You’re a competent sales consultant, right?

Given current economic circumstances, your results aren’t too bad, right?

Why bother to put a lot of time and effort into self improvement?

If you believe the pundits, the road to wealth is investment.

If you look at it from the perspective of investing in assets to increase your wealth it starts to look a little different.

Other than a house and a car, the only asset anyone has to produce income is their skills, knowledge and ability that they can offer to someone in return for income.

It is common knowledge that the better the asset the more people will pay for it. It is no different when you consider your skills, knowledge and ability. These are the assets you posses, so the higher the level of your skills, knowledge and abilities the higher price you can receive.

Value is relative. That is value can only be measured when you compare it with something. For example, in the case of a sales consultant their value is measured in terms of the finite results they produce. That is compared to the expected outcomes agreed upon, your KPIs.

Take a moment and reflect on how frequently you exceed your KPIs. Do you consistently exceed them? Or have they become the ceiling of your results?

I do not believe there is an individual on the planet who cannot improve in some aspect of their life. I’d be very interested to meet such a person.

If I am correct then it is logical to assume that each and every sales consultant in the company is capable of significant improvement in performance.

That is not to say that our consultants are not trying, or coasting, not at all.

Recently we had a discussion on expectations and how limiting, or liberating they can be.

Let’s go one step further and look at how you can invest in ourselves to produce a better you.

Think back to the time when mobile telephones were built like bricks. All you could do was either take or make a single call. Look at them today. The range of applications is mind boggling.

It is said the shelf life of a new computer model is about three months before an improved model is on the market. The rate of change in life is constantly accelerating and we need to be growing and expanding just to keep up.

So, investment in your skills, knowledge and abilities is vital if you are to realize your potential and live the successful life you want.

How do you do it?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of your professional life, although the same principles apply to your personal universe.

The very best professionals in any activity have a very thorough grasp of the basics of the activity and they continually revise the basics as well as look for the latest developments in their craft.

I recently sent an email to all consultants offering three e-books on selling skills. I am not surprised at the identity of those who responded.

It is no coincidence that those who responded are already producing good results, in spite of the difficult economic times we are facing.

This ties in completely in the level of expectation we have. If your attitude is, “near enough is good enough” then you have already lost the battle. I cannot emphasize enough that your expectations are what you create for your future. It is rare to exceed what you expect.

Even when you exceed your expectations, how strong is the urge to downplay the results and assign the cause to something other than yourself? “I was just lucky,” “Good fortune,” “It just fell into place.” All these statements go to undermine your strength as they deny the fact that any success is usually the result of YOUR effort, creativity, determination and courage.

Accept credit for what you can, and have achieved. Recognise however, that by tomorrow, today’s success will be history. Continuous effort, creation and action are the only paths to continuing success. To be able to do more you must know more and you can’t know more unless you take every opportunity to learn and develop.

It is human nature to want stability and predictability in our lives. But doing the same old things each and every day will never stretch you and bring about development. It is only when you step into the unknown, open your mind to new experiences, knowledge and viewpoints that you develop.

Unless each week, each day, each moment is a journey to continuous improvement, you will fall behind. It is far easier to be in front of the game than forever trying to catch up.

So, how do you start on the road to continuous improvement? You look at the successful people around you. Ask them what they do and how they do it.

It is a fact that if a successful person does something and you do the same thing, you will be successful. You may not do quite as well as the successful person, but that is only because you haven’t yet got the experience of doing the successful action.

You read books, listen to cds, read industry journals, you listen to your peers. It doesn’t mean that everything you read and hear will necessarily be beneficial, or applicable to your particular circumstance. But constant exposure to new information, viewpoints and experiences will have a cumulative effect and you will become far more professional in every way if you seek to learn.

We are unique individuals, and will put our own spin on whatever we try to do. That will produce a variation in the result and you must be prepared to do something new quite badly at first.

With practice, you will improve and, if you persist, learning from every mistake, you will master any skill, knowledge or ability.

• Ask questions.
• Read books.
• Observe successful people.
• Be prepared to try.
• Persist and you will succeed.

Have you ever wondered why it is that you find some activities easy to do and you have great skill in that area? Conversely, have you ever been frustrated at being weak at some things. Not seeming to ‘get it’ and failing or not performing well?

Why is it that some people are skillful in some areas and apparently ‘stupid’ in others?

It’s all to do with the fact that we are unique individuals and we all have skills somewhere. What determines our natural ability includes our experiences and the decisions we make about them.

