Recently I attended a negotiation training course that I was pleasantly surprised. with it. The course gave me a timely reminder to be confident and back myself in the face of resistance, and it demonstrated the simple (yet difficult to master) skills that I believe are required to build positive and successful relationships...
Read MoreThe current system of measuring, and judging, the efficiency of most office-based work is wrong. By requiring staff to be in the office for a specific number of hours each day, and even going as far as limiting them to a specific window of time within the day to fulfill this requirement, the emphasis is on being at work longer rather than achieving better results. Focusing on time-based judgment of work is not productive. It does not allow people to work when they produce their best results, it assumes every person takes the same amount of time to do their job, and it fosters a negative psychology and atmosphere at work.
The solution is simple: the efficiency of our work needs to be judged on output, not time.
There are many inherent problems with organising work to be solely a time-based operation. Most of these I am applying to a “standard” office-based job. There are examples in society where certain industries and organisations have deviated from the time-based assessment, but for most of the world, the norm is still to judge workers by how long they spend at work, not how much they achieve. Here are some problems with that kind of thinking:
I’m a morning person which means that I am most productive in the wee hours of the morning, normally when no-one else is around and I can focus on my tasks without distraction. If I could start work early (say 6am) then I would be much more productive in my time at work. I would get at least two hours of ultra-productive work while everyone else was at home sleeping, and my overall output would improve drastically.
I’ve actually proven this in a previous job where flexible start times were allowed. It was so good for me that I was achieving more in those first few hours than I was previously doing in an entire day. By the time the rest of my team had arrived, made their coffee, and were ready to start work, I had knocked off all my critical tasks and I could attend the boring meetings without getting too frustrated.
Flexible work arrangements can go the other way too. Someone else might prefer to start at midday and work on into the evening. Maybe they are young and like to go out partying most nights, or maybe they just prefer being up a night. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, but if these people are forced into turning up to work early just to fulfill a silly time schedule then they will never bring their A-game.
Why not let people start work when it suits them? At least that way you’d be getting the best out of each employee.
Why is it that every person in the office needs the exact same time to perform their job? Is everyone actually just robots that work at the exact same speed all day?
Even workers doing the same jobs with the same levels of responsibility within the same company can perform at very different speeds and skills. Instead of giving these workers a default amount of time to work, why not judge them based on their achievements and the quality of their work?
Judging based on output is a more accurate measure of efficiency. If you have a situation where two employees perform the same role but at different speeds then forcing them to work the same hours actually has a negative impact on the overall work environment. The more skilled, and thus more productive person will eventually reduce their output to match the lowest common denominator because there is no incentive for them to excel.
When everybody has to be at work for the same amount of time it creates the attitude that everyone just needs to do the bare minimum to get by. If a worker knows that they could complete a task early and then spend the rest of the day doing something they find interesting (like researching new technology to apply at work, or coming up with innovative ideas to improve their results, or even given the afternoon off) then they are likely to work harder and produce better results.
But instead of rewarding employees like this we tend to “punish” them. When someone finishes their work early the norm is to give them another (boring) task to ensure that they are working (or at least sitting at work) for the expected number of hours. The result is that the normally productive and efficient worker becomes less motivated to work harder and less motivated to produce high quality output.
When a person realizes that no matter what they do (work harder, work faster, or call in sick and go to the beach) their workload does not deviate from the expected number of hours at work then they have no motivation to produce high quality work. Because they are being judged on a time-based scale they will appropriately perform their work on the same scale. If they are given a week to do a task then you can assume that they will nearly always take a full week to do it. Even if you gave them a month to do the same task they would only finish it just before the deadline.
The employee who realises they are judged on time realises they can exploit the work environment to their favour.
At some point, all employees in a time-based environment will exploit the system. Some will do it purposefully and others will not even be aware they are doing it, but I guarantee that everyone will eventually do it.
Exploiting the time-based work environment is easy. You can continually over-estimate the time it takes to do work, you go out for “meetings” which are really just you catching up with friends, you spend half your time having coffees with colleagues, you have a long lunch because your boss is busy and wont notice, you call in sick on important days so other people get stuck with the tough work, and so on.
