To be or not in harmony is the question in success

You wake up in the morning… the shower is not hot, you are moody. The coffee is lukewarm, you hate this. Your partner asks you something, you answer with a snide remark. You take your car and there is again a traffic jam. The whole day "sucks". You come home exhausted.
But what if you woke up in the morning and said : "Today I am the mail-man, I want 10 000 clients to get their mail in-time, and for me and my family i will receive some income and respect ?"
Oddly enough, the shower would now be hot, the coffee would smell nice and be tasteful. You would give a big kiss to your partner and answer the question in a lovely way. Even if the traffic jam was as big as before you would find a way to get though it faster. And the whole day would move like a lightning. You would come home happy and would have time for your partner.
What is the difference? The same shower, the same coffee, a similar traffic jam. The difference is YOU.
In order to create electricity you need a positive and a negative pole. Those 2 poles cannot move, they stay fixed. You can then create current at the speed of light.

But if the 2 poles move, you create a magnet effect and you attract current instead of creating current.

Similar it is with your being and the end result (having). If those are on one line and fixed, you will create energy and things will go fast; But if you doubt about who you are or who you want to be and if it is not clear what you want to achieve for the clients and for yourself, the whole day is a misery.
Let's assume the being here as the position, the identity, the title. And the having as the end result of what you do.
This end result can be detailed into 4 categories: the result to the client of what you do, the result to your colleagues of what you do, the result to your family and the result to yourself.
We take again the example of a mail-man. The first day at work, his boss tells him I want happy clients. What does he do?
He will throw away all the envelopes of the tax-office as well as the bad news envelopes, and he will have happy clients, isn't it?

But this is not the end result of a mail-man. The end result of a mail-man is the exact information delivered to the exact place in the exact time frame.
This looks a stupid example, but most of the people of companies I have worked with do not really know their end result to the client.

Now the mail-man comes into the office every day, his colleagues can say: "There he is again, let us have a coffee far away from him."
Or they can say: "Hello, how are you, come and have a coffee with us".
The mail-man is married. His wife can say every morning: "Are you again going to this post office?" or she might say : "Honey, here is some tea, have a nice day at the post office". A similar situation with his kid. The teacher ask them: "What is your father doing for living?". He might answer:"My father is waking up every morning at 5 and comes back at 23:30 mostly drunk." or "My father is a mail-man and I am proud of him."
So the mail-man assumes the identity of mail-man, husband, father and of himself. he does a lot of things during the day. Let us call this procedures and processes. And at the end of the day, the mail-man has an end result for the clients, his colleagues, his family and himself.
Now if the mail-man does not know his end result for the client (or colleagues, family) he will put more and more attention on how to do things instead of getting the results. His attention goes now to procedures, processes. He slows down.
And if the procedures, processes become too complicated he will now put all his attention on his position, title. Totally introverted instead of reaching his end results, he will work on his position. And thus fight for his position and title.
I see those examples every day in business and private life with people. And the fact is that those people are good, but they do not see their end results.
This brings down speed and effectiveness.

It even starts when the kid is young, father or mother ask the kid: "What do you want to become later?" And the kid does not know it and for the rest of its life is wondering what to become instead of just taking the time to be,to do and to have results.

The question is not to be or not to be, the question is do I have known end results and I am a person who wants those end results. When you are in harmony with your end results, the doing will start automatically. It is an automatic motivating mechanism and it creates energy.

Lets create it.
Drs Marc De Turck


Special acknowledgement is made to Mr. L..Ron Hubbard and his writings on Be,Do, Have.

Emotions in sales to make people act

Basing your marketing and sales on behavior is a risky business

It is much more effective to use emotions because they make people act

It is far beyond doubt that the goal of each company – small or big – is that its product reaches as big of a group as possible, that it can be recognized by that group as needed and that it is purchased.

For this purpose people use variety of strategies to find out what the market demands and how the potential client may be interested enough so that he prefers their product to the same or to a similar of another brand or a company.

Some of those strategies stress on logics in finding markets or selling a product. It means thinking like is we buy this and sell that we make a given profit. Or we lower or raise the price the market will react in this or that manner. 

There is however a mighty mechanism which good sales people and market researchers use though they might not know the theory and the exact techniques behind it. And this mechanism is called: emotions.

Why are emotions the most powerful instrument in marketing and sales?

Lets say that person consists of three parts – convictions, behavior and emotions. Convictions are important but if we want to find out what the convictions of our potential client or of the market are is a risky business. Sometimes two people even after 20 years of marriage do not manage to know the convictions of their partners.

