If you’ve heard this story then you already know the outcome. If you haven’t heard this story, you can probably still guess how it turned out. Our shepherd boy, armed with only a few stones and a sling, was the champion of the day when he defeated the heavily armored and weaponized giant.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, in his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants, the best way to pull off the upset is to play by a different set of rules. In other words, be unconventional.

Do we truly love underdogs?

We love any story that fits the template of this classic tale. The underdog defeats the heavily favored champion! In a 2007 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the researchers asked 71 participants to imagine two teams.

One was described as a strong champion, most likely to win. The other was described as the underdog. With only knowing the information of who was most favored to win, participants in the study were asked who they would rather see win. The underdog was chosen in every instance.

Or, do we just despise the most likely winners?

There’s seems to be something deep inside us that makes us want to see the underdog win. Or, according to one study by the Baylor College of Medicine, maybe we like to see winners lose because we’re envious of the teams that always win. This phenomena is called schadenfreude. Homer Simpson is a great example of someone who expresses this often.

Regardless of whether it’s a love for the unlikely hero or a joy for seeing the champions struggle, you can’t deny there’s something that attracts us all to the underdog stories. Maybe it’s that we can see ourselves as the underdog in these stories?

When to use this template in business

This type of story is used by leaders to inspire. When the team has to overcome tremendous odds to be successful, they need encouragement to press on. Leaders can use a David-and-Goliath story to give them hope and inspiration. If it’s been done in the past, we can do it now!

I’m not suggesting you tell the actual David-and-Goliath story, but instead, use it as a template to show your audience that nothing is impossible. Show them how their current situation is not impossible. It can be overcome!

How do I pick a story?

The closer your story is in relation to the actual situation they’re facing, the more impact it will have on the audience. In other words, just sharing a college basketball comeback story from March Madness may be exciting, but the audience can easily dismiss the story by saying, “Yeah, but that’s basketball! This is managed IT services we’re talking about here! It’s not the same thing.”

Try to find an underdog victory story that aligns closely with the current situation your team is facing. If it’s a tough business situation where you’d like to use the story, try to find another business story similar in scope. I recommend you use Paul Smith’s book on storytelling if your looking for stories you can use.

How do I structure the story?

The key to any David-and-Goliath story is to make sure your audience can see themselves as David. The audience needs to be invited into the story if you want to generate the feeling of encouragement and inspiration.

1. Give the landscape and characters for the story and do this quickly! This should also include the obvious problem (Goliath) that seems impossible to overcome.
2. Provide the thoughts of the underdog (David) by showcasing two things:
   1. The underdog’s awareness of the challenge and the insurmountable odds he/she is facing.
   2. The hope and faith to try anyway. This should point directly to the reason why it is still worth pursuing.
3. Describe the approach used to solve the problem. What did the underdog do to approach the problem? Remember, history has proven when the underdog wins, they tend to use unconventional methods. What is the unique approach they took? It’s important that this element be something within his/her control. Do NOT let this be a product of pure luck. If it is just a lucky break, your team can easily dismiss this as a fluke which is unlikely to occur again for them.
4. Describe the feeling of victory and what it meant to the team. This is the part of the story that gives the audience the deep sense of satisfaction. It should generate the feeling of a tough victory earned by fighting unconventionally to overcome amazing odds.

It’s time for you to go slay that giant and inspire your team.

Until next time,

Russ

Let’s connect…

on Twitter if we haven’t already?

OR Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

OR Let’s connect via my Facebook page!

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

When I was young we used to find adventure on the new home sites at the end of our street. A big pile of dirt would quickly become a trophy centerpiece to do battle for the reigning title of “King of the Mountain.”

If you’ve never played it before, every person tries their best to take the hill by standing on top and fighting off the onslaught of people who are now trying to push you off. It was classic fun for a group of young boys looking for a challenge.

Of course, eventually we’d either get tired of this game or someone would get hurt so we’d switch to something less aggressive, like “Follow the Leader.” We’d argue over who gets to be the leader first (usually whomever was last king of the mountain) and we’d all line up behind him. The leader would then lead us through an adventure of climbing, jumping, or swinging from something, the more dangerous the better. Both games could keep us entertained for hours.

When I look back on those children’s games now, I can see a metaphorical perspective on how each of those games portrays an approach some leaders use to influence their teams.

King of the Mountain

In this approach to business leadership, power is taken or a strong hierarchial authority is given to one person. The leader now rules the kingdom with strong methods of persuasion. The general idea is “I’m the leader and you’re not, so you have to do what I say. You don’t get to question it or tell me what to do until you get promoted above me.”

Influence of this type will usually result in teams who perform well and get things done on time. However, the turnover on the team is much higher. In other words, this leader achieves Compliance from the team or possibly… conflict. This team gets things done but they don’t always feel very positive about it.