Here’s an interesting observation. Have you noticed you seem to like those activities that you are good at and tend to avoid those you do not like? Those activities you do not like are, co-incidentally those you have less competence at.

Whether you like something because you are good at it or are good at it because you like it is not important. What is important is to recognize that the relationship exists.

If you think of something you are really good at you will find you tend to feel a certain way. Think for a moment and recreate the way you feel. What is the feeling like?

Observe your level of confidence about the activity? Yes, that’s right, you have a high level of certainty. What is that certainty based on? It’s based on previous successful actions.

When you do something successfully what were you thinking at the time? It varies according to the individual and the activity, but be assured, you will find that your were learning or realizing something as you went along.

The main reason we have a low level of ability in any area is that, firstly, we have in place a negative decision regarding the likelihood of success. This negative decision is the result of past negative experience.

The end result of past failure is often confusion and confusion is the result of unknowns. In other words there is something to learn that you did not learn.

Skill in any area of life operates on a gradient scale. The more you know the more you can do, the less you know the greater the difficulty and so your application of the skill suffers.

What is the answer? How can you get over the negatives that face you? The answer is quite simple. If you are having difficulty in an area of your life and you feel negative or unsure of whether you can succeed, recognize that you simply have a learning opportunity.

THERE IS SOMETHING TO KNOW YOU DON’T CURRENTLY KNOW. – THAT’S ALL THAT IS PREVENTING YOU FROM SUCCESS.

So, how do you address this? Whenever you need to learn you must:

ASK QUESTIONS

Go to someone who is successful in the area you are struggling with and ask them how they do it.

So many of us are unwilling to say, “I don’t know.” Please recognize that until you do you cannot progress in improving your skill, knowledge or ability.

The only thing standing in your way of improving your ability is you.

The pathway to increasing your ability in any area is as follows.

OBSERVE

Look realistically at the results of your actions.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

The only one you will fool is yourself.

BE PREPARED TO ADMIT YOU DON’T KNOW

The first step to understanding is this recognition.

ASK QUESTIONS

Be prepared to learn from others.

TRY A DIFFERENT WAY

Try things and be prepared to fail. When you do, try something else until you find what works for you.

RECOGNISE THAT FAILURE IS AN EVENT –
IT IS NOT YOU

Failure is simply the opportunity to do things better next time

ABOVE ALL – PERSIST

The difference between a champion and an also ran is that the champion never gives up.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP

Also you will see no ‘call to action’ so favoured by the marketers as a means of making the item scarce, therefore valuable. No showy testimonials, no money back guarantee in 90 days. In fact, no marketing effort whatsoever.

As a result I have not sold anywhere near as many of my DVDs as I would have liked. Now, whenever you wish to learn about something you must ask questions. So, my first question is why?

It could be because I haven’t done all the whizz bang marketing actions I am told is necessary to be a successful e-entrepreneur.

Perhaps my products don’t work.

Both of those may be true, particularly as I haven’t broadcast testimonials. If you look in the section marked “What People are Saying.” you will see testimonials. I have decided not to keep them to myself anymore.

As to the material not being effective, read the testimonials.

I will never tell you lies as to ‘this is the last opportunity at this cost,’ ‘expires at midnight,’ or any of the other fanciful tales we see everywhere.

I will tell you the reason why I set up HOWCANI.

Over many years I read, researched, trained hundreds of people in many of the soft skills. I have sold successfully and have worked as a transport executive in one of the largest transport conglomerates in the country. My experience is varied, but has always had a common theme. The realization that the most valuable asset any company has is its people.

I have devoted my life to searching for answers and delivering these answers so that people can realize their very considerable potential. I created the DVDs do that I could reach a broader audience and so do more good. I do not offer huge discounts or specials. My costs are steady and so are my prices.

I simply want you to share in what I have learnt. Every datum on the DVDs is true and works.

Please have a look. I will guarantee your money back if you don’t improve your skills knowledge or ability as a result of what you learn.

Live Well

Ollie Lind

He was certainly trying hard, he was always on the telephone or on the road. He was seeing as many people as he could, but nothing seemed to be going right for him. The prospects were interested, yes, “I’ll call you soon” etc. Nothing seemed to work.

I had a one on one interview with him and quietly asked him when the trouble started. He had great difficulty pinning it down. At first he said it was just bad luck and he was just having a bad run. He felt all he had to do was keep going and it would turn out okay in the end.

I said to him, “If you keep on doing what you are doing you will keep getting the result you are currently getting. We have to isolate what the outness is.”

