The Law of Superb Execution

The Law of Superb Execution states that a good leader must commit to achieving peak performance. A good leader knows that excellence is a journey, not a destination. They constantly strive to be better in their key result areas and become a role model of excellence for everyone who reports to them. They are ruthless about weeding out incompetence and poor performance. Leaders demand quality work and insist that people do their jobs well. The leader sets the standard of excellence. No one, or no part of the organization, can be any better than the standard that a good leader represents and enforces. For this reason, leaders are committed to personal excellence  and achieving peak performance in everything they do.

People are most inspired when they feel they are working for an organization in which excellence is expected and they have a role model to look up to. The very best way to motivate and inspire others is for you to announce your commitment to peak performance in your field or industry. Then, continually benchmark your performance and the performance of your organization against the very “best in class” in your business.

Leaders identify their core competencies, the vital tasks they do that are responsible for them being in business. They continually look for ways to upgrade these core competencies to assure that they maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace. A good leader or role model thinks ahead and identifies the core competencies that will be required for peak performance. They then develop plans to acquire those core competencies well before they will be needed to compete effectively in the marketplace of tomorrow.

The Law of Integrity

The Law of Integrity states that peak performance comes to you when you choose to live your life consistent with your highest values and your deepest convictions. Great business leadership is characterized by honesty, truthfulness, and straight dealing with every person, under all circumstances. This Law of Integrity requires that you be impeccably honest with yourself and others. Integrity lies at the core of leadership, at the heart of the leader.

Perhaps the most important thing you do as a good leader is to be an excellent role model. Lead by example. Walk the talk. Always carry yourself as though everyone is watching, even when no one is watching. A good leader is an excellent role model because they are completely reliable. People can take them at their word and trust that they will do what they say. A trusted role model makes promises carefully, and always keeps their word.

A key mark of integrity in human relations is consistency, both internal and external. The best leaders are consistent from one day to the next, from one situation to the next. Because of this internal consistency, these leaders are trusted. People know what to expect. There are no surprises.

The Law of Ambition

The Law of Ambition states that since a good leader has an intense desire to lead; he has a clear vision of a better future, which he is determined to realize. Vision is the one common quality that separates leaders from non leaders. A good leader or role model has a clear picture of the kind of future they want to create, and they have the ability to communicate this vision to others in an exciting and inspiring way.

Leaders have the ability to visualize, to see the big picture and then to inspire others to work together to make it a reality. The true leader sees leadership as a tool he or she can use to bring about a result that is bigger and more important than any single individual. A true leader can inspire and motivate others to peak performance.

You become a good leader when you set a goal, make a plan, and then throw your whole heart into making it a reality. You become a leader when you develop an inspiring vision for yourself and others.

A good leader or role model can explain clearly to other people what it is they are trying to accomplish, why they are trying to accomplish it, and how they are going to bring it about. They are excited about what they are doing, and as a result, they get other people excited as well. Leaders have goals, plans, and strategies that they are working to implement every day. They are in a hurry. They have a lot to do and they feel that they have too little time.

Perhaps the most important part of The Law of Ambition is clarity on the part of the leader. A good leader or role model has a clear vision, clear values, a clear vision, and clear, written goals, plans, and strategies for his or her department or organization. Most of all, leaders want to lead, to be in charge, to be responsible, to encourage others to peak performance. They are willing to endure the risks and the sacrifices that are required to make a real difference in their worlds.

I hope you enjoyed this post on becoming a good leader and inspiring your team to peak performance. If you have any other tips on how to become a good leader or role model, please share and comment below!

1. Education

The first of the nine success factors is education. In our society, the highest paid people are those who know more than the average. They know more of the critical facts, ideas and information than the average person in their field. As a result, they can make a more valuable contribution in a knowledge based society and live the best life possible. They are valued more, respected more and ultimately paid more money and promoted more often.

The rule is that, “to earn more, you must learn more.” If you want to increase your level of income and achieve the best life for yourself, you must increase your level of intellectual capital and thereby the value of the knowledge component in what you are doing.

2. Skill

The second of the nine success factors that you can use to achieve the best life possible is simply “Skill.” Your level of ability in your field will determine the quality and quantity of your results. The better you get at what you do, the easier it is for you to start moving forward to get a particular level of results.

As you increase your skill, through study and experience, you get better and better at doing the small things that increase the speed and predictability of your results.