Methods used by these leaders are heavy-handed:

• Coercion – The tactics used here could easily be identified as intimidation. Knowing he is in a position of authority, he exercises his power to intimidate others into getting something done. “Why should you do it? Because it’s your job. So, quit your whining about it and just do it!”
• Consequence – Using a negative term here, you would call this a threat, plain and simple. You do it or else! A manager might lean on a team to get action by telling them about the consequence of not doing it. “If you don’t get this done by Friday at 5, I’ll be forced to write you up.”
• Contract – This is when someone uses a legal contract to get what they want. Contracts serve a purpose, but when you allow all goodwill to be eroded by following the letter of the law instead of the spirit, you will get your way, but at the expense of the relationship. “According to the Work for Hire Agreement we have with you, you are liable for the entire cost overrun. We won’t pay that.”

Follow the Leader

This game only works if the followers actually follow the leader. If no one follows, as John C. Maxwell says, you’re just taking a walk! When we played this game, no one was making us follow. We actually wanted to follow. If a leader gets the team to follow because they want to follow, she’s achieving a different type of result called commitment. This is where your team is getting things done and they have positive feelings about doing it.

To exercise this type of authority with your team, the leader has usually earned it. In other words, the trust, empathy, competence has earned a higher level of credibility for the leader. The team knows she cares about them and their success. The tasks are tied to a greater purpose.

Methods used by these leaders inspire long-term movement:

• Inspiration – This is best done through effective narratives and storytelling. Leaders who use this method get their team to focus on the purpose and the Why for what they do.
• Relational – This method of influence is based on strong ties of credibility and trust. As we all know, building a strong level of trust takes time to develop. When teams trust that a leader is honest, wants the best for them, and has a high degree of competence, the team wants to follow.
• Exchange – We all work for our wages. This is the simple example of the exchange influence. On top of salary, the leaders who instill the strongest positive feelings with exchange will offer something the team values even more than money. It could be a team party, a day off from work, small token or gift, or more of the leader’s time. 

As leaders, we all want commitment from our teams but we know that takes time and is not always possible. So when something needs to get done and there is no time, we may settle for compliance. But the leaders with the most successful teams know the strong positive feelings will outperform the negatively driven teams in the long run.

I’m ready to follow the leader… who’s gonna step up?

Will it be you?
Russ

This is the daily struggle for every leader. How can I connect with my team better? Leaders help groups move to new locations, but that will never happen if the leader has no connection with the audience.

As a speaker, if you can build a strong connection with the audience, you’ll have more leadership influence with the group.

The Key is Influence

John C. Maxwell has summarized leadership into one word… influence. Remember, influence has a noble purpose, not a self-serving purpose. The negative side of influence is called manipulation. It’s selfish and pure evil. We’re talking about the noble skill of leadership influence.

Influence is not about what the leader wants personally. It’s about what the team needs. Here are four methods Maxwell has presented as bridges we can all build to connect with others.

1. What you know

Do you remember the game show called “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” In that trivia game show, if you didn’t know the answer, you could use a life line and phone a friend. From the show, you could tell the host who you’d like to call for help on the question. Then, they would ring up your friend so you could ask the question.

When people need advice or guidance, they call upon people who have a knowledge they don’t. When speaking to a team you may have advanced training and knowledge or you may have received information from the executives and they want to know it. Either way, when you know information the team wants and needs, they will connect with you and seek your input or advice.

2. What you’ve done

Imagine if you were attending an industry conference and the breakout sessions were about to begin. There were 2 speakers speaking in different breakout rooms at the same time. You obviously can’t be in two places at once, so you’re being forced to pick just one. Choose wisely because you will never get to hear the other. Who will you pick?

The first speaker is a great speaker. Delivery is impeccable, great tone in the voice, little bit of humor, and uses the stage effectively. Not sure about the content she’s talking about, but she is guaranteed to have a great delivery.

The second speaker is not nearly as good on the stage. That’s a fact because he’s not a professional speaker. But,he’s just returned from being stranded on a desert island in the Pacific after a shipwreck. He was trapped on the island all alone for 7 weeks. He’s going to speak about his physical, mental and emotional struggles.

I’m guessing 9 out of 10 of you would rather hear the Robinson Crusoe speaker! Why? Because of what he’s done. When people have had struggle experiences we have not, we want to learn from them. It creates a connection.

This isn’t about bragging to others. It’s about recognizing if you have something of value you can share with others to help them move further down the road and avoid some of the issues you’ve had to endure.

3. What you can do

One of our instructors once had a student in class mention he could do a back flip. Seriously! From a standing position in the classroom, he said he could do a full back flip. What do you think the next comment was from another student? You guessed it. “Do it!”

