Sales techiques? Or old, overused jargon

In her new book, The Voice of Authority, Dianna Booher covers ten communication strategies every leader needs to know. These strategies are so transferable to salespeople it’s scary.

Here’s what Dianna has to say about the way you speak:

“If a phrase starts to roll off your tongue, shut your mouth; consider it a cliché--probably a phrase so overused that the meaning has long since been lost.” Dianna writes, “Instead, aim for originality and specificity. For starters, here’s a list of bureaucratic buzzwords that muddy messages and mar your image as a clear communicator and straight shooter:

-No brainer (meaning if you don’t see it as clearly as I do, you’re off your rocker)
-Enhancement (an improvement too insignificant to charge for but worth touting; often confused with body parts)
-Value-added (anything you can’t charge for because the client doesn’t value it enough to pay for it)
-Incent (prodding people with money, freebies, coupons--whatever it takes to get them to do something they’re not inclined to do on their own)
-Core competencies (as opposed to core incompetencies?)
-Initiatives (long, long ago, they were called goals and plans)
-Thought leaders (as opposed to those who lead the unthinking morons?)
-Optimization (the process of making things better and better--as in cooking, flying, making love, making stealth missiles, making movies, building skyscrapers, counting votes, applying makeup, charting sea turtles)
-Solution (solid dissolved in a liquid or a mathematical proof hidden inside all products and services now offered by all corporations around the world)
-Alignment (identifying where the rubber doesn’t meet the road in goals that are supposed to be running parallel to yours)
-Deliverables (paperboys and girls used to ride bikes and carry these)
-Rightsizing (Nordstrom does this free of charge if the clothes are pricey enough)
-Moral clarity (when you decide you can’t get away with something without being fined or jailed)
-Impactful (newly coined term meaning packed full of potential to be hard-hitting--in the mind, heart, pocketbook, gut, mouth)
-Robust (fat, wealthy, expensive, complex, healthy, meaningful, deep, feisty; can be applied to people, philosophy, technology, equipment, training, strategy, food, religion, research, vegetation, medicine, light bulbs, laughter, beer)
-Branding (making livestock so it doesn’t get lost or stolen; marking dead stock in inventory that hasn’t sold in years with a new “look and feel” so that it finds its way to market again)
-Methodologies (in more primitive times, this was methods or the way you do something)
-Technologies (yet undiscovered wizardry from the netherworld)
-Bandwidth (refers to anything you want to limit, as in “that’s outside our bandwidth”)
-Seamless (meaning, I don’t know where the heck my job ends and yours starts, so we can pass the buck if necessary)
-Platform (horizontal structure that supports all systems, people, brands, and philosophies)

Top 10 leadership attributes

Last week marked the International Franchise Assocation's 48th annual convention. During the last lunch session, Doris Kearns Goodwin, a political historian, listed the top 10 leadership attributes, as portrayed by Richard Nixon - I'll recount them here for you:

1. Listen to different points of view before making a decision
2. Learn on the job, acknowledge failures and translate them to success
3. Have a ready willingness to share credit for success
4. Be prepared to shoulder the blame for subordinates
5. Have an acute awareness of your weaknesses
6. When angry, be able to control your emotions (Nixon wrote a letter to the person he was angry with an kept it in a folder ... only sharing it if absolutely necessary)
7. Understand how to relax and harbor anxieties
8. Walk around your office to forge a bond with staff and bolster morale
9. Resolve to stick to long term goals
10. Communicate your goals with stories and metaphors, whenever possible
    

From Orlando to Islamorada, FL

Wrapped up the IFA Convention last evening, picked up Beth at the airport and arrived at Robert and Bebe's around 3p today. Looking forward to an eventual and rejuvenating few days.

Remote bloggin'

This week notes one of the biggest weeks in franchising ... The annual International Franchise Association's convention. This year we're at the Marriot World Centre in Orlando, FL.

This week also signifies the introduction of Red Beard Marketing to the franchise world. There are three of my clients here and, so far, everything has worked great.

And lastly, my first "mobile blog." hopefully this works!

Snow in Charlotte? It happens

Each year about this same time, we get a taste of winter weather. This particular storm brought us about an inch of snow, followed by a little rain and ice. It's an excuse to close schools for a day, take care of a few things around the house and let the kids have some fun. Here's a shot, courtesy of The Charlotte Observer online:
The snow gives me an opportunity to make a few calls, work on a few new projects (one with a new client) and spend a little time with my dog. Marley loves the snow.

. . . I'd rather be in Florida.

I'll drive ... No, you drive.

Let's both drive! Went to our favorite Sunday night restaurant, the Roasting Company, and saw this car/truck/thing. Couldn't resist snapping a photo.

Closing out 2007

2007 was a building year for Beth and me ... Let's review:

1/12/07 - Sold our condo in DC and rolled down I-95 to our new home (and temporary apartment), Charlotte, NC.


1/13/07 - Bought Beth a car


1/14/07 - Beth went back to DC continuing her job with ACE


1/15/07 - I opened up my office in Charlotte, moved in furniture and set up the phone system


2/1/07 - Beth moved down and started working from our apartment


3/15/07 - After a hectic few days and a lot of hard work from our friends at Passport Express, we went to Vero & Ryan's wedding in Cartegena, Colombia.


3/22/07 (around 9p) - Return to Charlotte, specifically commenting in the car ride home that we were going to make more of an effort to have a little more relaxation in our lives.


3/22/07 (around 9:15p) - Open our apartment door to find a sea of humidity, black mold and water stains everywhere. Notice our shower is on. It appears our shower caddie fell off the wall, turned on the shower and turned our 600 sq ft apartment into an Amazonian rain forest.


3/22/07 - 4/6/07 - Stay at my sister's, Beth's parents and mine.


4/4/07 - Pack up the Tahoe and drive to Sanibel, FL. ~14 hours. Next two weeks were probably the most relaxing and productive of the year. May becomes the most profitable month in Abistar Group's short history.


5/1/07 - Close on 5456 Topping Place ... our new house! Pretty damn excited about that.

June - December were actually pretty good months. From a few house improvements, a trip to Kiawah with my family and several UNC football and basketball games ... we find ourselves suddenly staring down 2008.

Fast forward to New Year's Eve ... Our good friends Andrew & Becca Nesbitt recently joined the historic Biltmore Country Club in Asheville, NC and hosted us, John Windham and his girlfriend Gina for dinner, drinking and golf. Here are a few shots of the group, the third hole (notice the gloves) and the clubhouse off the 11th green:

John and Gina

Andrew and Becca

Charlie and Mooch

Beth and I

And a few of the golf course, a Donald Ross design:

This just in ...

Just got my pictures from the Ouray climbing trip. You can check them out here:

Ouray, CO

Ouray, Part II

What a great trip. Even though the ice park was closed, we still got in a solid 36 hours of vertical ice climbing and my climbing partner, Drue Deberry, had all the high tech tools to record the event. And I thought I was a gear junkie! With his FLIP digital video recorder, we captured about a dozen full length videos of our climbing prowess. Probably the best video is Drue climbing "Slippery When Wet," a multi-pitch climb up a portion of a frozen waterfall ... featured here:



We ended the trip with a quick stop in South Park, CO - home of Cartman, Kyle and the rest of the South Park crew (including Mr. Hanky, pictured below) and a night at Joyful Journey, a blip on the Colorado state map but a natural hot spring oasis for the seasoned traveler. Here's a shot of me after a 9am soak in the lithium-infused (natural, mind you) 107 degree hot spring:



And me with Mr. Hanky:




Good times ...