Every once in a while I come across a truly brilliant diamonds of wisdom. This is one of these diamonds.
The premise is a young person asking "what leads to success". After 7 years and 500 interviews, here are the 8 secrets to success.
http://daily.finerminds.com/success/8-secrets-to-success-richard-st-john-te/
Enjoy!
Susan Corcoran
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
How to be more effective
I came across one little nugget of a tip on how to be more effective - the one handed password.
If you have a password for your PDA, Black Berry or iPhone, consider choosing a password that you can one thumb. Same with your lap top. Consider a password that you can enter using one hand. Saving the other hand for holding that all important coffee!
If you have a password for your PDA, Black Berry or iPhone, consider choosing a password that you can one thumb. Same with your lap top. Consider a password that you can enter using one hand. Saving the other hand for holding that all important coffee!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Feel Felt Found: Objection Handling for Sales
‘Feel Felt Found’ is a common method used by top salespeople to overcome objections. It first empathizes with the prospects objection, then relates to how others have had the same objection while sharing a positive outcome.
FEEL: This first step shows you care and lets them feel understood and their concern is acknowledged: "I know just how you feel." "I understand your point" "I get it!"
FELT: The next step lets them know that they’re not alone and that others have felt this way: "Some of our clients have felt that same way."
FOUND: Now provide examples of how those clients overcame their concerns, discovered how good your product/service was for them and vindicated their decision to buy with a successful outcome: "However, what they found was…"
Prospects may give false objections which needs to understood. Objections are an important part of the sales process and must happen in order to get to a close. Ask if they have any other concerns or queries. Then you can address them all. Don't' be afraid to keep asking until every conceivable objection has been uncovered. Handling objections calmly, rationally and with confidence will build credibility and rapport as you add another deal to the board!
Happy selling!
Susan Corcoran
FEEL: This first step shows you care and lets them feel understood and their concern is acknowledged: "I know just how you feel." "I understand your point" "I get it!"
FELT: The next step lets them know that they’re not alone and that others have felt this way: "Some of our clients have felt that same way."
FOUND: Now provide examples of how those clients overcame their concerns, discovered how good your product/service was for them and vindicated their decision to buy with a successful outcome: "However, what they found was…"
Prospects may give false objections which needs to understood. Objections are an important part of the sales process and must happen in order to get to a close. Ask if they have any other concerns or queries. Then you can address them all. Don't' be afraid to keep asking until every conceivable objection has been uncovered. Handling objections calmly, rationally and with confidence will build credibility and rapport as you add another deal to the board!
Happy selling!
Susan Corcoran
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Goal Setting really does work!
ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS ISN'T SOMETHING THAT JUST HAPPENS
In a study done at Harvard University more than 40 years ago, researchers polled the graduating class of 1953 to find out how many students actually had clearly written specific goals and a plan for achieving them. This being a class of highly intelligent people at one of the world's most renowned universities, you'd expect the answer to be most of them, right?
Not even close. In fact, only 3 percent of the class had taken the time to write down their goals. Now here comes the really interesting part. Some 20 years later, researchers polled this same group of graduates to see how they had fared in life. It turned out that the 3 percent who had written down their goals had accumulated more wealth than the other 97 percent of their class combined! Researchers reported that these people also seemed healthier and happier than their classmates
Set Goals and stay focused!
Good Luck out there!
In a study done at Harvard University more than 40 years ago, researchers polled the graduating class of 1953 to find out how many students actually had clearly written specific goals and a plan for achieving them. This being a class of highly intelligent people at one of the world's most renowned universities, you'd expect the answer to be most of them, right?
Not even close. In fact, only 3 percent of the class had taken the time to write down their goals. Now here comes the really interesting part. Some 20 years later, researchers polled this same group of graduates to see how they had fared in life. It turned out that the 3 percent who had written down their goals had accumulated more wealth than the other 97 percent of their class combined! Researchers reported that these people also seemed healthier and happier than their classmates
Set Goals and stay focused!
Good Luck out there!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Another reason I love Starbucks: They get Customer Service
For those of you who know me, you know I love coffee and more specifically Starbucks. There are so many things that I admire about Starbucks: their brand, innovation, commitment to excellence and their customer service. These are all initiatives that are difficult to scale but they have scaled and done it without compromise. That deserves respect right there.