But before he did, someone else asked, “How did you learn to do that?” The student told his back story of always challenging himself. He came up with the idea to learn a back flip and committed himself to doing it. He recruited a friend to come over and spot him and after many bruises and attempts, he did it! The moral? Find your next challenge, recruit help from others, and commit to overcoming it!

When others know we are capable, they may want to leverage our skill set in the future. If you are willing and able to help others with a skill you have, they will want to connect with you. Use your skills to help others, not so you can expect something in return. Do it because it aligns with your core value for serving others. Which leads us to the 4th method of connection…

4. How you’ve lived

This is all about your values. It’s so true that words are cheap. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the pain of hearing a friend say the right things and then act in a completely different or inappropriate manner. It’s the source of the expression, “Actions speak louder than words.”

People like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jesus… all lived lives of sacrifice. If we had the opportunity to have a conversation with an any of these people, we would want to listen! We appreciate strong core values, worthy of admiration, but even more than that… we appreciate someone who has lived out the values they preach.

Know your values and live in alignment with them. It sounds so simple. I’m willing to admit… I’m still working on doing just that.

A challenge for all of us… use the 3 steps from last week’s conversation tool and let’s combine it with living out our core values. Then, let’s start building stronger connections and relationships with the ones we serve and love.

Until next week…

Russ

Let’s connect…

on Twitter if we haven’t already?

OR Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

OR Let’s connect via my Facebook page!

iSpeak teaches workshops on Professional Selling to help sales leaders gather the most important data and then use that information to create the right message. Are your sales presentations closing eyelids or deals?

Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. His leadership blog assists leaders in giving voice to their vision. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

“So how was the new restaurant you tried?” As soon as I ask you the question you immediately begin to access the memory of the experience. For some reason, before you recall anything from the experience you feel agitated and disturbed. Then one side of your mouth tightens while one eye brow is lifted with a gaze back at me. Then, you give me two words, “Not good.”

How do we store memories?

I found this research from Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, absolutely fascinating. But, I’ll admit I’m a little nerdy when it comes to our brains and psychology.

According to Gilbert, our brains don’t store every bit of information from a memory. Instead, we store important chunks of information. Your experience at the restaurant is stored as a series of words or short phrases.

• Rude waiter
• Steak was over done
• Decent wine
• Overall too pricey

In other words, we store our memories in headlines and feelings.

What we personally define as important is dependent on many internal filters we use to create our personal perceptions of the world around us. Most of us have heard this described as our personal biases. They’re impossible to completely remove, but in my opinion (bias included and acknowledged), I wouldn’t really want to have everyone remove their biases! I personally believe that our different opinions create more variety and better solutions in the world.

How do we recall memories?

Did you know our memories are always under construction? Gilbert points out how we recall information from our memories in those small chunks. Then, we fill in the blanks using the feeling we experienced during the creation of the memory and other elements from our present situation.

In other words, we recall the key elements and the feeling to quickly reconstruct the entire memory… Wow.  Now that is pretty cool. (Sorry… was my neuroscience nerd showing again?)

Why is this important to a Public Speaker?

When you speak to an audience, understand what their brain is doing… it ‘s looking for the headlines. It has to decide what’s important and what’s not important. This is hard work for an audience!

Our brains are busy and just like many things in life that require us to work, we look for the path of least resistance! In other words, what’s the easiest way to get this done? If your audience is listening to you speak and you’re giving them tons of data, they will be working hard to find the most important pieces to remember… and they’re looking for an easy way to do that.

The longer you talk and the harder you make it for them to pick out the important pieces, the more tired they get. And when your audience gets tired of working so hard… they’ll quit! Remember, we’re all looking for an easy way to do our work. I’m sure you can picture this… can you tell me what an audience full of listening quitters looks like in today’s day and age? You guessed it! They’re all on their smartphones!

How can you make it easy on your audience?

We all love the speaker who makes it easy to be in the audience. When you’re the speaker, you can do your audience and yourself a favor by giving them the headlines while you’re speaking. Don’t make them work hard to create their own headlines. You just need to give them the headlines they’re already looking for.

Here are some of the ways you can give your audience a headline:

• Repeated phrases
• Anything that sounds different (think emphasis, volume, pauses, inflections)
• 6-Word headlines
• Something that generates a feeling (think stories, passion, questions, illustrations)

Your audience is busy constructing a memory of your presentation. How are you going to help them remember your message? When you’re constructing your message, always identify the key elements (headlines) for the audience. Then, make sure you call attention to those headlines when you deliver the message to the audience. In other words… do the work for them!

Don’t make them distill your entire message down to a few simple ideas on their own. Do the work for them!

When they recall the memory of your message, they’ll pull up the headlines you provided, then instantly remember the feeling they experienced at that time (gratitude and appreciation for you doing the work for them!), and finally they’ll fill in the blank spots with related material to recreate the full memory.