In a time-based work environment the employee is judged just on the amount of time between when they arrive and when they leave. In this environment there are many, many, many ways for the worker to exploit the system so that they are doing the least possible work in their allocated time. The sad part about this exploitation is that sometimes a great worker can head down this path simply because they realise that no matter how well they do their job or how much extra effort they put in, they still have to sit in that chair for the exact same time every day.
This essay could go on and on. There are many more examples of why judging work on a time-basis is wrong but these are just subsets, or combinations, of all the above points. The idea is always the same: the more a worker is judged solely on the time they spend at work, the less productive and efficient they become.
I’m speaking in generalisations here and there are always exceptions. For example, it is obviously better for an NFL team to keep playing for the entire match and not just score 40 points in the first half and then go home. But for most of society, and predominately those office workers that are bound to the desk and chair all week, this is not the case. An environment where the focus is to just work for a specific number of hours is negative and ultimately flawed. It creates the wrong attitude towards work and it fosters a culture of inefficiencies and time-wasters.
How do you judge your employees?
The message for today is simple: Never be a suck-up. Ever.
I am sure we have all known a suck-up or two (like the guy in the cheesy picture above). These are the people that run around trying to make themselves look and feel good by getting approval from their peers, and particularly from their mangers. They might even try to call it "networking" or "making connections" but most of the time these actions are just sucking up in disguise. They are especially prevalent in the workplace where individuals mistakenly think that being a suck up (brown-noser, ass-kisser, whatever you want to call it) will propel them further and faster up the chain.
Sadly for the suckups this kind of thinking is completely wrong. Sucking up does not get you anywhere good, and it actually has a very negative impact on your career and on your life in general. In fact, the more you suckup the more detrimental it is to your life. Here are five good reasons why sucking up is stupid.
..because you are!
No matter how good you are at sucking up, everyone else around you will notice it. And when people notice sucking up they immediately label that person as insincere and fake. Even those you are sucking up to will think this.
Sucking up sends a very clear message about yourself:
My own ideas, thoughts, and actions are worthless and I will blindly say and do whatever I need to to get approval from others.
People will get this message loud and clear and they will see all of your actions as insincere, even if you do manage to 'grow a pair' and actually decide to have your own opinion.
Consider the situation from the perspective of a manager working with a suck up subordinate. If that person is constantly acting as a "yes man" and always trying to be on the manager's side would that manager feel like they are able to trust them? Would the manager be comfortable leaving them to handle an emergency? Would that manager have confidence that the suck up would be a strong leader without the manager around?
No-sucking-way! (sorry, that was bad)
Nobody trusts a suck-up because they spend too much of their time and energy trying to impress others, rather than just getting stuck into the work and being productive.
Sadly there are some managers who enjoy having people suck up to them and sometimes they even encourage it. But have a think about the kind of manager that would do this.
A manager who is swayed by sucking up is not a good manager. They obviously lack confidence in their ability to lead, and thus receive a small burst of positive reinforcement whenever a suck up comes along. So what do they do? They encourage the sucking up! After all we all like to feel good about ourselves don't we?
The suckup might see this as a wonderful opportunity but it is actually very limiting. A poor manager that feels like they need ass-kissers will also feel like they need to sabotage their career progression in order to always keep them one step below. They will use the suck-up to make themselves look (and feel) good but never allow them to grow to their potential.
A manager without confidence will forever be a negative and reactive manager. They will feel like they are fighting against everyone else to make themselves look good, and when it comes to the crunch time, the suck-up will not be well looked after.
The irony of all this is that a manager that encourages sucking up, or is not skilled enough to even spot it, is not a good manager to work with in the first place. Instead of wasting your time with these people, move on and find a good manager that will help you grow.
A good manager values integrity and honesty above all other traits. They respect the opinions of those around them and are open to, and willing to listen to, new ideas and even feedback on their own performance. This is the difference between being a manager and being a leader.
A good leader knows that their role is about guiding and supporting the team below them. A good leader knows that the people below them are the experts and the leader is there to ensure they get the best possible environment to thrive and develop their skills. And it is this thinking that means a good leader does not like sucking up.