I recently went into a Starbucks and they were out of soy. No big deal but I wrote them anyway. Mostly because there is a 24 hour grocery store across the street and I was perplexed why they could not have walked 30 feet and bought more.
First, they responded to my concern within 6 hours. Then they asked me to fill out a survey if their response met my needs. THEN, they sent me a coupon for a free coffee for the inconvenience of my experience.
Timely and appropriate response, proper follow up, escalated to the store and Regional Manager to either train or tighten up the process and then opened the door an invited me back. Absolutely fabulous.
Sky Service should take a lesson from Starbucks....
I recently went into a Starbucks and they were out of soy. No big deal but I wrote them anyway. Mostly because there is a 24 hour grocery store across the street and I was perplexed why they could not have walked 30 feet and bought more.
First, they responded to my concern within 6 hours. Then they asked me to fill out a survey if their response met my needs. THEN, they sent me a coupon for a free coffee for the inconvenience of my experience.
Timely and appropriate response, proper follow up, escalated to the store and Regional Manager to either train or tighten up the process and then opened the door an invited me back. Absolutely fabulous.
Sky Service should take a lesson from Starbucks....
Friday, February 26, 2010
How NOT to Write a Resume
A Resume is really a way to market yourself. So like any good company you should highlight your strengths, list your accomplishments as well as provide a features benefit statement. I get the fact that some people are to early in their career to have much to market from an employee perspective. If this is the case, get yourself out there and volunteer, do something that is going to differentiate your resume and get you an interview.
Perspective employers read between the lines. Without work experience, they are looking for candidates that take leadership roles, create their own opportunities, take on unpaid internships to gain experience - Something that demonstrates work ethic, attitude and the desire to carve out career. BTW, stay away from ethnic or religious volunteer work. Fact of life, though no one will admit it, but it could work against you.
The reason I write this blog is because a young person sent in this resume and at first I thought it was a joke. They actually put that they had a non weighted GPA of 2.0 and ranked 132 out of a class size of 153. They publicize the fact that they finished in the bottom 15% of their graduating class. Now really, who proofed this resume for them and thought that announcing that you are a C student and did not fare well academically was worth putting on a resume. How was this going to help them get hired?
Find yourself a mentor, a good one, who knows about business or whatever you want to get into, and ask them for guidance. If you want to be in business, don’t let some high school or university career councilor be your only advice. Get a second or third opinion. I see more bad advice coming from out of touch career councilors and well meaning family members than anything. AND DON’T TAKE POLITICAL SCIENCE JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE IT. It offers NO career advantage when employers are looking at your CV. If I had a nickel for every resume I looked at for PoliSci students who had no desire to be in politics or to be a civil servant, I could retire. I have a pet peeve about people who spend 3 or 4 years in post secondary education and thousands of dollars and have no interest in their course of study beyond school. What does that say about you? I’ll tell you, you just pissed away 4 years and are qualified for a donut hole.
I will stop my Wasted major at University tirade and let you look at the CV. There are so many ways to improve this resume – remember, embellishing or omitting details is not lying :)
All the best,
Susan
Resume Response
Dear Susan Corcoran,
Below is a resume response to your job ad.
Education: High School Weighted GPA: 2.23
Rank:132 Non-Weighted GPA:2.0
Class Size: 153
Extra Curricular Activities: Position: Year:
Soccer Defense 9th
Forward 9th
Middle Back 9th
Foods/Nutrition 9th
Spanish I 9th
Spanish II H 10th
Spanish III H 11th
Spanish IV H 12th
Accounting I 10th
Beginning Piano 11th
Weight Training 11th
Computer Apps II 12th
Math of Personal Finance 12th
Awards and Honors:
Student of the Month 9th
Work Experience:
Stocker Travel Plaza Summer 2005
Summer 2006
Wait Staff 2007-2008
Perspective employers read between the lines. Without work experience, they are looking for candidates that take leadership roles, create their own opportunities, take on unpaid internships to gain experience - Something that demonstrates work ethic, attitude and the desire to carve out career. BTW, stay away from ethnic or religious volunteer work. Fact of life, though no one will admit it, but it could work against you.
