break their gaze to check their mobile devices during a conversation that giving someone our complete and undivided attention can truly win them over.  see Wall Street Journal article   Effective eye contact provides an important form of personal acknowledgement that is key to developing rapport. It demonstrates to the speaker that we're tuned in to what he or she is saying, and that sends the message that we are also interested in the person. Despite the fact that we're more electronically 'connected' than ever, Many people are hungry for face-to-face interactions and for someone to really listen to them.

 

How much Eye Contact to Use

In a one-on-one situation, it is important to make eye contact with your conversation partner. However it can become a bit uncomfortable for the other person if you stare intensely at them. Think how you feel when someone is talking to you and never takes their eyes off you. It can be intimidating and even threatening like the way villains in the movies use unyielding eye contact when they speak.

To prevent this, break eye contact every 5 seconds or so. When breaking the eye contact don't simply look away as this might indicate the ending of your part of the conversation. Instead, look up or to the side as if you are remembering something. When talking to a group of people, avoid maintaining eye contact with just one person as this may make the others in the group feel neglected and diminish their desire to want to listen to you. Instead, focus on a different member of the group periodically. This way you will be talking to the entire group and will be keeping everyone interested.

When you are listening to someone, it can be off-putting for the speaker if you stare at them too deeply. More eye contact is good...up to a point. You don't want to lock eyes with someone for an entire conversation. You may want to try to use a technique called the 'triangle' which involves looking at one of the other person's eyes for about 5 seconds, looking at the other eye for 5 seconds and then looking at the person's mouth for 5 seconds and repeating the process. This method coupled with other listening skills such as nodding, using occasional agreement words such as 'yes', 'Uh -huh' 'mm' etc. is a great way to keep the speaker talking and to show him or her that you are interested in what they are saying.

 

For an excellent book on the importance of effective eye contact, check out The Power of Eye Contact by Michael Ellsberg. 

 

 

Ask us a question about persuasiveness. 

 

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I hope you have enjoyed what you've read. As always, we value your thoughts and comments. Please feel free to:

Pat Iannuzzi
Symbiont Performance Group