These good leaders want a team of smart individuals that work cohesively as a team. A suckup breaks this team dynamic by attempting to make everything all about themselves - something a good leader will not stand for.
The result is that the suck-up does not last in a team with a good leaders. They will move on to another position where they hope that their brown-nosing skills will be more respected. As I've already described, the only manager that will respect such behavior is a bad manager and the suck-up ends up doing more harm than good to their career. Especially when they could have stayed and grown so much under the guidance of the good leader.
The final reason for not to be a suckup is that suckups do not make many friends. We spend a lot of our lives at work so it makes sense that we form close connections and friendships with our colleagues. But no-one wants to be friends with a suck-up.
Sure a suck-up might make many "connections" in the sense that they know a lot of people in the business world, but rarely will they develop close friendships. The suck-up is more likely to have 500+ connections on LinkedIn but less than a handful of true friends in real life.
Friendship is a massively important part of our lives. Having great friends brings so much happiness and positivity to our lives. When you have truly close friends they become like a second family that you can share your life with. I know I am blessed with an amazing bunch of friends and funnily enough I met most of them in at work.
Sucking up does not get you anywhere in life. It results in nothing but negative outcomes, both in professional and personal contexts. It is time to stop sucking up and start being honest in your life.
I was at a social event recently that was filled with what I would consider to be highly intelligent people, and I was amazed to see a slightly disturbing pattern emerge. What I saw was that many of these well educated people were so hung up on impressing others that they had forgotten how to just be social and have a good time. It was as if life had become one big competition to these people and that in the brief two hour window in which they met it was a "measuring contest" as to who had been more successful and impressive in their lives so far. Pretty sad huh? But the real sadness was that none of them were really all that impressive. Sure they were all university educated and well employed in successful and respected companies, but they were not actually impressive. Why? Because it was obvious that they were too caught up in making their lives sound impressive rather than just actually being impressive.
And so it struck me - people who spend their time worrying about impressing others end up living the least impressive lives.
If you are trying to impress others then you're doing it wrong.
What other people think of you does not matter at the best times, and particularly so when thinking about how impressive your life is. In order to be a person who impresses others you actually need to stop caring about impressing others.
People that expend their mental energy trying to impress others are projecting thoughts, ideas, and examples from their life that they think are impressive. The biggest flaw with this thinking is that everyone does not think the same. What is impressive for one person may be dull and boring for another.
If a 20 year old man told you how he was excited because he had walked to shops earlier that day you might not be too impressed. In fact you might think that he was a little lazy (or crazy). But what if that man had been in a wheelchair for the majority of his life? What if he had been told that he would never walk again? Would you be impressed now?
Of course you would! And that is a perfect example of why the measurement of your life has nothing to do with others. To that fictional man the act of walking is impressive and that is all that matters. The fact that most other people can do that easily is not the point. His actions are only judged from the perspective of his own reality.
And the same rules apply in your life. Your opinions of your life are what matter most. No one else in this world has the exact same knowledge and experience as you. That means that no one else is positioned as well as you to make a judgment on your life. Only you can determine if your life is impressive.
Stop trying to impress others and start trying to impress yourself.
Taking everything I've said into consideration it should be obvious that you do not become impressive simply by trying to be so. You become impressive by living a happy and purposeful life.
And here is how to do just that...
If there is one thing that is universally impressive it is when someone breaks away from the traditional pursuits of our society to chase their dream. Stories of people quitting their mundane jobs to do what excites and motivates them are naturally inspiring. We love to hear these stories because they remind us that it is actually possible to live our dreams.
Compare the difference in the following scenario. Imagine meeting some new people at a party and the conversation takes the standard "what do you do?" path. The first person is a hard-working office drone in some well known accounting/law/consulting firm, earning a decent living. The second person is barely getting by but is running their own business, writing a novel, and training to become a WWF wrestler. It's pretty obvious which person is more interesting and which person's story would be more inspiring isn't it?
