Posts Tagged ‘People Skills’
Is AI Harming Your Sales Efforts?
“Have your robot call my robot.” (said no one ever). As business owners, it’s tempting to leverage technology to automate processes and replace people to make things move faster and easier while reducing impact on our bottom line. All things that are good for the business. But is technology like AI harming sales? Are automated processes…
Read MoreNarcissists in the Workplace: The Good, The Bad, and Best Way to Deal With Them
Narcissism has a long-standing love-and-hate relationship with work. On the one hand, narcissistic behaviors can drive people to pursue their ambition to actualize an innovative product—think of Steve Jobs of Apple. On the other hand, you will be dealing with a demanding boss, a competitive coworker, or an unrelenting business partner who steals your ideas.…
Read More8 Personal Strategies For Winning With Relationships
Based on my years of experience in both startups and large companies, trusted relationships are more the key to success than a great business model, how smart you are, or how much money you have. Aspiring entrepreneurs who struggle in a corporate environment often can’t wait to start their own company, only to find that…
Read More5 Leadership Secrets for Diffusing Tension and Managing Conflict
As a startup founder or employee, how do you mitigate tension and manage conflict when it arises? Conflict will certainly arise. The difficult person in your group can spark a roaring fight among the group members. The matrix structure or the culture of your organization may not be in line with your interests and values.…
Read MoreHow to Harness the Simple—and Free—Secret to Increased Productivity: Gratitude
Could your business benefit from: Increased loyalty? Higher productivity? Fewer sick days? A positive attitude? An important key to gaining these advantages is simple…and in many ways free: Gratitude. A Harvard Mental Health Letter summarizes the findings of several academic studies on the impact of gratitude in our personal lives and in the workplace, and overall, the…
Read MoreShow a Little Gratitude
I believe that gratitude is a brilliant marketing strategy. I’m astonished at how many businesses give their customers the distinct impression that they’re a little put out by having to sell them something. You’ve felt it – the grocery clerk who is too busy chatting to actually make eye contact. The phone rep that can’t…
Read MoreImprove Your EQ to Improve Your Business
“The customer is always right” doesn’t seem to apply to many situations anymore. It’s an artifact of a bygone era when daily life was slower and maintaining relationships with your regular customers at all costs was the most important part of your job. It’s still important to maintain relationships with your customers these days, but…
Read MoreGet the Most from People: Don’t Make Them Major in the Minors
“I like to bang my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop!” A friend’s mom used to say that (along with a lot of other colorful adages) and I used to think that it was just a warning against doing things that frustrate you, but now I think the way…
Read MoreBusiness-Focused, People-Centric
Often in understanding business leadership, people tend to focus on two extreme models of leaders. The first is the “It’s all about the numbers” leader. Typically, these are portrayed as hard charging, data driven, task and goal focused, and sometimes ruthless executives. The other model is the human/people focused leaders. These are portrayed as caring…
Read MoreTreat Your Customers with Respect
“Customers may forget what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” ~Unknown So many businesses just do not seem to respect their customers. Some of the common issues I see that tell me this are when businesses leave an open sign in the window when they are closed and do not…
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