In my experience, if a consultant has been sucessful and then goes into a trough (assuming others are still being successful) then, logically, the consultant has stopped doing something that was working.

We humans have a penchant for gaining a level of knowledge and understanding of a skill, knowledge or ability and automatically assume we know it all. We then, for some obscure reason (I actually know the reason, but that is for another discussion) alter our successful set of actions to “do it better.” On most occasions we crash.

It’s not that we necessarily do something wrong, we simply LEAVE SOMETHING OUT. WE OMIT A SUCCESSFUL ACTION.

I found out (eventually) that he had changed his way of sourcing sales leads. He shifted to a ‘more efficient’ method. He stopped cold calling and simply drove around his area and recorded company details so that he could telephone later for an appointment.

He stopped ‘presenting the body’ and so missed an opportunity to more exactly qualify the possible lead and develop rapport with the receptionist.

As soon as I identified what he had omitted his eyes widened and he said. “You know, it was two weeks after that that the slump started. He grinned and looked across at me. “I won’t have that problem again.”

We did many more things in the two days and, overall, much progress was made. We looked at the DVD on managing fear and applied it to the sales situation and, to my delight, a couple of the guys realised the application of managing fear in personal situations.

But it was the discovery of what the consultant discovered about what he was NOT doing that stuck in my mind.

He told me he had the best time.

Guess what, so did I.

Live well,

Ollie Lind

It may be about the concepts, the purpose of the course, another viewpoint on the philosophy behind whatever the subject is. Which brings me to my point.

Plato said that knowledge was divine and that perfect knowledge was unknowable to man. This means, to me, that there is always something you can learn about any subject, no matter how ‘expert’ you may think you may be.

This realisation is very important. It gives me a great sense of expectation by knowing there is always something new and wonderful to learn. It protects me from arrogance, because I long ago realised that if someone did not know something you did it was simply because they hadn’t travelled that path yet.

Which, of course, leads to another very important realisation. If you possess knowledge that others perhaps haven’t been exposed to and the knowledge can assist them, you have a responsibility to share your knowledge.

Knowledge is not owned by anyone. It is free for all to benefit from. I suppose that’s why I started HOWCANI. I haven’t made a fortune and don’t care if I don’t. I simply want to share what I know and have discovered.

Join me.

Ollie 

Then I clicked. It wasn’t the ‘ignorant’ drivers. It was me. Obviously the message I was sending [tag-tec]communicated[/tag-tec] my frustration. I decided to put into practice what I have been teaching others for years.

Now I ease the car into the driveway and simply sit, well back from the road. I ‘know’ I will get a space soon, so I just wait. Every now and then I catch the eye of a motorist and I simply smile. I don’t ask to be allowed into the traffic stream, I just sit.

Always, within two minutes I am invited to join the stream. I wave and ease the car halfway into the first lane. I then catch the eye of a motorist in the centre lane and am invited into that lane.

I thoroughly acknowledge both drivers and, as soon as the oncoming traffic is clear I drop into a driveway opposite the house , reverse and head off in the opposite direction. Today the driver in the centre lane knew what I wanted and he guided me straight across ( I couldn’t see the oncoming traffic at that point)

I smiled and waved at the driver and he returned my greeting. Help comes out of nowhere, I’ve found. The only change I have made in my approach to this problem is within me. I have decided to be tolerant, allow others to be as they are and, lo and behold, assistance comes from out of nowhere.

I now try, every day, to do some small act of unexpected kindness to another. It’s amazing how it makes you feel.

Do try it.

Regards,

Ollie

I read a great deal. There is a great deal of wisdom in the world and I try to avail myself of as much of it as I can. I find the best material is that taking a holistic approach to training and development.

You notice I said “Training AND Development”?

I believe that, if you are training someone in any skill, knowledge or ability, you must train the WHOLE PERSON. What do I mean by that? I believe in viewing life as a pond of still water. If you make a change in one area (toss a pebble) the effect ripples through the entire pond.

So, if you are training sales consultants (as I do so much) you had better make sure that what you teach can be applied to the person’s life as well.

For example, developing rapport. Much has been written on the subject and I won’t try to go into it here. Suffice to say that effective rapport training is not about fiinding engaging things to say to put the prospect at ease so that you can now present, present, present.

It’s about being there for the prospect, it’s about actually caring about what they are saying, it’s about being interested in just THEM. In a nutshell, it’s about being yourself and being honest and genuine.

What is the result of all the above? A relationship based on truth, honesty and credibility begins to emerge.