So don't base your life around what you believe others will think is impressive. That "successful" office job is actually not that impressive when compared to the endless possibilities that are available if you only decided to follow your dreams instead. :)
Nobody likes a bragger. If you go into a conversation with aim of bragging and trying to sound impressive then the chances are that you'll just annoy everyone.
What people respond to better is someone who is quietly confident and does not need to talk about themselves or be validated by others. This personality trait is very impressive.
Consider me as an example. I believe what I have achieved in life so far is impressive, at least from my perspective. I'm respected and highly sought after in my career, I am the founder of a software development company, I write articles that touch over 4,000 unique visitors a month, and I actively participate and advise in multiple private equity projects.
But I don't start off telling that to anyone when I first meet them. I generally tell them a very small subset, just glossing over the details, and only if they show enough interest do I go into detail. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for self-promotion but that time is rarely in purely social situations.
If you do impressive things in your life then you should give others the chance to discover this for themselves. They will respect you much more if you are humble about your achievements.
It is amazing how contagious and inspiring a positive attitude can be. If you exhibit a happy and positive attitude towards everything in life then people will find it very hard not to be impressed. Even the most negatively minded person will feel the impact of a positive attitude. Just make sure you're not doing the in-your-face-happy-clappy-my-attitude-is-better-than-yours positive attitude. Nobody likes that.
But seriously, your attitude defines everything in your life, and if you are projecting a strong and positive attitude then you will attract like-minded people.
Imagine the situation where two people are doing the same job and one describes it as "just a boring job that pays the bills" and another describes it as "an amazing job working with great people and getting to learn lots of new skills and processes". Which person would gain your attention?
If you have a positive attitude, even if the face of negativity, then you will always come across as an impressive individual.
This is the final ingredient to being impressive - stop worrying about what others think.
If you are following all the above steps AND you simply do not care about what others think of you then I guarantee that people will be impressed by you.
When you operate in this mode you give off an aura of passion, motivation, productivity, happiness, and success, which are all highly impressive traits.
That's it. That's how to be impressive. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start being impressive today!
All business meetings are a waste of time. Got your attention? Good. Now ok I admit that maybe there is the odd rare occasion that a meeting is well executed, achieves a set purpose, and utilises time effectively but sadly that is the exception rather than the rule. All too often meetings drone on and on, seemingly without direction, and serve no real purpose other than to allow a few people the opportunity to hear themselves talk. If you need to be convinced just how much of a waste of time most meeting are all you need to do is just consider those professions that charge clients based on a set time limit of work – doctors, lawyers and so on.
Do you think that the doctors at your local clinic have time for all day meetings? Hell no, they are busy trying to see as many patients as they can. What about lawyers? Do they sit around discussing the finer points of law in great detail every day? Nope, they are busy doing research and advisory work for their clients. These professions actually try to have the fewest number of meetings they can.
The reasons are pretty obvious – they make money based on the time spent doing certain activities that the client considers useful. This includes things like performing a health check-up or advising on your will and definitely does not include sitting around talking all day.
These professions are not measured on how long they sit at work but on how much useful work they can achieve in a single day. They need to ensure they are maximising their productivity in order to achieve more (and thus earn more). As a result these professions have become very clever at weeding out the useless rubbish from their workday and wasteful meetings are public enemy number one.
I like to be positive so it’s only fair I digress here to talk about how to actually have a productive meeting – an endangered and rare species that is very hard to find in its natural cube farm habitat.
Contrary to my earlier broad statement, meetings actually can be very productive if we follow a few simple rules:
It’s not hard – it’s just common sense. I bet most office-based workers reading that list would not have been too shocked by it, so it begs the questions: why do people insist on breaking these rules and having wasteful meetings?
Beware the informal chat or the quick catch-up as these are just time-wasting meetings in disguise. If you hear these words I recommend you look at your watch, screw up your face and make a series of non-committal “umms “and “ahhhs” until they leave you alone. Failing that, run.
These meetings are the ones that just drag on forever because they break all the rules listed above. They are just an excuse for people to get together in a room and be boring. These meetings have a tendency to drag on well past what represents a valid definition of “quick” and are often nothing more than an ad-hoc forum for attention hogs to get in the spotlight.