3. Contacts

The third success factor for moving forward and achieving the best life is by developing an ever widening circle of contacts. You will find that every major change in your life is accompanied by a person or persons who either opens or closes doors for you. The possibility of the best life for you will be determined by the number of people who know you and like you and who are willing to help you.

In order to broaden your network of contacts, you must network continually, at every opportunity. There seems to be a direct relationship between the number of people you know and how successful you are.

4. Money

One of the most important of the success factors, is “money.” Having money in the bank gives you greater freedom and the ability to take advantage of opportunities when they come along. If you are broke, or in debt, you have very few options open to you.

One of the most important things I ever learned in life is that you are only as free as your options. If you have no options, you have no freedom. If you are stuck in a dead-end job that you cannot leave because you have no money set aside, you have put a brake on your potential. You are locked in place and have no option for moving forward. You can end up spinning your wheels and losing months and years of your time by the very fact that you have no choice but to accept whatever is being handed to you.

5. Good Work Habits

The fifth of the success factors that enables you to get far more done in a shorter period of time is simply “good work habits.” Your ability to increase your ROTI, or “Return on Time Invested” can enable you to accomplish vastly more in a shorter period of time than another person who is disorganized and sloppy.

Developing good work habits requires that you think before acting. You make a list and set priorities on the list before you begin. Good work habits require that you consider the likely consequences, positive or negative of what you are doing.

6. Positive Mental Attitude

The sixth success factor for your career and life is to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to achieve your goals is by developing a “positive mental attitude.” A positive mental attitude is very much a decision that you make. Remember, you become what you do. If you engage in the same activities that positive, confident, optimistic people engage in, you will eventually become one of them and live your best life possible.

Anyone can remain positive when things are going well. It is your ability to look for the good in every situation that you see positive and start moving forward in life.

7. Positive Image

The seventh of the success factors you can incorporate into your lifestyle, and one that can help you achieve the best life for yourself, is the development of a positive image. People judge you by the way you look on the outside, by the way you appear. The fact is that you judge everyone else by the way they look on the outside, as well. Taking time to present an attractive image in your person, your clothing, your grooming and your accessories can have an inordinate impact on the doors that open for you and the people who are willing to help you start moving forward in your life.

8. Creativity

Creativity is another wonderful way to start moving forward in life and to increase the speed at which you achieve your goals. Creativity is something that requires that you continually look for better, faster, easier, cheaper ways to get the job done. Remember, one good idea is all you need to start a fortune.

9. Character

Perhaps the most important of the success factors to accelerating your life is your character. Self-discipline combined with honesty will open countless doors to you. Trust is the foundation of all relationships. When people know you and believe in you and are convinced that they can trust you to keep your word and do what you say you will do, they will feel that they are far more likely to get the things they want through you, to get the things they want, faster, sooner, easier and with greater certainty.

Thank you for reading this article on moving forward and living the best life possible. Do you know of any other success factors that can help accelerate your life and career? Please share your thoughts and comment below!

Key to Success #1: Top Sales People Do What They Love to Do

All truly successful, highly paid sales people, love their sales career. You must learn to love your work and then commit yourself to becoming excellent in your field. Invest whatever amount of time is necessary to improve your sales career; pay any price; go and distance, make any sacrifice to become the very best at what you do. Join the top 10 percent.

Key To Success #2: They Decide Exactly What They Want

Don’t be wishy-washy. Decide exactly what it is you want in life. Set it as a goal for your sales career and then determine what price you are going to have to pay to get it.

According to the research, only about 3 percent of adults have written goals. And these are the most successful and highest-paid people in every field. They are the mover and shakers, the creators and innovators, the top sales people and entrepreneurs.

Key to Success #3: They Back Their Sales Career Goals With Perseverance

A key to success in sales is to back your goal with perseverance and indomitable willpower. Decide to throw your whole heart and soul into your success and into achieving your sales career goal. Make a complete commitment to improve your sales career and become one of the most highly-paid sales people. Resolve that nothing will stop you or discourage you.

Key to Success #4: They Commit to Lifelong Learning

Your mind is your most precious asset, and the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your sales career. Commit yourself to lifelong learning. I cannot emphasize this too often.

Read, listen to audio programs, attend seminars, and never forget that the most valuable asset you will ever have is your mind. As you continue to learn, you will eventually become the one of the most valuable sales people in your company. The more knowledge you acquire that can be applied to practical purposes, the greater will be your rewards and the more you will be paid.

Key to Success #5: Top Sales People Use Their Time Well

Your time is all you have to sell. It is your primary asset. How you use your time determines your standard of living. Resolve therefore to use your time well.