The reason I write this blog is because a young person sent in this resume and at first I thought it was a joke. They actually put that they had a non weighted GPA of 2.0 and ranked 132 out of a class size of 153. They publicize the fact that they finished in the bottom 15% of their graduating class. Now really, who proofed this resume for them and thought that announcing that you are a C student and did not fare well academically was worth putting on a resume. How was this going to help them get hired?
Find yourself a mentor, a good one, who knows about business or whatever you want to get into, and ask them for guidance. If you want to be in business, don’t let some high school or university career councilor be your only advice. Get a second or third opinion. I see more bad advice coming from out of touch career councilors and well meaning family members than anything. AND DON’T TAKE POLITICAL SCIENCE JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE IT. It offers NO career advantage when employers are looking at your CV. If I had a nickel for every resume I looked at for PoliSci students who had no desire to be in politics or to be a civil servant, I could retire. I have a pet peeve about people who spend 3 or 4 years in post secondary education and thousands of dollars and have no interest in their course of study beyond school. What does that say about you? I’ll tell you, you just pissed away 4 years and are qualified for a donut hole.
I will stop my Wasted major at University tirade and let you look at the CV. There are so many ways to improve this resume – remember, embellishing or omitting details is not lying :)
All the best,
Susan
Resume Response
Dear Susan Corcoran,
Below is a resume response to your job ad.
Education: High School Weighted GPA: 2.23
Rank:132 Non-Weighted GPA:2.0
Class Size: 153
Extra Curricular Activities: Position: Year:
Soccer Defense 9th
Forward 9th
Middle Back 9th
Foods/Nutrition 9th
Spanish I 9th
Spanish II H 10th
Spanish III H 11th
Spanish IV H 12th
Accounting I 10th
Beginning Piano 11th
Weight Training 11th
Computer Apps II 12th
Math of Personal Finance 12th
Awards and Honors:
Student of the Month 9th
Work Experience:
Stocker Travel Plaza Summer 2005
Summer 2006
Wait Staff 2007-2008
Monday, January 11, 2010
Customer Service Disaster at SkyService
It's not very often that you get to critique a full on Customer Service Disaster however I had the recent pleasure of being part of an involuntary SkyService case study for Customer Service Do's and Don'ts.
Lesson One: Everyone is in Customer Service
No matter what your job title is, everyone is in Customer Service.
Lesson Two: Diffuse anger with an Escalation Path
When passengers stage a mutiny after a 23 hour delay and the Police have to be called, there should be an escalation process. Do not leave your front line staff to suffer verbal and physical abuse. All customers feel better when their concerns are escalated to someone in charge who can either get things done or give a reasonable explanation. There needs to escalation and ownership.
Lesson Three: Have a Positioning Statement
There should always be a standard set of responses or positioning statements. For example the fact that our plane broke down and then they said is was fixed but the same mechanical problem happened again does not make a passenger feel better. Was it the coffee machine or was it the oxygen that broke? Customer Service responses should be either be very specific or be very vague. For example, "We apologize for the delay as an unforeseen maintenance issue has been brought to our attention and your safety and well being is our main concern. We ask for your patience as we look for alternatives to get you to your destination. Please bare with us."
Everyone should know the standard statements so no matter who a passenger asks, they get the same clear message. Good positioning statements ensure that customers feel like you know what you are doing.
Lesson Four:Proactive Communication
Proactive Communication is key in times of customer service crisis. This includes timely responses and regular updates even when no updates are available. Proactive communication can placate very tense situations. Our experience was that when you sent an email to customer focus at SkyService, this is what we received back: "Depending on the complexity of the issues involved, and due to the need to gather all pertinent information regarding your concerns, response time may take a minimum of 6 weeks."
a minimum of 6 weeks????
I sent an email to the SkyService Customer Focus group on January 3rd and have still not received a response back. I'm not sure how anyone in the service business has the audacity to even put this on an auto response.
If you are in the Service Industry, communicate with your customers early and often.