Congratulations! You did the work for them!

Give the audience a headline because that’s what their brains really want… It’s the path of least resistance they’ve been waiting for and they’re going to remember you for doing the work for them!

Have a great week,
Russ

Picture this… We’re watching a movie where our hero is trapped and facing absolute doom with no obvious way out. We begin to feel anxiety and a deep sense of urgency for an escape. We also do something else… our brains are working fast on a solution for the hero. This can’t be the end! We love to see that moment when the hero’s eyes get laser focused and he says, “I’ve got an idea. Hand me that lamp!”

Yes! The hero escapes! If you’re old enough to remember… MacGyver or Indiana Jones, you remember all the close calls and the entertainment in the amazing adventure.

Metaphors Help with Understanding

Last week we discussed metaphors to help with understanding. We discussed how our brains work to make an abstract idea more concrete. For example, imagine a red shoe box sitting on the table. That’s easy for you. Now imagine discipline.

Discipline imagined may have taken a little longer, but I’m sure it was still fairly simple for you. Now my next question, “What did you imagine for discipline?” I bet we’ve got 100 different mental images if we compare everyone’s picture to each other. Did you picture a military officer standing at attention? A person meditating? An athlete in the gym at 5AM?

This is the tricky part for the leader attempting to get the team on the same page. When we present abstract ideas without a common metaphor, everyone’s picture is different. So as the speaker, we need to use metaphors to create the same picture of understanding.

But there’s still a problem with the metaphor… it doesn’t give us a reason to do anything.

Metaphors Don’t Create Movement

Metaphors help with understanding and that is great! But, they don’t necessarily give the audience a reason to do anything. To create movement in the audience, the speaker needs to move from simple understanding to making a decision about the future. Creating movement from understanding requires another tool… stories.

I once had a student ask about where analogies fit into all of this. I couldn’t help but respond with… “Metaphor is to understanding as story is to movement… How’s that for an analogy?” See Mrs. Sheets (my 8th grade English teacher)… I was listening! Sorry to digress… English Teacher humor.

Stories Create Movement

The best stories take you on a journey. That movement created by the author is done through character decisions full of risk. The characters in the story are placed in a situation where change is either required or desired. For any change to take place, a decision must be made. All decisions with a risk tied to them are compelling to the audience because there’s a potential consequence or reward.

“ Choices with consequences create movement in stories.

When we see the need to make a decision, we begin to weigh the consequences of action vs. inaction, as well as weighing the different types of action we could take. It’s a simple formula really… we look at what we have to gain versus what we have to lose… and passion defines what we care about.

Finding Your Audience’s Purpose

We’re all unique individuals and we all have our own personal preferences and passions. With our passions, we might think about our passion for our spouse, for reading, for ice cream, for gardening, for drawing, for a sport, for jogging, or for a good steak or sushi.

My guess is that not everything in that list is something your passionate about, but you can replace any of those items with something you are passionate about. We’re all different when it comes to personal passion. This is why tapping into passion, as a speaker, can be difficult. Everyone has a different hot button.

If you have a homogenous group as your audience (e.g. the Kayaking Club of Central Texas) you could tap into kayaking and the outdoors and probably strike a chord with everyone in this audience. They share this common passion. But if your audience is not so alike, you’ll be challenged to get them all on the same page with passion. However, purpose tied to a core value is much better for uniting an audience.

Passion will eventually lose to Purpose

As I pointed out in a previous blog post, purpose will always beat out passion. This is because passion is related to personal preferences, but purpose is related to core values, which are much more common across us all. So as a speaker, you need to look for ways to tap into purpose with your audience. One of the best ways to communicate purpose is with a story. Stories with purpose demonstrate “the why” behind the characters’ actions.

“ Passion is related to personal preferences, but purpose is tied to core values.

This is where stories will always beat out metaphors. The metaphor will help someone understand a concept, but a story will provide a purpose for taking action!

What should we do now?

Help your audience understand with a metaphor, but don’t forget to give them a story to provide the purpose (the why) for taking action!

Time to make a decision…
Russ

Imagine each of these… you’re covered in mud and rolled in feathers, a baseball balanced on top of an upside down cup, you’re watching a dog swim from a goggle-wearing, breath-holding position under the water. All of these things took a split second for you to imagine. You’re good at this!

Of course you’re good at this. We all are! We don’t have any trouble imagining any of these things because their physical and they’re familiar.

We’re Experts at Imagining the Physical

We’ve experienced feathers, baseballs and swimming dogs before. So we can imagine these things quickly. In fact, you can even use your imagination of the real world to predict the future.