Begin every day with a list. The best time to make up your work list is the night before, prior to wrapping up for the day. Write down everything that you have to do the next day, starting with your fixed appointments and then moving on to everything you can think of.

Key to Success #6: They Follow the Leaders

Do what successful people do.  Follow the leaders, not the followers. Do what the top sales people in your company do. Imitate the ones who are going somewhere with their lives.

Identify the very best sales people in your field and pattern yourself after them. If you want to become one of the best sales people in your company, go to the top earners and ask them for advice. Ask them what you should do to improve your sales career. Inquire about their attitudes, philosophies, and approaches to their work and their customers.

Key to Success #7: They Know That Character is Everything

Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Nothing is more important to the quality of your life in our society. In business and sales success, you must have credibility. You can only be successful if people trust you and believe in you.

In study after study, the element of trust has been identified as the most important distinguishing factor between one salesperson and another, and one company and another.

Key to Success #8: They Use Their Inborn Creativity

Think of yourself as a highly intelligent person, even a genius. Recognize that you have the great reserves of creativity that you have never used. Say aloud, over and over, “I’m a genius! I’m a genius! I’m a genius!”

This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. The fact is that every person has the ability to perform at genius levels in one of more areas. You have within you, right now, the ability to do more and be more than you ever have before.

Key to Success #9: They Practice the Golden Rule

Practice the Golden Rule in all your interactions with others. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Think about yourself as a customer.

How would you like to be treated? Obviously you would want sales people to be straightforward with you. You would want her to take the time to thoroughly understand your problem or need and then show you, step by step, how her solution could help you improve your life or work in a cost-effective way. If this is what you would want from a salesperson selling to you, then be sure to give this to every customer you talk to.

Key to Success #10: They Pay the Price of Success

Finally, and perhaps more important than anything else, resolve to work hard. This is a great key to success in life. The key to success in selling is for you to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. Do the little thing that average people always try to avoid doing. When you begin your workday, resolve to “work all the time you work.” Don’t waste time. Get going. Move fast.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to improve your sales career to become one of the highest-earning sales people in your company. If you have a key to success that has worked for you, please share and comment below!

Your job is to become absolutely excellent at influencing and motivating others to support and assist you in the achievement of your goals and the solving of your problems. All truly effective people have mastered the art of getting lots of other people to work with and for them in the accomplishment of their objectives. You can learn this skill set to achieve personal power and master the art of influencing others.

How Human Interaction Affects Your Ability to Influence People

The opposite of being influential is having little or no influence at all on the behaviors of other people. It is the difference between being powerful and being powerless. You can either persuade others to help you or be persuaded to help them. It is one or the other. Most people are not aware that every human interaction involves a complex process of persuasion and influence. And being unaware, they are usually the ones being persuaded to help others rather than the ones who are influencing people to help them.

All successful people with personal power are persuasion experts. They give a lot of thought to how they can get other people to help them. They plan and strategize before they act. They define their goals clearly and then they choose the people whose cooperation they will need to achieve those goals. They then think about what they will have to do in return to get the other people to help them.  They achieve their goals of persuasion and influence indirectly.

The key to persuasion is motivation. Every human action is motivated by something. In order to learn how to persuade others, you must find out what motivates other people and then to provide that motivation. People have two major motivations: the desire for gain, and the fear of loss. The desire for gain motivates people to want more of the things they value in life. They want more money, more success, more health, more influence, more respect, more love and more happiness.

Human wants are limited only by individual imagination. No matter how much a person has, he or she still wants more and more. When you can show a person how he or she can get more of the things he or she wants by helping you achieve your goals, you can motivate them to act in your behalf and achieve greater personal power.

How to Persuade Others Through Leverage

You can learn how to persuade others by using leverage. Leverage means that you learn how to multiply yourself and get far more out of the hours you put in rather than doing everything yourself.

You leverage yourself through other people’s efforts by getting other people to work with you and for you in the accomplishment of your objectives. Sometimes you can ask them to help you voluntarily, although people won’t work for very long without some personal reward. At other times you can hire them to help you, thereby freeing you up to do higher value work.

The definition of management is “Getting things done through others.” To be a manager you must improve your personal power and know how to persuade and influence people to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They do not order people to do things, instead, they influence people to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines, and agreed upon standards of performance. When a person has been persuaded that he has a vested interest in doing a job well, he accepts ownership of the job and the result. Once a person accepts ownership and responsibility, the manager can step aside confidently, knowing the job will be done on schedule.