If we try to know our potential client or the mood of the market by behavior, if we want to sell by learned techniques and phrases, by proper dress and manners; if what is important for us is whether the client will look at our left or right shoulder, whether he will have his arms crossed, whether his head will lean at one side or another it is also a risky business. 

The reason is that the person in front of you may manifest perfect behavior, to speak fascinating things, but at the same time to have bad intentions to you and when you eventually find out about it – too late.

In another words the person in front of you may wear a perfectly polished mask behind which there might be different intentions than the manifested ones.

The key to know the person in front of you or the market is emotions. Why? Because logic make people think and the emotions lead people to actions! The word “e-motion” comes from the Latin words ex – outside and movere – movement. In another words it means “movement outside” or the thing from inside which results in outward manifestations. With proper training in the Tone Scale of Emotions©  which IDEAS provides in its training a person may perfectly know the true condition of the market and of the people in front of him regardless of what behavior is demonstrated and regardless of what magnificent convictions are spoken.

Did you ever think of why a painting gets sold for 1 000 000 dollars? Why can one product have totally different prices depending on who sells it and to whom it is sold? 

One of the main reasons is that this particular painting or jewel or a stone is connected to a certain emotion which make people give tremendous amounts of money. The sales person discovers and understands what one associates with a given product (the button), then he inspires the buyer, makes him dream and manages to make the client make a link between realization of his dream and the product for sale. This is emotion. There is no logic here.

If people start to think too much it will be hard to foresee to what from their past it will bring them to or to what variaty of consideration they will come up to.  As a result of this there will appear answers like: “well, let me think it a little over”, “we’ll see”, “I am not sure”, “let me live with it for a while” and other “considerations”, which block the activeness and decision making.

Of course here we are not speaking about manipulation of the client or of the market with the purpose that they should be made to buy something they do not need. (Unfortunately there is an opinion about sales people that they should fascinate the client so that they may foist something unnecessary on him, that they are agresive and so on). A good sales man or marketeer can help the potential client or the market find out exactly what they want by the means of the Tone scale. And when that happens again with the help of emotions the sales person can help hos prospect not to fall down with considerations, logic, thinking which may stop him from acting and decision making. Because reasons why something should not be done are easily found.

Let’s take for example a kid of 3-4 years old. He does not know any selling techniques, he does not have well polished behavior for any situation, he does not have fabulous convictions nor a refined speech. He however he knows that he wants something and he uses different emotions– until he does not find the right one in which his wish may come true.  

Or just imagine a car seller who has a young and fancy lady in front of him looking for a new car. So he starts to explain to her in a very technical manner the technical parameters of the engine, the newest technology of break system and the incredible lease scheme. Some may say: what’s wrong with saying those things to a client? There is nothing wrong with that. The question is that there is no emotion involved to make the person act. It is very likely that the young lady starts to feel inadequate for not understanding all those nice technical details, to express outward agreement and never comes back. In my opinion the right approach here would be that the sale’s person discovers why the young lady really wants to get a car or a particular model. He can discover unsuspected for him motives (buttons) and to use them to make her live her realized dreams about a car – it may be strong sensations, her friends looks, or it may be that she is looking for something elegant so it adds up to her elegance. It can be anything!  

Selling with emotions does not refer only to women. Men are also emotional. They may link cars with certain emotions and not just with technical specifications. It may be prestige, a sign to a social or branch belonging, strong sensations, comfort, independence and so on which the seller could find and use as buttons in his communication with his client.    

After finding his client’s or market buttons and after having used them to make the client see how his dream may come true then the technical specification may play a role. The client will leave with a realized dream and this is a good prerequisite that he becomes a client again.

The solution is in the good knowledge of the Tone Scale of Emotions©, their role in determining people’s actions and their usage to create a high motivational status. In his book “Science of Survival” Mr. L. Ron Hubbard^© describes in details each emotion, the exact characteristics of the person in it and what can be expected of him as condition and behavior being in a certain tone.          

There one can see the exact mechanism how to find the emotion of the person in front of us, how to communicate with him and how to bring him to a level  where practical and constructive decisions are being made. This kind of information is offered by our company in each of our training – Sales, Conflict management, Motivation and Recruitment, Leadership, Balancing professional and private life – because it is the key for success in each of those spheres.

