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Thank you all for your patience in allowing the Smart Leaders Program team the time to set up the Global Mentorship Program Pilot.  We’ve now come to the place where we’d like to engage all of you that showed interest in being a Mentor, Mentee or both.

Thank you Kristin for this week’s blog and sharing your experience with our community.

Y’vonne Ormond

Director, Smart Mentoring

Transform your business in five words 

Want to transform your business? Read on. I’m about to show you five critical, oft overlooked words that really can transform your business – but only if you really commit to them. So, what are they?

What’s…In…It…For…Me?  or WIIFM. These five words are your key to more and better business. Believe it or not these are the most important five words for your customers, no matter what it is you’re selling.

First though, think back to when someone has attempted to sell you something and you sat there thinking “they just don’t get what I need.”  Even if you were initially interested, all that talk about themselves, their product or service and how great it or they were, was just, well, dull. Once you were bored all you wanted to do was excuse yourself and get out of there. It might have been different if they’d been a little more interested in your needs, but they weren’t. They lost you and you’re unlikely to give them a second chance. Compare that with the last thing you bought, lock stock and barrel.

What was the difference? You were.

So many organisations put themselves first – it’s all about them, not their customer. How many presentations or brochures have you seen that are all about ‘them’. ‘They’ are boring – you want to hear about you. You want them to talk to you, about you and your needs. Sure it’s important their information tell you something about ‘it or them’, it has to be couched around your needs.

Well, I hate to be blunt, but what if that’s what the last 2, 3 or 10 prospects thought when you spoke to them? They smiled politely, promised to get back to you, but you still haven’t heard from them. Maybe you sent our your new brochure, launched your new website, put on an expo, full of great products and ideas, but the phone’s just not ringing and people aren’t taking your calls.

Perhaps there was more in your brochure for you rather than them. I know, your product or service works a treat, but what does it do… FOR THEM? Actually, before you’re too hard on yourself, it can be quite hard to be objective about your product or service enough to take yourself out of it. But, if you’re to succeed in your quest for more or better business, you must.

Let’s look at the seven steps for getting to WIIFM

1. Take a hard look at your materials (presentations, brochures, website) – through the eyes of your customer. Who does it really talk about them or you? How many times do you use the word you and your  vs the number of times you use we, our, my, etc.
2. Have someone not connected with your business (or industry) tell you what your product or service delivers and why that’s important – (this is where external consultants can really help)
3. For every claim you make about your product/service (fast, cost-efficient, one of a kind) ask yourself “So what? Why is that important to my customer?” You should come up with reasons like (and these aren’t necessarily the right answers for you)
   • fast – gives your customers more time with to spend with their family or on their boat,
   • cost-efficient – because they’ll have more to money spend doing the things they love; or
   • one of a kind – they’re the envy of their friends.
4. Use emotions!! Paint pictures using those emotions. Don’t kid yourself that B2B buyers don’t buy on emotion. They do – it’s just a different kind of emotion. They want to succeed, have a bigger staff, be the one who saved the company all that money, get that promotion, or just have less stress or more time with their family, boat, doing the things they love, rather than pfaffing around over a piece of equipment, technology, staff member who’s not performing as promised.
5. Once you know what you really deliver your customers – try it on a couple of your best customers. Ask their thoughts and really listen – people love giving their opinion and they’ll love you even more for asking.
6. Once you’re clear on your message, use the same words and emotions in your brochures, sales calls, website, etc. Tailor it slightly for each customer – not everyone will have a boat (or a family). Find out what’s important to them and refer back to it from time to time.
7. When you write or produce something or plan a presentation, make sure your customer is at the heart of it – every time.

Think about why your customer is talking to you, reading your materials or visiting your site. What are they hoping is in it for them? All you have to do to transform your business is to make them feel they’re the most important thing in your world and then deliver your stuff.

If you liked Kristin’s article and would like to talk to her further, she can be reached at kristinlaustin@gmail.com.

I am a mom of a special needs child.  I like to say it doesn’t define me as a person but it does play a HUGE part in our lives.

In the Spring I wrote an article for a special needs community I’m part of (SPD Bloggers Network) about my youngest son.  I think that article is not only valuable for parents struggling but leadership development overall. We all strive to evolve as people and I feel I never personally stop learning how to be a better mother, leader, friend, daughter, wife and so on.

In our lives we all get to points where we are frustrated, don’t feel like we have a path or things are running in circles.  I feel like this often at home in regards to my youngest son.  So I’d like to share a personal story and leadership series book that really helped me through the process.  I hope you all enjoy.

Y’vonne

Patience is Not My Virtue; Focus on Your Strengths

It has been in a particular month of very stressful low ends of the of the bell curve for my littlest guy.  He’s becoming more and more difficult for me to handle.  I’d say some of it is being three years old but a lot of it is he is changing and I need support changing with his changing body.

Transition has always been very difficult for him.  Anything different in his routine is very difficult for him to handle and getting him to change activities (from eating to changing clothes, getting from the house to the car..etc.) takes a lot of time and patience on my part.  I’m struggling with finding the right technique and patience to work with him.  I’m doing it but it’s completely wearing me out and every activity can take a long time.  For example the other day it took me two hours to get him to pre-school and it was a disaster.

I thought I might have some magic solution if 1) we made some changes based on his occupational therapists recommendations and 2) he will be in special education pre-school per his psychologist recommendation on his individual education plan (IEP).  He’d get the tools he needs (and so would I) in turn resulting in a little more patience for both of us.  Then of course we hit a HUGE IEP roadblock.

I felt that I had the wind was just knocked out of me and there were any options available.  I sit in my office at 5am and I keep thinking how “patience is definitely not my virtue” but I’m not giving up on finding what works for my littlest guy.  I look up on the shelf on my desk and see this book called “Strength Finder 2.0 from Tom Rath.

Strength Finder 2.0 is a book (one of many) I used as a tool when I was working in the corporate world that comes with a framework that helps identify what an individual is good at.  It has 34 themes (or characteristics) that an individual can carry attributes of and highlights four strength areas for you based on a quiz you take.  Once your characteristics are highlighted it talks about it and then identifies “ideas for actions” and “how to work”.

The reason I bring up this book is it was staring at me as I sat down to write about not having patience and my son’s struggles.  So of course I picked it up and started scanning through the characteristics I remember I fell into.  ARRANGER, BELIEF, CONNECTEDNESS & RELATOR.  So basically to sum them all up for me:  I face complex situations and come up with solutions in creative manners.  I have a very strong belief system that can’t be “rocked.  I connect with “chosen” individuals I have lifelong relationships with I can relate to that have similar passions and would do anything for them.

So when I look at this book it reminds me that even though I haven’t been feeling patient I know it’s a result of the fact that my current plan didn’t work and I need a new one.  So I go back to the actions page and some up with a new plan of attack for my son based on my reminded strengths….:) The book put me back on track.

So if you’re a professional, aspiring leaders, mentor, mentee or parent, I definitely recommend this framework and book.  It’s not for just for corporate individuals.  Anyone can find or be reminded of their strengths.  It helped me to remember that even though “patience is not my virtue” I have to refocus with my strengths and be patient to get to the next chapter.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED AND I WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH ALL OF YOU!

Y’vonne Ormond

Director, Smart Mentoring

Twitter: yormond