Achieve Personal Power by Becoming an Expert

You can learn how to persuade others and can develop your personal power by always remembering that there are only two ways to get the things you want in life, you can do it all yourself, or you can get most of it done by others. Your ability to communicate, persuade, negotiate, influence, delegate and interact effectively with other people will enable you to develop leverage using other people’s efforts, other people’s knowledge and other people’s money. The development of your personal power will enable you to become one of the most powerful and influential people in your organization. By learning how to persuade and influence people, it will open up doors for you in every area of your life.

I hope you enjoyed this post on how to achieve personal power by learning how to persuade and influence people. Do you think that the ability to influence people is useful in your line of work? Please comment with your answer below!

Negotiation never stops. It is the way that individuals with differing values and interests find constructive ways to live and work together in harmony. The ability to negotiate successfully with exemplary interpersonal skills is essential to success in all your interactions with other people.

Since value judgments are always subjective, there is never a right and final price or set of terms that can be decided in advance. They always depend on the parties involved and their relative scale of needs at the time of the transaction. Subjective valuations are what create the desire to exchange goods, services, money and other things. “It is differences of opinion that make a horse race.”

Your ability to negotiate well on your own behalf is the key to both personal and business success. You can always get a better deal if you know how to improve your interpersonal skills. You never need to settle for less or feel dissatisfied with the result of any negotiation. The secret to knowing how to negotiate, is through understanding that there is almost always a way that you can get better terms or prices, whether you are buying or selling. Your job is to find that way.

Here are strategies on how to negotiate the best deal possible for business success:

Interpersonal Skills for Negotiation

The word “ask” is the most powerful word in business communication and negotiation. Most people are so paralyzed by the fear of rejection and disapproval that they are afraid to ask for anything out of the ordinary. They just accept what is offered to them and hope for the best. But this is not the case with top negotiators with excellent interpersonal skills.

The top negotiators will quite calmly and confidently ask for any kind of price or term that is remotely within reason. You will be quite astonished at the better deals you will get by simply asking for a lower price if you’re buying and asking for a higher price if you’re selling. Ask for what you want. Ask politely. Ask expectantly. Ask optimistically. Ask courteously. Ask repeatedly. Ask in different ways. But never be afraid to ask.

An important thing to remember when learning how to negotiate is that everything is negotiable. All prices and terms are set by someone, on some basis. Most prices and terms are merely “guesses” at what the other person will accept. They are never written in stone.

Using Effective Business Communication Skills

One of my seminar graduates is a real estate salesman who buys houses. He works within a specific price range that looks at every home in that price range and comes on the market. His strategy is simple and he uses effective business communication and interpersonal skills to get what he wants. Whatever the asking price, he offers 50 to 60 percent of that amount in cash, with no conditions. His offers all come with a short time limit. He gets turned down dozens of times. However, about one time in a hundred, he finds a motivated seller, a seller who is eager to sell immediately, and the seller will accept his offer. His secret is simple. He just asks people to sell their houses at far lower prices than anyone else would ever dare.

How to Negotiate with Surprise and Disappointment

Learning how to negotiate with your reaction is another great strategy to improve your business communication skills for a win-win situation. Whatever the suggested price, react with surprise and disappointment. Remember, most people have plucked the price out of the air. They are always asking for more than they expect to get or offering less than they expect to pay. In either case, you should flinch and react with mild shock, no matter what the price or the offer. Appear hurt, as if the person has just said something cruel or unkind that was totally uncalled for. Then ask, “Is that the best you can do?” And remain perfectly silent. Almost every price has a built in cushion of available discount, and very often the salesperson will drop to that price with one painful flinch on your part.

Better Somewhere Else

Always imply that you can do better somewhere else. There is nothing that causes a seller’s price to drop faster than saying that you can get the same item cheaper from another source. This shakes the self-confidence of the salesperson, who immediately feels that he or she is going to lose the deal and often cuts the price quickly.

The way that you learn to improve your business communication skills for excellent negotiation is by practicing it at every opportunity until it becomes second nature. Negotiating is a great interpersonal skill that you can master with practice. Take every opportunity you can find to negotiate on smaller items, especially in situations where you don’t really care about the outcome. Go to swap meets and garage sales and offer fractions of the asking price. You will be amazed how quickly you can learn how to negotiate and become skilled at getting better prices.

When you go into a restaurant, scan the restaurant and pick a table that you want to sit at. Then, when you are shown to a lesser table, negotiate for the better table.