There is also one very important reason to know the emotions. Each of us without exception has his own emotion in most of his life.  But besides our emotion,  there are situation and social emotions.  

If a person falls down on the street his emotions will go down to fear or anger or (the situation emotion) but if his real emotion is higher he will go up again. The example of this are kids. If they go down to a lower emotion because of pain or other dissatisfaction they quickly get their enthusiasm back with the problem going away. 

The social emotion is actually the mask which we are expected to wear or which we put on ourselves for variety of reasons – this is what we want to hide from the others and to manifest something else. 

Which of those emotions do you want to know in sales or marketing? The mask? You want to now know whom you are dealing with? Hardly. Or the situation? Well, if nothing else this emotion  could help but is variable.

It is good for us to know the real emotion of the client or of the market so that we can communicate with them, with their reality and then we can bring them to our own reality where we want to sell. The result will be action, decision, interest, people thankful for your attention and understanding and future clients.

So use the emotions in your sales and marketing. Logic makes people think, emotions make people act! The right emotions however!

Once learned and understood this mechanism will bring you real success and joy and last but not least it will give you a reputation of a person who helps people to express and realize their dreams.   

Want to know more about it?  click here.

Marc J. de Turck                                                                              

© 2007 IDEAS.  All Rights Reserved. Grateful acknowledgement is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. HUBBARD, L. Ron Hubbard, are a trademarks owned by  R.T. C. and are used with its permission.

Coaching managers: a workable model outlined where both coach and manager are aligned in intention to reach the goal and where the manager motivates himself.

Coaching managers: a workable model outlined where both coach and manager are aligned in intention to reach the goal and where the manager motivates himself.

In today’s world coaching of managers cannot be ignored.  Management coaches became as needed as top sport coaches in national sport clubs.   On the market, many companies do provide coaching services with some workable methodology, but the personality of the coach plays a big role in this. The model described here is one which can be learned by anyone who likes to coach managers successfully and with results.  It includes conviction as the most important element. This conviction then is communicated via the correct emotion and some specialized techniques are used to get a measurable end-result.

1.            Determine a clear goal and purpose to achieve the goal of the manager.

What does the manager want to achieve on the long run and what are the underlying reasons behind this? This questions seem too simple at first glance…. But most coaching per my observation fails at that exactpoint.   A clear agreement on the purpose of the goals brings the energy to both the manager and the coach. It is like an automatic motivating and energy creating mechanism.  And the coach will see it physically in front of his eyes.

Lets take an example of a coaching session with a manager. 

The manager when asked for his goal, says : “We want to be the biggest builder on the market in 5 years”.  Great….   Naturally one has to detail this , which market, what exact product, when? How big? Etc.  In that way both the manager and the coach have a clear picture of the goal the manager wants to achieve and the coach wants to help achieve.  In this process one can even make a clear picture with a camera or a clear video of the goals one wants to achieve to make it more real for both the manager and the coach.

2.            Look at the underlying personal reason, the personal purpose of the manager.

Why does the manager personally want this? Answers like:  because my boss wants this, or because we have to have it, or because then I will be liked by my colleagues” can pop up.  The coach then looks for a personal reason of the manager which is a positive reason for most parties involved.   This process can take quite some time.  The end result of it is that the Manager feels the energy coming back.  For instance the manager says: “I always loved our buildings and I really want the market to see those buildings all over the place”. The coach will see that the manager now really knows why and that he is ready to start getting it.

3.                   Look at your own intention and find an agreement between the manager and you.

Ones the goals, purposes of the manager are well known and established, it is now the turn to the coach to look in himself whether he personally and honestly really agrees with this goal and purpose and whether he really loves the manager enough to bring him though all kinds of situations. I want to stress the importance here of this step.  In my career when I honestly did not want this goal of the manager,  I refused to continue coaching the manager. And when I honestly wanted to help the manager it was easy and brought success.  The coach also has to have affinity for the manager and somehow love him like he/she was his own child.  Aligned conviction of both manager and coach is the most important determinant of the success in coaching managers.