Next time you are stuck in a meeting that seems like it has been going for eternity cast your eye around and make a mental note on who is doing all the talking. Chances are it is the same two or three people always espousing their opinions. These are attention hogs and they love a captive audience.
Humans tend to trust and believe those who talk the most at meetings. The willingness to talk first and loudest sends a not-so-subtle message of confidence and bravado which is interpreted as competency. This was proven a few years ago in a study by Cameron Anderson and Gavin J.Kilduff (and thanks to the guys at Freakonomics who pointed this out to me), which examined how people evaluate each other in meetings. The outcome (as reported by Time) was very interesting:
Repeatedly, the ones who emerged as leaders and were rated the highest in competence were not the ones who offered the greatest number of correct answers. Nor were they the ones whose SAT scores suggested they’d even be able to. What they did do was offer the most answers — period.
“Dominant individuals behaved in ways that made them appear competent, above and beyond their actual competence.” Troublingly, group members seemed only too willing to follow these underqualified bosses. An overwhelming 94% of the time, the teams used the first answer anyone shouted out — often giving only perfunctory consideration to others that were offered.
So all people need to do to appear competent in meetings is talk lots. Are all those long boring meetings starting to make sense now? Are you suddenly identifying who is an attention hog at your work?
Next time you have a meeting try enforcing some rules to make it more productive and see if you can limit the time those attention hogs get. Otherwise your life will be spent walking from one meeting to the next and never actually working. It's hard to be passionate at your job if you never get to achieve anything.
I love starting a new project. There is something special about that energetic buzz that occurs at the beginning of each new project. It is a wonderful time filled with positive energy, happiness, and excitement. The same can be said when you finish a project too - it is a magnificent feeling to see something through to completion, where you can stand back and admire your own work and feel proud of your achievement.
Unfortunately actually finishing a project is a hard thing to do.
I know this because I am fantastic at starting new projects and making quick progress. I get motivated and the work flows easily and the project runs smoothly. At least it does at the start anyway.
I believe most things in life, including projects, follow the Pareto principle (aka the 80-20 rule). It is a basic data modelling formula which says that 80% of whatever your are measuring normally comes from only 20% of the sample population.
This rings true for most projects across all aspects of our lives. We can complete 80% of a project with as little as 20% of the total effort. This is the early stage of the project where everything progresses beautifully, but there will come a point where the ratio inverts. You will reach a time where the remaining 20% of effort will take you 80% of the total project time and it is during this time that motivation drops, progress is stagnated, and you run the risk of not finishing the project at all.
I've met this barrier many times in my life so I know how tough it can be to push through it. I've also failed to, or chosen not to, push through it many times too so I also know how unsatisfying it feels to leave a project unfinished. But recently I've developed a few questions that I use to help me stay on track and complete my projects.
Sometimes your idea is actually not that good to begin with. Before starting a new project, or when struggling to maintain motivation, you need to reassess the original idea. Is it actually a good idea? Is it something is actually worth spending time on? Is it worth it?
You might realise that your original idea, which you thought was the best thing since sliced bread, is actually not so good. That's ok, because I'm going to let you in on a secret - you don't have to finish every project you start.
Re-read that last sentence. You honestly don't have to finish every single project you start. In fact I will go as far as to say that if you did so you would be wasting your time.
You're not perfect and every idea you have is not a great one. Some ideas you have are rubbish. Some of these rubbish ideas you will actually have to start working on first before you realise they are rubbish, but when you do make that realisation any more work on the project becomes wasted time.
Some ideas are not worth finishing, no matter how far you've progressed. You could be 95% complete before you realise it, but once you do it is time to let it go and move on to the next project.
It may sound like a dumb question, but too many people start a pet project with nothing but a wafty idea of whatever they are trying to achieve. Naughty!
When you start something you need to make sure you understand exactly what "finished" is. Even if you have future ideas, or phases, for your project it is best to view them as separate projects with separate time frames. Each part needs a definitive milestone which signals that the project is over, otherwise it will end up feeling like one never-ending project and that can be a huge drain on motivation.
