HARDISON’S TIPS – SEPTEMBER 2, 2021 – Why Customers Don’t Return Your Sales Calls Potential customers don’t care about your product or service.  That’s right, they couldn’t care less! As a business owner or salesperson, you obviously care deeply about the product or service you sell.  In fact, you’re probably in love with your product, as you should be.  After all, your product is amazing, and your service is superior.  How can you not love it?  How can everyone not love it?  But your customer doesn’t care. Your customer has far more important things on their mind!  Like what you ask?  They’re consumed with themselves, as we all are.  They’re focused on their own unique problems, goals, and aspirations.  That’s what they care about.  In…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – SEPTEMBER 2, 2021 Make Small Talk in Business Settings, Using the “Respond and Return” Technique You’ll do more business, and better business, if you make small talk and connect with your clients, colleagues, higher-ups, and prospects — and it’s easy if you embrace a technique that I call respond and return.  Before we look at how, though, let’s clear up a matter of protocol: How Do You Know Whether or Not to Make Small Talk? In business situations, the higher-status person — in other words, the person with the most power — decides whether or not to make small talk in any given situation. Who is this person? Within your company, firm, or organization, anyone whose title outranks yours is higher status. If your organization is flat (not much hierarchy),…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – SEPTEMBER 1, 2021 – How to Boost Sales Looking Forward A popular proverb says, “Vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a nightmare.” When it comes to sales, both vision and action are essential to sustainable, dynamic success. But how does a sales manager or sales executive put the right vision and the right actions in place to succeed? It starts with the sales vision statement. Let’s start with the definition: Your sales vision statement should be a clear, concise and future-focused declaration of where you want your sales efforts to lead and the path you’ll take to get there. How To Craft An Effective Sales Vision Statement Now let’s address what is needed to build a sales…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – SEPTEMBER 1, 2021 Put Down that Editing Pen! One of the classic public speaking dilemmas is how to balance the time you spend preparing a presentation (i.e., planning, writing, and editing it) versus the time you spend practicing it. This is a tough choice, because you almost never have enough time to devote to either of these activities, let alone both of them. So if there isn’t time to edit your speech to “perfection” and there isn’t time to practice ’till you’ve thoroughly “internalized” it (made it your own), what should you do?  Short-change one activity?  Split the difference?  Just get onstage and wing it? Good Old Avoidance Most people solve this conflict the good old-fashioned way:  By avoiding the choice they dislike the most. And…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – AUGUST 31, 2021 – The New Business As Usual Model It’s been a challenging time we’ve all lived through — adapting, surviving and, in some cases, thriving during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now what? Do we simply pick up where we left off, returning to our business-as-usual comfort zones? Or did the global economic, social and health crisis change everything, creating a “new normal” with new rules for sales performance and success? The still-unfolding truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but the pandemic has certainly forced us to redefine success and evaluate strategies as we’ve learned new ways to operate. Here are some of the emerging norms that will likely shape the post-Covid-19 sales landscape: Personal Connections As the pandemic unfolded and…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – AUGUST 31, 2021 ACE A JOB INTERVIEW Want to establish solid trust and rapport during a job interview. Prospective employers will first weed through a lot of resumes. Then comes the hard part. Because next, they want to see if the candidate is a good fit within their team. The job interview is the main way they determine this. In this session, I’m going to show you ways to relax and take charge of the interview. In fact, I’ll also show you how to take the pressure off of the interviewer. When you make the interviewer’s job easier, you build even more trust and rapport. We are going to tackle this subject in three parts. How to Reduce…

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HARDISON’S TIPS – AUGUST 30, 2021 – Tips for Succeeding as a New Sales Manager What do skilled sales professionals and effective managers have in common? Frankly, not much. And when someone leverages sales skills to gain success in a management role, it’s not just a new job title — it’s a whole new world. I learned this lesson when I was promoted to sales manager. I’d been an integral part of the sales team, but once I became responsible for managing the team, instead of executing the strategy, my relationship with my colleagues transformed. Suddenly, I had to hire the right people, fire the weak links, and dole out discipline — all things I had no experience doing. My management mistakes were hardly unique. Many…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – AUGUST 30, 2021 How Much Is Too Much Information for Your Listener? Imagine that you’re carefully explaining something — to your boss, or a client, or a colleague, or someone who reports to you — and their eyes start to glaze over. This can be a sign that they’re getting too much information. None of us wants to bore our listeners, so here’s how to avoid over-explaining. Use the Instant Speech Format to Organize Your Information An Instant Speech is short, sweet, and elegant: You start with a high-level overview statement (your “key message”) that identifies the topic and gives your opinion about it. For example, This project is going well, but we need more time to finish it. Notice that, even…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – AUGUST 29, 2021 A Few Public Speaking Tips to Add Showmanship Use Posters Instead of Pictures Adding a picture, or multiple pictures, to a PowerPoint slide can be effective in a pinch. However, you can go to printing stores and get a picture blown up into a poster that you can set on a tripod, and the poster will be much more memorable. Think of a trade show. The exhibits that have big posters are more eye-catching and attention-getting. Add Some Magic Quick and easy magic tricks can add some fun and energy to a presentation if it is appropriate. Since our instructors teach seminars and training classes, a quick magic trick used as an analogy to something…

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CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – AUGUST 28, 2021 Add Audience Participation Audience participation is a fantastic way to break up the presentation and add energy and attentiveness to a presentation. The adage is that “People will support a world that they help create.” When your audience helps deliver your presentation, they will enjoy the presentation more and retain the information longer. Avoid Rhetorical Questions Never ask the audience a question that you don’t expect them to answer. Rhetorical questions aren’t interactive and have the potential to be annoying or even manipulative, so really avoid these types of questions. Be Careful with Yes/No Questions Questions where some people will answer “Yes” and some will answer “No” will divide the audience, so only use them…

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