For example, imagine the baseball sitting on top of an upside down cup. Then imagine someone stands up from the table too quickly and he bumps the table with his leg. Everything on the table shakes and wobbles. What happened to the baseball?

If you imagined it shaking a bit and maybe even rolling off the top of the cup, you were predicting the future. You were playing a little game our brains love and we call it the “what if…” game. This game is actually a vital part of our success to remain at the top of the food chain. All because we can accurately predict cause and effect.

So, What’s the Hard Part?

Now try to imagine these things… imagine time passing, imagine love, imagine assertiveness, and imagine strategic initiative. Did you find this exercise a little more difficult? We all find this more difficult because we can’t actually imagine the thing itself. It’s too abstract. What you probably did in your mind was to imagine something physical and then adjusted it toward the abstract.

For example, when I said “Imagine time passing” you may have done the Twilight Zone thing and imagined an analog clock face with the hands of the clock spinning around. Or maybe you imagined a person sitting somewhere bored with their head in their hands as the time passed by ever so slowly. Either way, you imagined something more concrete and then adjusted it toward the abstract.

The tricky part for all of us is to try and imagine the abstract. That is difficult! And, this is where I’ve seen presenters and speakers drop the ball. They never provide the audience with assistance interpreting the abstract.

Don’t Burden the Audience!

When speakers deliver abstract and conceptual ideas, the audience will do their best to interpret and imagine it. But, if the speaker never gives a concrete or physical example for understanding the abstract, we will try to create that model ourself. That’s hard work!

The more complex or abstract an idea is, the harder it is for the audience to conceptualize it in a way that helps them understand, remember, and apply it to the future. When speakers don’t provide us with analogies or metaphors to assist us in our conceptualization, we get tired. It’s hard work! In fact, sometimes it gets so difficult to interpret the idea into something more useful than just words and we just quit!

So, What’s the Problem?

Everyone will create their own image of understanding. In fairness, there’s both good and bad in this reality. The GOOD is that each person in the audience will create a unique image to understand, remember and use your concept. If you want creative solutions, this is fantastic! Once you share your idea, you’ll gain a plethora of new ideas from everyone else because they each interpret the concept in their own unique way.

The BAD of the situation is actually the same thing… everyone will have their own idea on what you shared. If the goal of the presentation is to get everyone on the same page, you might be missing the mark. So, what can you do as a speaker to help your audience get on the same page when you need to share an abstract or conceptual idea?

Give them a Metaphor!

Knowing that each person in your audience is skilled in imagining physical items and manipulating those items with cause and effect to predict the future, we can provide our audiences with a metaphor to understand our abstract idea. I’m sure you’ve seen speakers do this before…

“Just like FedEx revolutionized overnight shipping with better logistics, we’re going to revolutionize custom furniture design.”

“A stool with three legs can stand. A stool with only two legs is much more likely to topple over. Our approach to this project will only work with all 3 regions in support.”

“Our plan is like a series of river tributaries all flowing into the Mississippi. We will take the strategic ideas from each region and mold them into one plan for the entire organization. But, just like a river flows in one direction, all our ideas will need to align for us to reach our ultimate corporate goal.”

Saying goodbye until next week is like eating your last scoop of ice cream and knowing you can’t get more at the store until next week…

See you next week,
Russ

“Well, uhh… that’s all I got folks. Thanks for coming… Oh WAIT! … Any questions?  No?  Okay then yeah, that’s all I got.”  That’s word for word how he ended his presentation. While we’re probably all guilty of this at one time in our career, that doesn’t sound good.  How do I know? Because I was just quoting myself! I’ve ended presentations like that before and I can honestly say, I’m not proud of it.

Since then, I’ve improved, but I still don’t consider myself the expert. When I finally heard myself ending presentations with “That’s all” or “Are there any questions?” I soon realized I needed to have a more effective way to end my presentations.  Kevin Karschnik and I would love to take credit for inventing the formula we’ve documented, but in reality, we didn’t invent it. We discovered it.

By studying all kinds of speakers we discovered patterns with the speakers whom audiences enjoyed the most. We found these patterns in all types of effective speakers. Some were keynote speakers, some were delivering TED Talks, others were neighbors, one was a pastor, and some were sales and management colleagues. Whether these speakers knew they were doing it or not, we spotted a pattern. The pattern included 3 elements and sometimes (if needed) a 4th element.

“ All that matters is the ending. It’s the most important part of the story. —JOHNNY DEPP

How You Finish Matters

How you end your presentation can be one of the most remembered parts of your presentation. It just might determine whether or not your audience takes action too.

1. Summarize Your Message

This is a great way to conclude the body of your message and signal your audience you’re moving into your final remarks. Don’t make your summary long and detailed. They’ve already heard all your content once, they don’t need to hear it again! Be brief, but give them a content wrap up.