Every project needs to have a clear finish and it needs to be quantifiable. That way when you reach the end you will be 100% sure the project is finished and you can start celebrating!
Every project must have a celebration at the finish. The celebration is the absolute final task in the project. Without a celebration the project is never actually finished.
The celebration should be fun and relaxing with a focus on enjoying the success of finishing a project. If it was a big project then make the celebration big too. This is why smart companies have launch parties when they release a new product - it is a tangible end to finish the project, it gives employees the opportunities to appreciate some recognition for their hard work, and it also promotes the business.
The same thing happens for any personal project you do. Just finished a big renovation? Host a party with your friends to celebrate! Been working long hours at home to start your business? Take the family out somewhere special when you finish. Whatever the project is it will need a celebration when it's finished. Enjoy it.
Once you finish a project (don't forget the celebration) then it is an ideal time to use your recent experiences to look toward the future. Think about the good and bad of the last project, whether it was actually worth it, and identify what you will do better in the future. Don't spend too long at this stage though because you're next successful project is waiting for you.
Good luck!
A few times recently I have written about my goal to quit work and devote my time to things I actually enjoy. I have talked about how I plan to sustain this lifestyle through several income streams, one of which is my software development business - 16 Threads. Some people have contacted me saying that if I spend my time running my own business then I have not quit work at all, and that I am probably working even harder to get the business running. But I don't consider running my own company to be a job. It's not "work" as most people know it because we see things differently at 16 Threads.
The majority of the 16 Threads business is self-driven. We do some work for clients (if we are interested in a project then we will take it on) but otherwise we spend our time following our passion and creating software that we want to use.
Our aim is for everyone to enjoy the work they do at 16 Threads. If someone has an idea, a pet project, or a vision then they are encouraged to follow that. Or if a project comes in but no-one is interested in it then we will happily pass on it.
Sure, like any business money is important, but we feel that the money will take care of itself because when people love what they do they produce high quality products, making them easier to sell.
We're all about fun at 16 Threads. We have fun at work, we have fun with our clients, and we have fun amongst ourselves. We want everyday to be fun because we believe that work doesn't have always have to be serious (or seriously depressing).
We never let fun get in the way of a project but we make sure not to take ourselves too seriously. After all, life is supposed to be enjoyable and that includes work.
We measure performance on output not time. Measuring time is important for tracking how to improve (we're even building some software to help us with this) but the performance on an individual is not linked to the number of hours they spend at the office.
Everyone gets their work done but they do it at times that are best suited to their own lives. If someone prefers working at night they can. Or if we finish a project early we might find ourselves road-tripping to the beach (or pub) instead of sitting in front of our computers all day.
As long as the work gets done (and meets our very high standards) then we're flexible about all the other details.
Having fun and spending time with my close friends, whilst working on projects I love, that fit around my personal life…I don't think that sounds like "work" at all. :)
My apologies for the lack of activity on this site for the past week or so. Believe me when I say I was very disappointed for this to happen - I felt that I was getting into a groove, traffic was building, and my writing was improving with every post. Sadly though, I realised that I had too much on my plate (self inflicted) and that I needed to take a break from a few things. It saddened me that this site was one of the things that had to fall by the way side for a few weeks but it was a decision made on purely economic reasons.
Put simply, I had taken on too many projects and I needed to prioritise them. I chose to do this based on the expected reward:effort ratio each project provided.
I have mentioned before that this site is not exactly a good business proposition in terms of the amount of time and effort it requires and the financial return it brings in. The main purpose of this site is to help people, not make money, but when I am planning on quitting my job in 2012, money is an important issue.
Recently my software development company, 16 Threads, has been gaining momentum which is great news. We've already secured a contract to produce an iPad application for a local government department and we've got several other clients interested in our services, as well as some in-house products in the works.
The future of 16 Threads is looking very positive, which is great because it is an integral part of how I plan to make money when I quit in 2012. But of course this increased work means that I have less time for my hobbies, like writing articles here. You win some, you lose some.