Whenever you buy anything from a retail store always ask, “Do you ever have this item on sale?” if they say, “yes,” then you say that you missed the last sale but you would like to buy it at the sale price at this time.

The clerk will be astonished and will tell you that that is not possible. In that case, you ask to speak to the manager. You then offer to pay “cash” for the item at the previous sale price. You will be amazed at the excellent deals that you get by using better interpersonal skills. Remember that negotiating is a game. Your job is to get in there and to play, and to keep playing, until you learn how to win every single time.

Thank you for reading this article on improving your business communication skills for negotiating better deals. If you have any other tips on how to negotiate and use interpersonal skills for business success, please share them in the comment section below!

Miscommunication is a Waste of Time

A major waste of time is caused by misunderstandings between people about roles, goals, and responsibilities. People do not know what they are expected to do, how to do it, and by what time.

Misunderstandings lead to inefficiencies, anger, frustration, and unhappiness. It often requires an enormous amount of time to clear up a misunderstanding and get matters back to normal.

Most of your problems in life talk back. They come with hair on top. Perhaps 85 percent of your happiness, or unhappiness, in life involves other people in some way. Miscommunications with other people can create a major waste of time and lower work performance, but this can easily be fixed through proper time management.

Unclear Priorities and Work Performance

Misunderstandings about priorities often lead to your working at the wrong job, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and perhaps aiming at the wrong level of quality. Or the problem may be that you are working for the wrong person.

The single most important cause of high levels of motivation in work for increased work performance is defined as “knowing exactly what is expected.” On the other hand, the number-one complaint, or demotivator, of employees is to “not know what is expected.”

In order to eliminate waste of time and increase work performance, you need absolute clarity about your job and what you are expected to do. You need clarity with regard to results required and standards of performance. You need clarity with regard to schedules and deadlines. You need clarity with regard to the rewards for doing a good job and the consequences of failing to do good work. If you are serious about improving your time management, clarity is everything.

Ineffective Delegation and Poor Time Management

Poor delegation to others, or from others, leads to mistakes and frustration on the part of both the boss and the employee. It is a major waste of time and a good time management technique to work on.

One of the rules for success in life and work is to “assume the best intentions of everyone.” You can generally assume that each person does the very best he can at the job he thinks he is supposed to do. But poor delegation causes even the most sincere talented people to have poor work performance or the wrong jobs. Therefore, they end up feeling frustrated and unhappy.

Unclear Lines of Authority

Unclear lines of authority and responsibility leads to waste of time. People do not know who is supposed to do what job, when is it be done, and to what standard of quality. People are left to wonder, who is supposed to report to whom? Who’s in charge? Who’s the boss?

Incomplete Information

Another major waste of time in business is poor or incomplete information, which leads to erroneous assumptions and conclusions that decrease work performance. It is amazing how often people jump to conclusions or make false assumptions on the basis of wrong information.

The very best managers take the time to ask questions, and they listen carefully to the answers before they make a decision. If there is a key piece of information that suggests a problem or difficulty, they double-check on this piece of information to make sure that it is accurate.

Aimless or Too Frequent Meetings

Too many meetings, or aimless meetings that proceed without an agenda, direction, or closure, are an enormous waste of time at work. These are meetings that start and stop without any particular resolution. No problems are solved, no decisions are made, and no responsibilities are assigned. No deadlines are agreed upon for action.

Lack of Clarity Concerning One’s Job

Lack of information or unclear communications on important matters affecting a person’s work can create a major waste of time. In one survey on employee motivation and work performance, the best companies were defined as places where each person felt that he was an insider and “in the know” about what was going on in the company. The worst places to work were described as those where no one was sure about what was really going on. In this type of situation, people were unclear about their responsibilities, unsure about their jobs, and cautious about taking any risks. When people don’t know what is going on, it leads to demotivation, poor work performance, lack of time management, and “playing it safe.”

People need to know everything that is happening in the company that affects their particular jobs. The very best companies are open and honest with all employees concerning those matters affecting the health of the company.

Employees need to know what is going on and how their jobs fit into the big picture. When employees are unclear or unsure, an enormous amount of time is lost as the result of conversations, discussions, and gossip, which lead to ineffective work behaviors and poor work performance.

I hope you enjoyed this article about increasing work performance and time management to eliminate waste of time. Please comment below and share with your friends!

Meeting Management Tip #1: Begin With a Purpose

One of the most important tasks you need to do to improve your management skills and hold more effective meetings, is to begin with an outline of the purpose.  When everyone sits down you say, “We are holding this meeting today to accomplish these goals and objectives.”

