Just settling in for the night after a fantastic Memorial weekend family camping trip. Part of the excitement for me is to sit on the beach, in the cooling shade, or next to the campfire and catchup on some reading. An article written in a recent Success magazine got me thinking.
I'm a pretty passionate person. I believe in what I'm doing at most any given moment or I just plain don't do it. As a person in leadership of a business that seems reasonable and expected to me. But this isn't about focus, rather it's asking the question can you grow enthusiasm in those around you? What about your partners, your team members, your employees?
In the article Selling Your Authenticity, Roger Dawson brings up four points to help develop your authenticity and enthusiasm...
1. Get feedback from your customers. A lot of salespeople don’t want to hear from people they have sold. No news is good news for that kind of salesperson. Get feedback. The more you hear from your customers that they were delighted with their purchase, the better you will feel about what you do.
2. Improve the quality of your customers’ feedback with this mantra: I’m going to promise my customers less but deliver more. If you are closing sales by exaggerating the worth or value of your product, you are always going to have unhappy customers.
3. Stimulate your sales presentation with enthusiastic third-party stories. If you sell vacations and you can’t get excited about going to Hawaii, you can still enthusiastically say, “Jo and Bill McAuley were so excited about their vacation in Hawaii. They called to tell me that it was the best time they’d had in their lives.”
4. Learn about your competitors and their shortcomings. Some salespeople are reluctant to do this because they have no intention of knocking the competition. That’s fine, but hopefully, the more you know about your competitors’ problems and shortcomings, the more enthusiastic you will become about your own product.
I think the key to growing enthusiasm in your partners, team members, and employees is to have them work through each of the statements/questions above on their own. Being an evangelist of yourself and preaching it to them may build some excitement and momentum, but for them to internalize it has to become their own and they must 'take some ownership' of it.
I've been encouraging my oldest daughter, who is just 14, to start thinking about starting her own business this summer. I've shared with her several ideas that fit a real need and have a reachable market, yet are also 'doable' given her resources of time and money. What I'm learning is that even though I can see it and get excited about it it just doesn't happen automatically for others. In the case with her I am taking it one step at a time. Having her do the reasearch, propose answers to her own questions, find and recognize the value for who her customers would be, and the like. She's starting to catch on, but it's necessary for her to do the work and take ownership.
Growing enthusiasm is possible. I've seen it with my own eyes. Read the entire Selling Your Authenticity here.
Until next time...
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