The Indispensable Quality

By: Brian Tracy

Dare to Go Forward
Winston Churchill once said, "Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues because upon it, all others depend." Courage is the chief distinguishing characteristic of the true leader. It is almost always visible in the leader's words and actions. It is absolutely indispensable to success, happiness and the ability to motivate other people to be the best they can be.

Follow Through On Your Vision
In a way, it is easy to develop a big vision for yourself and for the person you want to be. It is easy to commit yourself to living with complete integrity. But it requires incredible courage to follow through on your vision and on your commitments. You see, as soon as you set a high goal or standard for yourself, you will run into all kinds of difficulties and setbacks.

Refuse to Compromise
You will be surrounded by temptations to compromise your values and your vision. You will feel an almost irresistible urge to "get along by going along." Your desire to earn the respect and cooperation of others can easily lead to the abandonment of your principles, and here is where courage comes in.

Stick to Your Principles
Courage combined with integrity is the foundation of character. The first form of courage is your ability to stick to your principles, to stand for what you believe in and to refuse to budge unless you feel right about the alternative. Courage is also the ability to step out in faith, to launch out into the unknown and then to face the inevitable doubt and uncertainty that accompany every new venture.

Avoid Your Comfort Zone
Most people are seduced by the lure of the comfort zone. This can be likened to going out of a warm house on a cold, windy morning. The average person, when he feels the storm swirling outside his comfort zone, rushes back inside where it's nice and warm. But not the true leader. The true leader has the courage to step away from the familiar and comfortable and to face the unknown with no guarantees of success. It is this ability to "boldly go where no man has gone before" that distinguishes you as a leader from the average person. This is the example that you must set if you are to rise above the average. It is this example that inspires and motivates other people to rise above their previous levels of accomplishment as well.

The Attack of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, was one of the most superb leaders of all time. He became king at the age of 19, when his father, Philip II, was assassinated. In the next 11 years, he conquered much of the known world, leading his armies against numerically superior forces.

Lead the Action
Yet, when he was at the height of his power, the master of the known world, the greatest ruler in history to that date, he would still draw his sword at the beginning of a battle and lead his men forward into the conflict. He insisted on leading by example. Alexander felt that he could not ask his men to risk their lives unless he was willing to demonstrate by his actions that he had complete confidence in the outcome. The sight of Alexander charging forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on earth could stand before them.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, set big goals for yourself and force yourself out of the comfort zone by acting boldly - even when there is no guarantee of success. Go boldly where no one has ever gone before.

Second, resolve to act quickly and decisively when you are confronted with a difficult or dangerous situation. Dare to go forward. Practice audacity in all things. Acting with courage builds your courage and confidence higher and higher.

Please Do These Three Things by Ron White

I am extremely leery of any quick-fix solution or overnight formula for success. In my opinion, they don't exist. With that said, the following formula is one that I have shared with members of my family to encourage them to break through the rut they are in and experience success. Therefore, if I would share it with my family, I must believe in the principles. I suggested that they begin to regularly do these three things:

1. Surround themselves with positive people who believe that this life is not all there is. Personally, I find this at my local church. This e-mail goes out to thousands of people all over the world. I know we don't share the same faith in all cases. This message is not about my faith; it is about you finding a group of people who regularly meet together and have a belief that there is more to life than what we see. This is the first step to a positive outlook on life.

2. You must exercise weekly in order to stimulate endorphins and maintain an energetic life. The exercise of walking to the kitchen or curling 12 ounces does not count as exercise. I run a mile twice a week, and two to three days a week do strength training. This is nothing difficult, but it makes a major difference in my attitude.

3. You MUST educate yourself through reading. The average CEO in America reads four to five books per month. The average American reads one book per year, and 60 percent of us don't get past the first chapter! Make a promise to yourself to read at least one book per month. Read anything!

Regardless, of what you read… develop a passion for reading and learning, and you will see your attitude and outlook on life begin to change. Any person who faithfully invests their time in these three areas may not break world records in levels of success. However, everything in me believes that they would see dramatic improvements. I believe in those three things so much, I encouraged my family to invest their time in these areas.

—Ron White

Three Keys to Greatness by Jim Rohn

Some years ago I went into the studio and recorded a 56-minute video for teenagers called Three Keys to Greatness. Although my focus was for teenagers, the principles I shared certainly apply to adults as well.

Recently I was asked to list these three things using one to two sentences for each. Now for your benefit here they are again.

1) Setting Goals. I call it the view of the future. Most people, including kids, will pay the price if they can see the promise of the future. So we need to help our kids see a well-defined future, so they will be motivated to pay the price today to attain the rewards of tomorrow. Goals help them do this.

2) Personal Development. Simply making consistent investments in our self-education and knowledge banks pays major dividends throughout our lives. I suggest having a minimum amount of time set aside for reading books, listening to audiocassettes, attending seminars, keeping a journal and spending time with other successful people. Charlie “Tremendous” Jones says you will be in five years the sum total of the books you read and the people you are around.