In reality this site has brought in less than $10 for an estimated 300 hours of effort. That's under 4c per hour.
On the other hand my work for 16 Threads is going to yield me a reward thousands of times higher for a similar level of effort. No contest.
In an ideal world I would love for the majority of my time to be spent working in the self help and personal development industry but until that becomes viable in terms of providing an income for me I will persist with it as just a hobby.
I don't foresee any drastic things over the next few months (apart from my wedding) that will prevent me from writing articles here so you will continue to see me posting useful articles. I'm not going to go away, but I might just have to scale back my efforts until things settle down.
The good news is that once I establish a few money earning sources for 2012 and quit my job then I will have a massive influx of time and I plan to spend a significant portion of that here, writing articles and helping people.
So stay with me…I've got plenty left to write. :)
We were sitting at a local cafe, watching the sun set over the city skyline and sipping our drinks as a young and talented musician strummed away on her guitar and serenaded us with her dulcet tones. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I ended up talking to the father-in-law of the singer, a fairly successful local businessman, and after we talked about his latest exciting business venture he looked me in the eye and said "And what do you do Zac?". I mumbled a wishy-washy answer and he tried to be interested but I could tell I had lost him. It was then that I realised that I needed to work on selling myself.
I used to resist the concept of "selling" myself because I thought people would respect humility and honesty more than gimmicky self-promotion tricks. I wasn't exactly wrong but I definitely was not right.
Selling yourself is not about being smarmy, arrogant, pushy, or over-the-top. It is about marketing yourself, your skills, your goals, your products, in the best possible way at all times. And I mean at all times.
The world is one giant series of markets. Everything we do is an exchange of resources (time, money, energy, love etc). Obvious examples of markets are shops where we generally exchange money for goods or services. But this concept applies to everything in our life.
In relationships we exchange our time and love in order to satisfy our needs for human connection and our desire to be loved. In work we exchange our time and skills for money, recognition and experience. It goes on.
Everything in life can be viewed as a market and if you dream of greater success then you need to start selling yourself.
Confidence is everything when you are selling.
If you are not confident in what you are doing then everyone else will be able to sense that. And are people likely to "buy" from someone who is not confident in their product? Hell no! Imagine if you were talking to a car salesman and he started saying things like "It's not a great car but its OK…It has a few performance problems but maybe you'd like anyway?" You would not be interested.
The same happens when you are talking about yourself. If you are not confident explaining what you do, what you are about, or why your ideas are great then people will have a hard time connecting with you.
I find generating this confidence can be extremely hard especially when it is something I am new to. For example, when I started this website it was hard for me to be confident and say things "I am a personal development and motivational writer." I doubted myself because it was a new venture whereas in reality I had demonstrated all the necessary skills previously which showed that I was more than capable.
So just because you have taken the plunge and jumped into something new that is no excuse for lacking confidence. I am sure that if you delved into your past you would find many similar examples and transferable skills that you can draw on to find your confidence. Draw on them and be confident. Tell everyone exactly how good you are. Remember no-one else is going to do it for you.
This is closely linked to confidence but I felt it deserved a separate section because it is an important part of becoming your ultimate salesperson: You've got to love yourself!
When you look in the mirror you should see someone that you love, someone that you are proud of, someone that makes you smile. Negative thoughts are not welcome here. You must truly love everything about yourself and want to show everyone just how great you are. If you want some tips on how to get started read my article: Learn To Love Yourself
If you are not able to talk yourself up and be proud of your achievements then you will always undersell yourself. And the result of underselling? Mediocrity and missed opportunities.
Finding confidence and the ability to love yourself is not easy if you do not like what you're doing. If you have any negative emotions (be it stress, anxiety, hate, resentment) about your current position these will filter through to your attitude. They will bubble to the surface and hinder your self-confidence.
Ask yourself this simple question: "Am I doing something that makes me truly happy?" For most people the answer is no.
Too often people are not following their dreams but instead following a plan imposed by someone else. It can come from parents who want you to work a certain job, peer pressure to seem like the most valuable employee, or societal pressure and ideas about what you "should" do with your life.