Lesson Five: Apologize and Empathize
Apologize. There is no need to pull a Fonzy! (those of you who are old enough to remember Happy Days, Fonzy would studder and shake when he had to say he was sorry). Apologize often and sincerely, empathize with your customer, let them vent, don't interrupt and give them their chance to say their peace. The example at how Skyservice failed at this is when the 166 passengers staged a sit in and would not change gates to allow a West Jet plane to load passengers. The amazing part was that the passengers were successful in diverting the West Jet plane from loading and unloading. SkyService lost control of the situation and part of the reason was their inability to provide adequate customer service starting with apologizing and demonstrating empathy.
Lesson Six: Don't hide, Embrace Customers
Don't hide from angry customers. Embrace them, turn them into champions. Today I looked on the SkyService web site and there are no phone numbers published. When you have no phone numbers for Customer Service, no Main Number, not a single phone number for anyone, that is not service.
The lessons I touched on do not cover the fact that they charged us $40 for being 2 kilo's over in our luggage and then lost our luggage anyway.
In a competitive market place, I thought all charter airlines were the same. Saying you have good Customer Service is an intangible to Customers who assume you have an acceptable way of dealing with issues and situations. Customer Service is like personal hygiene, you assume everyone has it. I assume people brush their teeth everyday. This week I found out that Skyservice doesn't brush their teeth.....
Lesson One: Everyone is in Customer Service
No matter what your job title is, everyone is in Customer Service.
Lesson Two: Diffuse anger with an Escalation Path
When passengers stage a mutiny after a 23 hour delay and the Police have to be called, there should be an escalation process. Do not leave your front line staff to suffer verbal and physical abuse. All customers feel better when their concerns are escalated to someone in charge who can either get things done or give a reasonable explanation. There needs to escalation and ownership.
Lesson Three: Have a Positioning Statement
There should always be a standard set of responses or positioning statements. For example the fact that our plane broke down and then they said is was fixed but the same mechanical problem happened again does not make a passenger feel better. Was it the coffee machine or was it the oxygen that broke? Customer Service responses should be either be very specific or be very vague. For example, "We apologize for the delay as an unforeseen maintenance issue has been brought to our attention and your safety and well being is our main concern. We ask for your patience as we look for alternatives to get you to your destination. Please bare with us."
Everyone should know the standard statements so no matter who a passenger asks, they get the same clear message. Good positioning statements ensure that customers feel like you know what you are doing.
Lesson Four:Proactive Communication
Proactive Communication is key in times of customer service crisis. This includes timely responses and regular updates even when no updates are available. Proactive communication can placate very tense situations. Our experience was that when you sent an email to customer focus at SkyService, this is what we received back: "Depending on the complexity of the issues involved, and due to the need to gather all pertinent information regarding your concerns, response time may take a minimum of 6 weeks."
a minimum of 6 weeks????
I sent an email to the SkyService Customer Focus group on January 3rd and have still not received a response back. I'm not sure how anyone in the service business has the audacity to even put this on an auto response.
If you are in the Service Industry, communicate with your customers early and often.
Lesson Five: Apologize and Empathize
Apologize. There is no need to pull a Fonzy! (those of you who are old enough to remember Happy Days, Fonzy would studder and shake when he had to say he was sorry). Apologize often and sincerely, empathize with your customer, let them vent, don't interrupt and give them their chance to say their peace. The example at how Skyservice failed at this is when the 166 passengers staged a sit in and would not change gates to allow a West Jet plane to load passengers. The amazing part was that the passengers were successful in diverting the West Jet plane from loading and unloading. SkyService lost control of the situation and part of the reason was their inability to provide adequate customer service starting with apologizing and demonstrating empathy.
Lesson Six: Don't hide, Embrace Customers
Don't hide from angry customers. Embrace them, turn them into champions. Today I looked on the SkyService web site and there are no phone numbers published. When you have no phone numbers for Customer Service, no Main Number, not a single phone number for anyone, that is not service.
The lessons I touched on do not cover the fact that they charged us $40 for being 2 kilo's over in our luggage and then lost our luggage anyway.
In a competitive market place, I thought all charter airlines were the same. Saying you have good Customer Service is an intangible to Customers who assume you have an acceptable way of dealing with issues and situations. Customer Service is like personal hygiene, you assume everyone has it. I assume people brush their teeth everyday. This week I found out that Skyservice doesn't brush their teeth.....
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