“Today I shared 3 methods for overcoming objections from your customers.”

“As we can all see, proper security includes physical assets, digital assets and predictable processes.”

2. Give Them an Emotional Reason to Change

Reminding them of the importance of your message can be done with a simple illustration or a short story. These types of examples work great to help the audience relate to the information in an emotional way. Before you think this isn’t appropriate for business presentations, read the examples below.

“What if you could retrieve your forecast numbers without having to spend hours inputting each opportunity in a spreadsheet?”

“Imagine a visitor is able to get into a secure area and gain access to our intellectual property. Then, when the investigation takes place they find out it’s because you badged into the building and let this person walk in the door behind you.”

3. Tell Them Their Next Step

Engaged audiences are ready to move, so make sure you give them their next step! When the audience is done hearing your message, what are they supposed to do next? What is the very next thing they should do? I’ve seen several amazing speakers summarize their key points and give an amazing emotional connection to the audience and then just leave them. The audience is amped up and ready to move and the speaker gave them no direction on their very next step.  Tell them what to do next.

“So the next time you badge into the building, check your surroundings. Be bold when you remind the person behind you to badge in also.”

4. Remind Them Why it’s Important

A reminder of the expected benefit of the action or the avoidable cost of the inaction can give the audience the final motivation they need to take the next step you’re proposing. This part of the close can be easily written if you just put it after you give them their next step and then say these words, “if you do that…” When you fill in the blank after this phrase you’re giving them a reason to take the next step.

“… if you do that, you’ll not only be protecting the assets of this organization, but the future for all of us.”

How you close is important. Don’t let your audience down when we’re all counting on you!

Time for me to close…
Russ

Nobody answers their phone anymore and they never return a cold call voice mail! Right? I’d beg to differ. iSpeak has been using outbound calling for almost 15 years now and we still see positive results. Much of what I share below was learned from Dara, our Sr. Sales Consultant. She’s the highest caliber professional in the learning and development industry; her clients love her and we’re lucky to have her.

Of course, we all love it when we get an inbound lead from a referral, but what if your phone isn’t ringing much? What if your passionate customers just aren’t recommending you to others? You can’t just sit around waiting for the next LinkedIn ad or Blog post to generate a lead, right? So what can you do?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing the importance of social media selling, opt-in marketing, SEO, online funnels and other types of lead generation, but if you think cold calling just doesn’t work… maybe you’re just doing it wrong.

What can we do proactively?

Do you want to stand out from your competitors? Well think about this. If people are abandoning the traditional cold call, you might just stand out from the crowd if you do make those calls… and if you do them well! In his book The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving your Wildly Important Goals, Sean Covey points out the necessity to identify both your lead and your lag measures if you want to affect outcomes.

“ One of the few things that can’t be recycled is wasted time. —SEAN COVEY

Lag vs. Lead Measures

A lag measure is what we are usually very good at measuring. It’s measuring the outcomes. What were your sales last month? How much of your quota have your required? How many opportunities did you add last week? Sometimes we forget about the lead measures.

A lead measure is something we can measure that will ultimately drive the outcome we want. Think of it as the measurement of the activity prior to achieving the results. If, for example, we want to achieve sales per month of $10,000, then we can’t just track our sales each month. That is a lag measure. By the time we get the measurement, we have no opportunity to change it. It’s already in the past!

However, if we measure things like the number of cold calls made per day, the number of emails sent per day, the number of face-to-face meetings per week or the number of proposals sent out each week, we’re now measuring the primary activities that ultimately affect the outcome we’re seeking. We know that if these numbers (lead measures) increase, our odds of reaching our higher sales goal (lag measure) also increases.

7 Tips for Better Cold Calling

If one of your lead measures is to make more outbound calls to potential prospects, here are some tips for improving your cold calls (lead measures) so you can improve your outcomes (lag measures).

1. Use both voicemail and email

Call and leave a voicemail and mention you will send them an email, as well. In case it is easier to respond that way. Then, send an email and point out, “I just left you a voicemail, as well…” The combination of the two messages received in a short period of time will stand out.

2. Don’t sound desperate

People buy to satisfy a business need. They are looking for a solution to an issue. They want to improve their business. If you have a product or service that best fits their business need, they’ll want to have a conversation. If the voicemail or phone conversation sounds like it’s more about you making a sale… they will smell it… and they will run.

3. Establish your credibility

You don’t have much time in a voicemail or an email, so you need to be succinct. If the prospect is not familiar with you or your company, you need to establish yourself as a credible source and you need to do it quickly.

“We’ve worked with other Learning and Development leaders similar to you…”

4. Focus on their business need

They have a business need. It’s been said, “No one likes to get sold, but everyone likes to buy.” The point is this… establish quickly that you’re looking for business needs where you can help. If you know the typical issues your customers struggle with, let them know you’re familiar with those needs.