The opening five to seven minutes in any meeting is the most important component to conducting more effective meetings.  It sets the foundation, establishes the parameters, organizes the terms of reference and tells everybody in the room why they are there, for how long, and what they need to accomplish.  I also recommend that you write out your introduction word for word and read it out.  This clarity will allow a person who doesn’t know you or the situation coming in to get right up to speed at the start.

Improve your management skills during a meeting by being both specific and punctual with the timing.  Be sure to announce the duration.  This should also be printed at the top of your agenda, but you want to restate it in your introduction.  Begin right on time. Do not penalize the people who were there on time by waiting for others who are late. Assume that the latecomer is not coming at all and get right on with the meeting.  This helped me so much when I first learned this.

If someone comes in late and finds out they’ve missed important information, refuse to start over for them.  They will eventually get the message, be more punctual, and help you improve your management skills in a respectable manner.  Many companies have a policy where if a meeting is called for 10:00 am, they lock the doors from the inside at 10:01. You only have to do that once to get people to be on time.

If you’re there to solve a problem you say, “We are here to talk about and to come to a decision, conclusion, and resolution on this problem.  Here are the facts of the problem.  Here is the information that we have, the alternatives we’ve considered, and our market intelligence.  Now, what do we do from here?”

Meeting Management Tip #2: Encourage Open Discussion for More Effective Meetings

It’s very important that you get input from everybody; not only the people who have a lot to contribute and are eager, but also from those who are more shy and less likely to speak up.  You want input from especially women and others who may be a little bit reluctant to try to compete with more aggressive or assertive people.

Remember that leaders don’t dominate. We have found that the natural tendency of meeting leaders is to speak 50 percent of the time on average. This is not for you and it is important for you to steer away from this to improve your management skills. As a leader, you should take the role as a facilitator and avoid hogging the discussion. There is a tendency if you don’t use the round-robin technique for you to speak more and more because you’re the one who prepared the agenda.

The way to avoid inadvertently dominating the meeting is to delegate meeting leadership. Whenever possible, assign the meeting management responsibility to someone else, to build subordinates skills. This is wonderful training tool that gives employees the opportunity to build their meeting management skills,  organize their thought, and perform in front of a group. They will learn a lot from planning the meeting and preparing the agenda, and this will ultimately help you run more effective meetings.  Very often what I’ll do in my management positions is rotate the leader position to other staff in subsequent meetings, which will help them improve their management skills.

Keep the discussion on track.  A key job of the meeting leader is to keep bringing people back to the issue. Stick to the items on the agenda and don’t allow discussion to stray or wander. By keeping the discussion back to the main issue, this will help you conduct more effective meetings and save a lot of time.

Meeting Management Tip #3: Press for Closure

Once you start talking on a subject, discuss it thoroughly but press for closure on what has been decided and who’s going to do what and by when, before you go on to the next item on the agenda.

The inability to keep on track and to press for closure are the two major time wasters and major complaints from people who attend non-effective meetings.

Meeting Management Tip #4: Summarize the Main Point

An important meeting management tip to learn is to summarize at the end of each discussion point and at the end of the meeting.  Set out and summarize your time and action schedules, and your implementation plan and assignments.  Then have everybody in the meeting agree on what has been decided.

Something very interesting happens.  There is what is called “peer pressure.”  People who agree to do something in front of their peers are much more likely to follow through.  If everyone heard them say that they would do something by Thursday at noon, it is much more likely that they will have an internal incentive that will save you the need to monitor, inspect and control.

They can’t come back later and say they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, because there is a group of witnesses.  So getting people to commit publicly is a very powerful tool of meeting management psychologically and one of the best management skills I’ve learned to use.

Meeting Management Tip #5: Keep a Record

Finally, distribute minutes from the meeting within 24 hours. The more important the decisions that have been taken, the more important that you have them distributed in writing so that if they have questions they can get back to you. If there are no questions then they are accepting the record of the meeting as distributed. This is a final step that is very important part of conducting more effective meetings and improving your management skills.

Please comment below if you enjoyed these tips on running more effective meetings by improving your meeting management skills! Feel free to share this post with your friends and family!

But while it’s true that the only way to become good at anything is by repetition, over and over, until it becomes second nature, there are many things that you can do to be more effective speaking in front of audiences.

The starting point in the art of public speaking is to pick a subject that you really care about. It is to think through the subjects that have had an extraordinary impact on you, the subjects that you would like to share with others because you intensely feel that others could benefit from your knowledge. With this, you have a springboard off which you can leap into your first public talk.