4.                   Establish agreement on detailed ideal scenes.

 

Detailing the goal is mostly forgotten in coaching. Let us take an example of a company where 3 managers have the same goal, but all three see the details differently.   The telephone rings.  A CEO of a big company has conflicts between his top managers…. His marketing manager, his financial director and his manager in charge of the stock do not agree on the correct amount of stock in the crisis situation …  We analyse the situation and we see that the marketing manager wants as much stock as possible in this crisis so as to be able to respond fast to the market.  The financial manager on the other hand wants zero stock because every stock is money lost in a crisis situation. The person in-charge of the stock wants standardized boxes with standardized labels so as to quickly unload and upload the boxes.  Three people working in the same company, all very motivated and intelligent and really wanting the same goal.  …. three  different ways to see the ideal stock. The reason is not that they have counter intentions or that they are stupid.  The reason is that they do not have an agreed upon ideal scene concerning the stock. Taking into account that there are many functions in any organisation, the potential to have different views on how it should be ideally is imminent.  This creates in most companies chaos and is one of the main reasons management cannot be done correctly.

5.                   Establish agreement on how to measure the actual scenes

Once the ideal scenes have been determined and agreed upon, comes now how the coach and the manager are going to measure the actual, the real scene on results, so as to be able to see what are the positive points (plus-points) and the negative points (outpoints) and what to do in each situation arising.

This measurement has to be done over time in graphical form.  An actual scene either improves towards the ideal or worsens.  Things do not stay equal.  They are in continuous movement, better or worse than wanted.

I also want to stress the importance of the coach to be able to coach in a positive factual way and not as a fascist coach (believing people get better with punishment and hardships) or a relationship coach (working only with feelings, rumours, personal relations of any kind) or a corrupted coach (working with bribes).

A good coach works only with 2 elements:  does the manager improve towards the ideal scene or not based on factual measurement and the positive intention of the manager.

A great coach is like a loving mother, when her kid improves, betters, she finds out the positive thing the kid is doing and awards or acknowledges the kid for it. When the kid does something bad she also looks for the  positive intention behind the negative result. 

People are basically good and one has to look at the positive intention in any resulting situation and work with this intention to help people to improve themselves.  Punishment as well as sympathetic reasonableness are not part of the vocabulary of the management coach.  Empathy and pushing the positive intention are part of his vocabulary.

6.                   Coach the manager with a plan based on factual measures.

Once the measurements have been established the coach can now measure over time (per minute, per day, per week, per month, ..) the improvement or worsening of the managers situation. This is done in graphical form with on the one hand the results and on the other hand the time. The time period used will depend upon how fast a situation can affect the manager heavily and how flexible he is to change a course of direction. 

Both the coach and the manager will base their plan for the next period on the movement of statistic in graphical form.  When a situation improves - following the English Soccer League’s adagio  "never change a winning team" the coach will not change anything as a first step.  When a situation worsens slightly, the coach will gently push the manager to improve his situation fast and when a situation worsens the coach will as a first step not change anything.   

7.                   Coach the manager with the correct emotions.

Emotions and motivation comes from the same Latin word “movere”: which means to move.
When a coach talks about motivation, he means to help a person to move, motivate himself.

History has proven that slavery, punishment, pain, fear, manipulation, drugs, hypnosis do not have a long lasting and wanted positive impact upon people to get motivated, but do certainly create unpredictable reactions of people.

Motivating someone is only possible by inviting someone to motivate himself. Inviting someone to motivate himself towards a certain goal or purpose is done via the usage of an exact emotional carrier wave.  People express emotions and those change in seconds.  A great coach uses the correct emotional carrier wave to bring about understanding in the person of the manager. The point is that the coach uses a correct emotion so as to not create reaction but motivation in the person of the manager.

8.                   Use correct communication with acknowledgement in management coaching

An acknowledgement is a word, symbol or sentence expressing to the other person that he/she is understood. An agreement expresses also that the person agrees. Those are 2 different things.

In some countries from the East, people do not dare to acknowledge anymore because agreement and acknowledgement have been mixed and they think when acknowledging the other person will take it as agreement.  One can – without agreeing – acknowledging a person and thus positively and correctly controlling a communication without creating negative reactions.

Let us take an example.  The manager has to do something as a task given by the coach.  He has some human reactions in a negative angry emotion.  The coach at that moment has to know how to acknowledge the person in the correct emotion so as the human reaction to disappear as well as the objection. A management coach who does not know this will personally react and will not get a smooth accomplishment of the targets given nor the plan elaborated.

A great coach loves people, loves to help people, understands people, finds the good in people and uses exact steps to help people to motivate themselves towards growth and prosperity.

Success to all readers who want to become management coaches. 

IDEAS cv 2012, Marc De Turck
Special acknowledgement is made to Mr. L. Ron Hubbard and his writings on targets and goals, ethics and conditions and on communications.

drs Marc J. De Turck