“… and they’ve told us one of their biggest concerns is replenishing the numerous leadership vacancies being created by retiring baby boomers over the next 10 years.”

5. Position yourself as a problem solver

You don’t sell products or services. You sell solutions. You are a professional problem solver! If you’re going to satisfy their business need, you need to be good at solving problems. In your first voicemail or email, you could include something like this:

“We’ve been able to assist others in preparing their next generation of leaders with our High-Potential Leadership Communication workshops.”

6. Offer a connection

Give them an opportunity to connect with you for a future conversation. This can be short and simple with a couple options for connecting. You could leave your phone number, email or even send them a LinkedIn invite, as well.

“If this is an area you’re also investigating, I’d be happy to share some thoughts on how we’ve been able to help others and what we’ve learned. If you’d like to speak and if the timing is right for you, would you please let me know the best way to set a time for us to talk?

I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting with you.”

“ People don’t buy from people they like. They buy from people they trust. —RUSS PETERSON JR.

7. Be patient, it’s a relationship

If you’ve been in sales for awhile, you know it rarely happens quickly and there is no magic potion for sales success every time you try. People don’t buy from people they like… they buy from people they trust. Take the time to establish some trust with your prospects and customers.

“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll set a reminder to reach out to you again in 3 months.”

If you thought cold calling was dead… I’d invite you to try it again.

Let’s sell like professionals,
Russ

Books referenced in this post:

Cut The C.R.A.P. and Make the Sale, by Russ Peterson Jr.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving your Wildly Important Goals, by Sean Covey, Chris McChesney, Jim Huling

I’m not a huge Winter Olympics fan, but I enjoy watching some of the events. While watching the downhill slalom racing in Korea I heard the announcer say, “With that time, he’s now leading the pack.” For the first time, I heard it. I heard the misnomer in the words he chose. “He’s leading the pack.” I’m guilty of this too. We use the word “leader” synonymously with “winner.”

No wonder everyone wants their kid to grow up to be a leader! Who wouldn’t want their kid to grow up and be a winner!

Here’s the reality… leader and winner are not the same thing.

Leader Doesn’t Mean Winner

The term “leader” gets used in several different contexts, but especially in American Culture, too often the term leader is used synonymously with “winner.” Sales leader means current sales winner. Leading the pack means you’re winning the race.

But when the race ends with the current leader crossing the finish line, we stop calling that person the leader. Now we call them the winner. Why is leadership so attractive? Is it the false sense that when the race ends the current leader will now be named the winner?

Or is it just that we all see leadership as the pathway to winning? If we’re leading, then we’re winning?

Leaders have Followers

In a race, if you’re leading the pack, it is your job to beat everyone following you. You must stay ahead of them and not allow them to pass you. In a race, your followers are not your friends. Unfortunately, we see this play out in corporate world every day. Leaders who take advantage of the ones who follow. Some leaders will even lie and cheat to remain in the leadership role and to maintain their position.

True leadership revolves around caring for those who follow you. Without the followers, you’re not leading. As John C. Maxwell says, “If you think you’re leading, but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk.”

“ If you think you’re leading, but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk. —JOHN C. MAXWELL

When leaders have followers they can have them for two reasons. Either the followers want to follow or the followers have to follow. Which type of followers would you want? Are you a leader with followers who want to follow (we call this committed) or they follow because they have to follow (we call this compliant)?

What can you do for your team today? What can you do for your followers?

Leaders are Going Somewhere

The term leader implies movement. Think about it. If I told you someone was leading an expedition. You’d probably follow up with the question, “Where are they going?” All leaders have a destination in mind. We call it a vision. That vision must be communicated effectively to the team.

When the team can see the destination through the eyes of the leader, they gain inspiration. The leader takes on the responsibility of the vision. The leader owns the vision. Then, knowing what the team needs, the leader provides all the support necessary to equip the team for the trip.

Leaders Support the Team

In a race, the leader of the race who crosses the finish line first will be declared the winner. The winner can only be the winner at the expense of the rest of the runners. This is where I really dislike the term “leader” being used in sporting events. It is the exact opposite of true leadership.

Leaders don’t win at the expense of the others. Leaders coach up others to become leaders. The leader is responsible for the team and accepts that responsibility.

Being a leader is not about getting the accolades from winning. It’s about putting others in a position to win. There’s no such thing as a winning coach in any sport if their team never wins anything. The leader’s success is tied directly to the achievements of the team. As Tom Peters says, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”

“ Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders. —TOM PETERS

Leadership is a Responsibility

Leader doesn’t equal winner. Let’s stop misusing the term by thinking it’s a synonym for winner. Leader?… Actually it’s a job. It’s a job with a responsibility to support the followers. And it’s a tough job, but it’s a rewarding one too!