The second part of public speaking is preparation for effective communication. Preparing is more important than anything except caring about your subject. It’s not unusual for a person to spend many hours, days and even weeks preparing for a talk.

Planning for Effective Communication

To prepare for a talk, the first thing to do is to write out an objective statement of what you wish to accomplish as a result of your presentation. Whether it’s a 10-minute presentation or a 10-hour presentation, the statement of your objective is the same. It’s the answer to the question, “Who is my audience, and what effect do I want my talk to have upon them?”

So you need to ask, “What action do I want this audience to take as a result of the things I say to them?” Write out this action statement of your objective very clearly. Then write down everything that you think you could possibly say, one point after the other, to this audience to cause them to take this action. Remember, the reason for public speaking is not simply to teach or to share information. It’s to move people’s minds and hearts and to provoke them into changing their behavior in some way.

Once you have an outline of what you want to accomplish and some of the ways that you can accomplish it, begin to do your research, if necessary. If you don’t have enough information, begin to read and to ask questions.

If you’re giving a short talk, the very best strategy to improve your presentation skills is to write it out, word for word, in detail. Then read through it and edit it. Revise it wherever necessary. Add to it, and subtract unnecessary data. Work on it until it is polished, and then read through it several times so that you have such a good sense of the material that you can go through the entire talk prior to falling asleep or while you’re driving your car.

Improve Your Presentation Skill

If the first two parts of successful public speaking are caring and preparing, the third part is practicing and improving your presentation skills. If you have a tape recorder or, even better, a video camera, record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it, and make notes on how you could make it better. If you’re using a video camera, look into the camera and use the same facial expressions and the same body gestures that you would use if you were speaking directly to someone. When you critique yourself, be very hard on yourself. Remember, the more honest and objective you can be about how you come across to others, the faster you will build effective communication skills for success.

Practice makes perfect, and perfect practice makes it even more perfect.  If you practice consistently, you will find that your presentation skills have dramatically improved over time. Remember, your ability to speak effectively in front of people can do more to advance your career and your life than perhaps any other skill you can develop.

Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

It’s normal and natural for you to be nervous about public speaking, but you must overcome that fear to improve your presentation skills. Fifty-four percent of American adults rank public speaking ahead of fear of death among life’s major fears. Most people become nervous and uneasy at the very thought of standing up to speak in front of an audience, and their hearts pound.

Speaking professionally really is not something that you can decide in favor of or against. You don’t really have a choice. If you want to realize your full potential in the world of business, you must learn how to improve your effective communication skills to better communicate with people. I have seen executives make extraordinary career jumps, saving themselves as much as five to 10 years of time working up the executive ladder, simply by using effective communication skills at a corporate meeting. I’ve observed men and women who’ve put their careers onto the fast track by overcoming their fears and developing their presentation skills.

Pay any price, spend any amount of time, overcome any obstacle, but make a decision, right now, that you’re going to learn to speak well before groups and practice your presentation skills consistently. It could be one of the most important decisions you ever make in assuring long-term success in your career.

Please comment below and share your thoughts about effective communication techniques for better public speaking. Also, please share with your friends if you enjoyed this post about improving your presentation skills for greater success!

Save Money by Using a Long Time Perspective

To save money and become financially independent you must begin living on less than you earn even if you are deeply in debt. One of the most important guarantors of your personal finance success is called “Long time perspective.” Take the long view. Develop a long term attitude toward yourself and your financial future and begin thinking in terms of where you want to be in five and ten years. This long-time perspective will have an inordinate impact on your personal finance habits and money management skills in the present, and will help you save money over the years.

The starting point of financial independence is described in George Klasson’s book, The Richest Man in Babylon, as “Pay yourself first.” He says that, “A part of all you earn is yours to keep.” If you just save 10% of your gross earnings every single paycheck over the course of your working lifetime, you will become financially independent and gain personal finance success. In fact, if you saved $100 per month from the time you started work at age 20 until the time you retired at age 65, and this $100 per month earned 10% per annum return, compounded, you would be worth more than $1,100,000 when you retired, in addition to social security pensions and everything else.

The Most Important Money Management Skill

In a study done recently called “One Hundred Million Millionaires” the writers and economists concluded that it is possible for every single adult in America to become a millionaire if they start early enough, consistently save money, and actually plan their personal finance. And since it is so possible and so easy for so many hundreds of thousands and millions of other people to achieve financial independence, it must be possible for you to improve your personal finance as well.