Let me ask you this, doesn’t that sound like making a friend? Who, in this world couldn’t do with more genuine friends?

So, when I train sales consultants it’s about making them more effective beings in all of their life.

That way, everyone wins.
Not a bad way to live. What do you think?

Regards,
Ollie

I went on in the higher grade match first. In the warm up my opponent, younger, bigger and much more powerful when he hit the ball, looked a worldbeater. It looked as if I was on a hiding to nothing.

Watching this fellow hit the ball as if he hated it and trying to get it back, the thought struck me. “this guy really likes to hit the ball hard and he has great reflexes. Maybe if I mix it up I might take some points off him.”

The match started and I hit the ball away from him as much as I could. Then it happened. I claim no credit for it at all. It was as if a switch went off in my head and I only focused on the single shot I was playing at the time.

All of a sudden the ball didn’t seem to be travelling as fast, I was able to get in good position and all my shots actually went where I wanted them to go. I even had to be told when the first game was over. I had focussed so hard I had no idea what the score was.

The next two ganes passed in exactly the same fashion and I won the match 3-0. My opponent was upset as he knew I was from a much lower grade and he had expected to have an easy match.

No one was more surprised then me when I won. The team members was astonished and, of course, pleased.

I went back to my own team and exactly the same thing happened. It was one of those nights. When I got home I thought about the night. What had been different?

Then I realised. I had been entirely in the present. I hadn’t thought about it at all. I simply focussed on the ball and hitting it where I wanted it to go. I was exhilarated at having control of my actions and really experienced the moment. Nothing else, just the moment.

The difference was I simply was. I was in the present and lived the experience to the fullest.

If only we could focus like that all the time. What an experience life would be then.

I invite you to the present. It’s a great time and, in fact, it’s the only time you have.

Regards,

Ollie Lind

We were there to examine how people learn and to foster understanding of how we function when we seek to master any skill, knowkedge or ability. I was happy to do this workshop because the Master, Sifu Rick Spain is dedicated to the spirit of learning and he was happy for me to share the concepts we had previously discussed.

In fact, I had already done a basic workshop a couple of months ago and this was to be an extension of that. Well, I have to tell you it became much more than that. Fortunately we had decided to film the workshop.

Not only did we overview the philosophy of learning, we expanded into my favourite subject; how to transform yourself and your life. We looked at so many things it’s impossible to list them.

What we did do is examine the realtionship we all have with the universe and how we function in terms of, not only taking on new skills and knowledge, but how we interact with others and the reason we are on this planet.

We also looked at the Law of Attraction. Everybody had heard of the latest buzz word in personal development. In fact the law is not new at all. I commend you to read the ancient Greek philosophers, the Holy Bible. Thomas Equinas and myriad other influential thinkers.

Personally I am disappointed at the merchandising that has surrounded The Secret. There is no doubt the Law of Attraction works. Unfortunately the impression given is that you simply have to focus on what you want and the universe will reward you.

There is more to it than that and we touched on it at this workshop. The atmosphere was electric when we looked at it. We called the workshop, “HOWCANI learn the Secret to mastery and abundance.”

I have just finished watching it and I have to say I’m very pleased at the concepts we examined. It simplifies the reasons why we function as we do and what we can do to maximize the chances of the Law of Attraction working for you.

I don’t normally ‘plug’ the videos I create. (perhaps I should, but I have an aversion to blatant merchandising) I believe people should be free from pressure when they look at concepts of this nature.

I am suggesting you look at the preview we will place on the product page in the next few days. It could help you transform you life.

Regards,

Ollie Lind

I was approaching a hotel and noticed this young man leaning against a pole. He was smoking. (It has just been made illegal to smoke in hotels)

Our eyes met and he straightened up, moving towards me. I slowed, unsure of what was next. He smiled, as if he knew me and said. “How are you this evening?”

I was surprised and replied. “Fine thank you.”

He smiled and said. “Good to hear.” He then turned to a young woman emerging from the hotel. “Not going home so soon, are we?”

I didn’t hear her reply as I had moved on. His greeting echoed in my mind and got me thinking. What would life be like if everyone greeted a stranger with no agenda other than to acknowledge the other person and connect.

So many people are starved of acknowledgement and have moments of frustration and loneliness. Wouldn’t it be something if people could be honest and free with their emotions?

I decided to make sure I acknowledge someone else and have a meaningful conversation. Just to let them know I care. So far it has been very rewarding. It doesn’t take long to communicate and gain some meaning from the exchange.

I commend it to you.

Regards,

Ollie