Let’s go take care of our teams!

Best,
Russ

He paused for a moment and then answered my question. “I want to learn how to be more influential today.” I was in Seoul, Korea for a week of leadership communication training. I had asked all four of the leaders what they wanted to discuss during our time together.

This leader’s request was not so different from what I’ve heard before, but there was a sincerity in his voice that struck me as a longing for truth. I sensed he was ready to change anything for his team if it meant their success.

This was my last day of training in Korea, a half-day conversation with 4 senior leaders. The conversation was great and the discussion was both raw and honest. These were the type of leaders you’d love to have as a boss. I’m always humbled by the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with others, but most of the time I sincerely feel like I learn more from them by just being a part of the conversation!

The Problem

He expanded on his first comment, “People don’t always want to do what we need them to do. I want to learn methods for persuading them to get the job done.” This issue is all too common for leaders. It’s an age-old question for leaders, but before I could offer any help, I had to ask a clarifying question.

Define Your Desired Result

I asked him, “Do you just want them to get it done or do you want them to want to get it done?” He paused for a moment and asked, “What’s the difference? Either way they get it done, right?” There’s a difference because if we want them to want it, it will take a different tool and more time. If we really just need them to get it done, regardless of how they feel about it, we can get it done faster.

So what’s the first step? The first step is to decide which kind of result you really want. Do you want a compliant team? (i.e. they do it, but they don’t really care.) Or, do you want a committed team? (i.e. they do it and they love doing it!)

Many will immediately say, “I want them to want to do it! That would be my target every time!” But think carefully before you answer because that’ll take more work and sometimes, it’s really not necessary. There are times when the team is under pressure to get it done and we don’t have time to worry about people’s feelings. We just need to get it done! While commitment would be great all the time, sometimes it’s just not necessary. In those cases, I’ll settle for compliance.

If you want a Compliant Team…

This is when we just need to get the job done. We don’t have the luxury of time to build commitment. We just need the work to get done! When there is a tight timeline on a project and the leader needs everyone to work late tonight. The team may not like it, but it will get done.

For compliance the leader can leverage what’s called the Strength Power Base. Because of the leader’s org chart title, he / she is given power to direct the team. As long as you want to remain a member of the team, you will comply with the direction from the leader. That’s easy enough. It gets the job done, but doesn’t concern itself with the feelings of the team. It’s fast and effective when we focus on the task.

If you want a Committed Team…

Gaining commitment from the team is going to be a bit trickier and it will take more time. Commitment (action plus strong positive feeling) comes from a team who understands “the why” behind the work. Not only do they understand “the why” of the work, but they believe in “the why!” Another name for “the why” is purpose.

The leader responded to me and said, “So we want them passionate about the work. Right?” While I love seeing passion in people, I told him, “Not necessarily. I think something else trumps passion every time… purpose.” The quizzical expression I received in return told me I should explain further.

I thought I’d give him the sand bag example I originally heard from Andy Stanley. “Let’s assume I asked all 4 of you to go outside where you’ll find several piles of sand, some bags, and shovels. Then I tell you we need to get all that sand into bags by tonight. So get to work!” Assuming I was the boss, I’d probably end up with 4 compliant workers filling bags with sand.

Then I continued, “But what if you loved filling sand bags. You had a passion for filling bags.” (I might seriously wonder if you took one of those shovels to the head, but okay… your passionate about sand bags!?!) “Do you think you’d work harder or better than the rest of the team?” I received the typical response you’d expect. All four leaders nodded their heads in agreement. I agreed as well, but I also said I thought it was a bit ridiculous to think anyone would have a passion for filling bags of sand!

Now let’s look at it another way. Let’s assume I start our conversation by telling you the weather channel has predicted massive flooding in this area tomorrow morning. The orphanage next door has 60 young children living there and that building will be under water by this time tomorrow. I need all 4 of you to go outside and fill the sand bags as quickly as you can. If you get them all filled by tonight, we will save the orphanage! Now, I’d say we’d have four people driven by purpose!

Questions…

• Am I more likely to get all of you working harder with purpose?
• Do you think the purpose-driven person would work even harder than the passionate person?
• Even if someone was allergic to sand, do you think they’d be willing to help save the orphanage?
• Do you see how purpose trumps passion every time?

The Solution

When you have the time to influence or persuade to create committed followers instead of just compliant, you need to tie their work to a greater purpose. I’ll admit, it’s easier to do this with some projects compared to others. But, if you can share the purpose, you will answer the question “why?” they’re doing something. Once they understand and agree with the purpose, you’ll have a more productive team.

Passion is great. I’ll take passionate employees all day long. But if they believe in the purpose, they’ll outperform the rest.

Working on my focus…

Best,