Just imagine! If you only make $25,000 year, but you save 10% of that, or $2,500 per annum, just over $200 per month, you will become a millionaire. But in order to successfully get there, you need to make a decision to improve your money management skills.

Most economists and psychologists agree that the key to personal finance success and is the ability to delay gratification. The reason for financial ruin and failure to save money is the need for immediate gratification. People who lack the discipline to restrain themselves from spending all they earn, have no financial future and can never save money. This is a key money management skill you need to remember in order to gain financial success.

Change Your Personal Finance Habits

Your goal should be to carefully save 20 – 30% of your income each paycheck and to invest that money carefully over the years. Of course, for most people, at least initially, this is impossible. They are too deeply in debt and they have entrenched spending patterns that are consuming 100% of their income or more. So here is a formula for you. Decide today that you are going to change your personal finance habits, save money, get out of debt and achieve financial independence within the next few years. You begin by resolving to save one percent of your gross income. Let us imagine that you are earning $2,000 per month.

One percent of $2,000 is $20. You decide that you are going to save $20 each month. $20 per month is approximately 67 cents per day.

Every day you save 67 cents. Every month you put the month in the bank. And once you put the money into that savings account, you never, never touch it for any reason. This is your wealth account which you never, never touch for any reason.

A remarkable thing is going to happen to you within a few months as you save money. Your attitude toward yourself and money management will change. You will feel stronger and more confident even though you only have a few dollars in the bank. You will be adhering to a budget more closely and questioning unnecessary expenditures.

Growing Exponentially

But the best news of all is this financial accumulation account will start to grow. You will start to get little unexpected dribbles and drabs of money coming in that you promptly put into this account. Instead of the account growing at $20 per month plus interest, by the end of the first year, there will probably be more than $500 in the account. By the end of the second year, there will be over $1,500, maybe even $2,000. By the end of the third or fourth year, you will have several thousand dollars put aside, you will be out of debt, and you will not have to stress about how to save money for the rest of your life.

As you become comfortable saving one percent of your income and living on the other 99%, you then raise your savings rate to two percent of your income. You live on the other 98%. When you become comfortable at that level, you increase it to three percent and then four percent, and eventually up to 20% and up to 25%. Within three years, you will find yourself living quite comfortably on 75% of your income and saving the rest.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to save money and improve your personal finance habits for better money management! Please comment below and share this post with your friends!

If you follow my work, you probably already know the success I’ve experienced by helping millions of people to set and achieve goals.

The one thing I’ve discovered in over 30 years of researching success patterns is that a person of average intelligence who has the ability set clear goals, and has the discipline to maintain a goal-achieving mindset is 90% more likely to succeed than a genius without a plan.

What most people don’t realize is that creating an effective, logical plan is absolutely crucial to achieve goals for success. There are specific, proven steps that, if followed,  work everywhere, for everyone, in virtually every country, no matter what your education, experience, or background may be when you begin.

My personal mission statement has always been  “To help people achieve their goals faster and easier than ever before.”   That being said, I’ve just created a brand-new goal setting challenge that includes some of my best, time-tested strategies to help you achieve your goals in a fun, inspiring way. Oh, and you could be rewarded with some really great prizes, too.

My 30-Day Goals Challenge is a new opportunity to hone your goal achievement skills and stay motivated with a healthy, competitive fire that will keep you going until the end!

Here’s how the contest works:

-Join the contest and fill out a short questionnaire–so that we can create your unique challenge page.

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-At the end of each week, the progress you submit will be added to your personal challenge page.

-Finally, at the end of the 30-Day Goals Challenge, 2 winners will be selected. One will be voted on by the challenge participants, and the other will be selected by my team and me.

This entirely FREE challenge is designed to show you that by following a proven goal setting system and by staying accountable, you CAN achieve goals you never thought were possible. Even more importantly, you can apply this same formula to any goal you want to achieve in life, at any time.

Once you begin to apply the principles you learn throughout the contest, you’ll:

-Become a more positive, powerful, and effective person.

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…And the list goes on!

So if you’re ready to take on the challenge of a lifetime, with benefits that can last forever, then NOW is the time!

Because as I mentioned before, when you participate in this challenge, you are virtually guaranteed to succeed.

This is your chance to sign up—so don’t miss it! Join me for the 30 Day Goals Challenge and sign up HERE!

Please share this post on goal setting and encourage your friends and family to sign up for the 30 Day Goals Challenge! Remember, the sooner you try, the sooner you will triumph!