3) Financial Planning. I call it the 70/30 plan. After receiving your paycheck or paying yourself, simply setting aside 10 percent for saving, 10 percent for investing and 10 percent for giving, and over time this will guarantee financial independence for a teenager.

If a young person, or for that matter an adult, focused on doing these three simple things over a long period of time I believe they will be assured success!

—Jim Rohn

The Formula For Failure And Success

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event.

Jim Rohn September 3, 2008

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.

On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds.

If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes. Why? Because it doesn't seem to matter. And herein lies the great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!

Those who eat too many of the wrong foods are contributing to a future health problem, but the joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. Those who smoke too much or drink too much go on making these poor choices year after year after year... because it doesn't seem to matter. But the pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time. Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives and the price must be paid for our poor choices - choices that didn't seem to matter.

Failure's most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don't seem to make any difference. We do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in our lives. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices and making the wrong choices. The sky did not fall in on us yesterday; therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.

But we must become better educated than that!

If at the end of the day when we made our first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on us, we undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents' warnings, we would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying our error in judgment.

Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as our parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine our philosophy in order to be able to make better choices. With a powerful, personal philosophy guiding our every step, we become more aware of our errors in judgment and more aware that each error really does matter.

Now here is the great news. Just like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow: It's a few simple disciplines practiced every day.

Now here is an interesting question worth pondering: How can we change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future an important part of our current philosophy.

Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely the inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. If this is true, why don't more people take time to ponder the future? The answer is simple: They are so caught up in the current moment that it doesn't seem to matter. The problems and the rewards of today are so absorbing to some human beings that they never pause long enough to think about tomorrow.

But what if we did develop a new discipline to take just a few minutes every day to look a little further down the road? We would then be able to foresee the impending consequences of our current conduct. Armed with that valuable information, we would be able to take the necessary action to change our errors into new success-oriented disciplines. In other words, by disciplining ourselves to see the future in advance, we would be able to change our thinking, amend our errors and develop new habits to replace the old.

One of the exciting things about the formula for success - a few simple disciplines practiced every day - is that the results are almost immediate. As we voluntarily change daily errors into daily disciplines, we experience positive results in a very short period of time. When we change our diet, our health improves noticeably in just a few weeks. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence. Whatever new discipline we begin to practice daily will produce exciting results that will drive us to become even better at developing new disciplines.

The real magic of new disciplines is that they will cause us to amend our thinking. If we were to start today to read the books, keep a journal, attend the classes, listen more and observe more, then today would be the first day of a new life leading to a better future. If we were to start today to try harder, and in every way make a conscious and consistent effort to change subtle and deadly errors into constructive and rewarding disciplines, we would never again settle for a life of existence — not once we have tasted the fruits of a life of substance!

Time Management Techniques for Salespeople

By Brian Tracy

In 1928, the magazine Sales and Marketing Management surveyed American Businesses to determine how efficiently salespeople were using their time. They discovered that the average salesperson in America was only working 20 percent of the time, approximately one and one-half hours per day. This finding caused bells to go off throughout the sales industry. The idea that salespeople were only working ninety minutes per day became the emphasis for improved training, better time management skills, better supervision, and better control of the activities of salespeople.

Double Your Sales

In my sales programs, I teach what I call my minutes theory. It is based on a simple equation. If you are in sales today, 100 percent of your sales and your income are generated by the number of minutes hat you spend face-to-face with prospects and customers. If you want to increase the number of sales or the amount of money you make, you must increase the number of minutes that you spend in actual selling activity, face-to-face with people who can, and will, buy from you. My theory says that if you double the number of minutes that if you spend with customers, you will double your income, even if you do not improve in any other area of sales. If you manage your time as the top salespeople do, so that you are spending more time with customers, your sales will increase immediately.

The Job of the Salesperson

Let us begin with the job description of the salesperson. The job description of the salesperson is to create and keep customers. The measure of effectiveness of a salesperson is how many new customers she creates, or resales she generates, in any given time period. Everything else that salesperson does is secondary to creating and keeping customers. Therefore, the only time a sales person is working is when he is face-to-face, head-to-head, and knee-to-knee with a prospect or customer.

Begin with Clear Income and Sales Goals

Achieving Peak Performance and excellent time management in sales begins with your setting clear income and sales goals for yourself. The act of sitting down and deciding, in writing, how much you want to earn, and how you are going to go about earning it, makes it far more likely that you will achieve those goals than if you didn't set them at all. The goal-setting exercise I am about to share with you has led to the doubling and tripling of the incomes of many salespeople. It is powerful because it is simple and easy. You can learn it and apply it immediately.

Determine What You Will Have to Do

Once you have broken your income and sales goals down into monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly amounts, you then define these goals in terms of the activities necessary to achieve them. The critical element in this calculation is the factor of control. You cannot control your income or your sales on a day-to-day basis. They depend on too many other factors. But you can control your activities. You can determine and control what you do from morning to night, and as a result, you can indirectly control your income. If you engage in the activities necessary to make sales you want to make, you will inevitably achieve your sales goals.