But guess what? There is no should in life. Your life is about you being happy. It is about doing what you want to and not what others think you should do. So if you aren't confident in selling yourself to others, or you find it hard to love yourself, it might be time to stop and think about what you want from life. Get out there and find your passion.
The beauty of finding something that you love doing is that not only do you love every second of your life, but you will be operating at such high level of happiness, productivity and confidence that you will naturally attract greater success. People love working with passionate, happy and energetic people, so find your passion and make people enjoy working with you.
Shame is the enemy of the salesperson. Shame does not make a sale. Shame does not lead to success.
That may be an over simplification but the point is that in the area of self-promotion shamelessness is the critical. If you feel ashamed to promote yourself, talk up your good qualities, or recommended yourself to others than no-one will be interested in you. Why would people want to find out more about someone who is ashamed to talk about themselves?
Consider an example from Tim Ferriss, author of two #1 best selling books (in different genres) who in 2008 was voted as WIRED's "Greatest Self Promoter of All Time". He has done a lot of things right to go from a nobody to a very popular somebody, assisted by his awesome (and shameless) self-promotion.
If you are need to learn how to become a shameless self-promoter then I recommended reading the "Tim Ferriss' Guide to Self Promotion" article on BNET.
The elevator pitch is one of the basic skills a good salesperson has. The concept is that if you meet a potential client in a time-limited environment (i.e. when riding an elevator) you need to be able to clarify what you do, why you do it, and why others want it, all in about 30 seconds. Can you do that?
I can't, but I am working on it.
For a long time I held off on honing this skill because I thought it sound a bit…wanky. I didn't want to believe that the world was just a mass of markets and everyone was always selling. I thought that was a cynical view of the world and I didn't believe it so I tried to keep myself out of the process altogether. I was wrong.
The elevator pitch is crucial in our life. It does not have to be in an elevator, and it does not have to be just for you to get a job or promote a business. It can be for anything!
Written a book and trying to get a publisher? You've got one paragraph of your cover letter to explain your book in a way that gets them hooked. Working on your first album? You'd better be able to explain it to those busy music producers in 30 seconds or they wont be interested. And so on. No matter what you do, you need to be able to "sell" it to someone else, and get them interested, with just a few sentences.
Compare what I used to say when I was asked the inevitable (and confusing) question about what I do. I do a lot of things but my response was something like this:
Ummm…well I am Consultant at the moment….I also started my own IT business on the side….and I have my own personal website where I write stuff.
What the hell is that? Firstly I put what I cared about least at the start and then talked down my two other ventures as side projects, as if they barely matter. That surely does not inspire confidence and it definitely does not generate interest in what I want people to be interested in. So I've changed it:
I help people make positive changes in their life through my personal development website and I also am the founder of a software development company that builds websites and iPhone apps.
Which sounds better? :P
The second one is miles ahead. It has a wow factor to it. It summarises what I do and delivers it in a quick one-two style that leaves people asking questions. People will ask for my website address, or they will ask about my software clients, or they will ask something completely different. The point is that they are asking questions. It gets them interested in me and that is the goal of the elevator pitch.
By now, if I have done my job well, you have recognised the importance of becoming your number one salesperson and hopefully you have a list of areas you can work on to get there. So my final advice is to fake it until you make it which is basically the same as saying "practice, practice, practice".
Having trouble loving yourself? Stand in front of the mirror and practice. Tell yourself how great you are and force yourself to smile and nod in agreement. I promise that it will become second nature to smile at yourself and the love will start to come naturally.
Struggling with confidence? Do a little role-play in your mind where you turn the situation around and imagine yourself with confidence. As an example, when I used to attend interviews I would pretend that I owned the building I was being interviewed in. I practiced this thought until I walked in with my head high an full of confidence. After all, they were in MY building so they would need to give me respect wouldn't they? It sounds odd but it works.
No matter what area you think you need to improve you can achieve it by practicing success. The key is that you must practice success and not failure or sub-standard performance. You are your number one salesperson already so start thinking like it.
Believe in yourself, believe in your "product", and start convincing others just how important you are. If you do it right they will always want to hear more.