Get Better at What You Do

Once you have determined your sales goals and worked out an activity schedule for each day, you immediately go to work on yourself to upgrade your skills in your key result areas. One of the best uses of your time is to get better at the most important things you do. Your goal is to upgrade your skills so that you achieve more and better results in a shorter period of time.

Action Exercise

Take charge of your sales career today; resolve to double the amount of time you spend face-to-face with prospects and customers.

7 Reasons You're Not Making The Sale Part 2

By Jim Klein

Last week I talked about the first four of the seven reasons why you're not making the sales.

This week I will give you the last three reasons.

5. Lying - Think of a time when you have been lied to. I'm sure you can think of at least one or maybe many instances.

Maybe it was the repair man who said he would be there at a certain time and showed up hours later or the mechanic who found nonexistent problems.

It seems in our society lying is acceptable. Many people even think it's okay to have their kids lye for them when someone is on the phone they don't want to talk and the parent tells the child to tell them they're not home.

I sales lying is not acceptable, especially when you consider people want to buy from people they like and trust. How can a customer trust you when you lie to them?

However, the number of salespeople who lie or intentionally mislead their customers is staggering.

The old cliche', "honesty is the best policy" holds true. Customers would much rather have you tell them the truth than stretch it or out and out lie to them.

It will hurt your credibility and ultimately the amount of sales you make and your repeat and referral business.

6. Failing to understand their needs - This reason is a byproduct of reason number one and two. When a salesperson talks to much and doesn't listen well then they tend to miss getting to the real need the customer has.

Finding and understanding the needs of your customer is an important step in the sales process, however, very few salespeople really probe and ask enough questions to understand their customers needs.

Many salespeople think they know what the customer needs so they skip this step and jump right in to presenting their product or service.

Without a clear understanding of the specific needs of each customer it's difficult to know if your product or service is even the right fit.

When you ask specific questions and get a clear understanding of the customers needs you can better tailor your presentation to show your product or service as the best option to fill their needs.

7. Refusal to take "no" for an answer - Statistics show that most sales are made after 5-7 touches. A touch is a personal visit, a phone contact, email, snail mail or some other form of communication.

As a salesperson it's important to understand this and to be persistent in attempting to make contact with a potential customer or in the follow-up. However, there comes a time when you need to accept the word as the final answer from the customer and move on.

There is a fine line between and objection and a condition and it's up to you as the salesperson to determine that line and to make sure you don't cross it.

It is often better to walk away a little too early than to alienate your self from the customer and kill any chance of possibly doing business with them at a future date.

Over the last two weeks I have given you some valuable information directly from the customers themselves as to why you might be missing out on sales.

Use this information wisely, make some corrections to your current sales process and see if you don't make more sales.

沒有永遠對的價值觀‏

朋友手拿一份報紙，說讓我做一個小小的測驗，我欣然同意了。


問題一：如果你知道有一個女人懷孕了，她已經生了八個小孩，其中有三個耳朵聾、兩個眼睛瞎、一個智能不足，

而這女人自己又有梅毒，請問，你會建議她墮胎嗎？

我剛要回答，朋友制止了我，又問我第二個問題。

問題二：現在要選舉一名領袖，而你這一票很關鍵。

下面是關於這三位候選人的一些事實：

候選人A：
跟一些不誠實的政客有往來，而且會咨詢占星學家。他有婚外情，是一個老煙槍，每天喝8─10杯的馬丁尼。

候選人B：

他過去有兩次被解雇的記錄，睡覺睡到中午才起來，大學時吸過鴉片，而且每天傍晚會喝一夸特的威士忌。

候選人C：
他是一位受勛的戰爭英雄，素食主義者，不抽煙，只偶爾喝一點啤酒。從沒有發生過婚外情。

請問你會在這些候選人中選哪一個？
朋友讓我把答案寫在紙上,然後告訴我說:

候選人A是：富蘭克林•羅斯福，
候選人B是：溫斯頓•邱吉爾，
候選人C是：亞道夫•希特勒。

我聽了答案驚訝地張大了嘴巴。朋友表情凝重地問我：
你是不是為世界人民選擇了希特勒？那你會建議這位婦女墮胎嗎？

我說：這個問題不用考慮，我們受計劃生育優生優育教育多年了，都生那麼多歪瓜劣棗了，就別再添亂了。當然墮胎啊。

朋友說：你殺了貝多芬，她是貝多芬的母親。
我又一次吃驚地張大了嘴巴。
朋友說：嚇一跳吧？本來你認為很好很人道主義的答案，結果卻扼殺了貝多芬、創造了希特勒？

最後朋友總結道：所以不要用既定的價值觀來思考事物。

我抓過朋友手中的報紙，原來真是一個測驗題，題目是《你的決定滅了誰》。
重要的是，不是我們在哪，而是我們要往哪走......
如果你知道往哪走，并且相信自己，世界會為你開出一條路.......