Secret of Your Success in 2014

Your Dream! Your Goal! Your Journey!

Remember the secret of your success is simply you. Have an abundant 2014.

Thank you for all your support and welcome to 2014.

Kind Regards
Rohit Bassi

Your Work: Are you thriving? Just surviving? Giving it your all? Or on cruise control?

Like me, you have been in a workforce of some description for some years or maybe you are a relative new comer to the world of work. A modern factory, a modern office environment or a shambles of a building or office that you diligently attend every day.

From an early age, I have had a fascination about human behavior and how it all works and why we do what we do and behave the way we behave. And today , my role is meeting with senior people in all sorts of businesses big and small and I am rather dismayed at what is published in terms of how we generally treat people in workplaces and what the workforce is saying about how they feel in their workplaces.

On one hand I want to believe that senior people and actual business owners would surely want their workforce  to thrive . Would want their people to be physically well, to be forthcoming with their creativity, with their energy  and ideas. I desparately want to believe that the vast vast numbers of senior people would want all of this and more for their people.

On the other hand, I cannot but despair at what the research and statistics actually report.

When you look at the extraordinary research carried out by firms  like the Gallup Corporation – who have been painstakingly measuring what is actually going on within workforces for decades – you cannot but wonder what a sorry state of affairs we have.

Only today I was reading another lot of evidence that points us toward a sorry state of affairs.

Ok, there were only 1,000  US workers  polled  but still it revealed that :-

• Employee's Feel Discouraged: More than half (54%) of employees have felt frustrated about work.
• Manager/Employee Relationships Need Improvement: Only 38% strongly agree that their manager has established an effective working relationship with them.
• People Don't Understand Strategic Direction: 40% say they don't get the company's vision or have never seen it.
• Innovation Is Being Stymied: Nearly 67% of American workers can name at least one thing that would prevent them from taking any kind of risk at work.
• Big Picture Contributions Missing: Only 43% of workers say they feel accountable for the company's revenue, profit, or growth.
• Not Leading by Example: Just 26% of workers strongly agree that managers embody the values they expect from their employees, only 39% say their manager understands his/her role at the company, and 40% strongly feel their managers understand their company's strategy or goals.
• Collaboration Across Teams Is Tough: Just 27% strongly feel they can depend on outsiders to fulfill their duties when working with other groups.
• Training Isn't Relevant: 26% report they don't have any training available to them right now, and the 62% that do have training available believe it is either somewhat or not at all applicable to their jobs.

How do these findings impact on you ?

For me ?  I need to do something about it.

Thank you Ray Jacobs for submitting this article. To get in touch with Ray please contact him through the following mediums:

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• ray@rayjacobstraining.com
• Phone: +971-(0)55 460 0708

It Is About Serving You

My aim is to provide Soul Based Service Excellence to you. For a long time I have been wondering what can I do that will allow your life (in terms of your learning and development) to have greater flexibility, more accessibility and especially be valuable. 

So, I had the idea to introduce online learning for you. I am a great believer in technology. It is due to technology I landed with my first professional job. My earlier life was all about being technical. Then it dawned on me being technical was not enough. In fact, it was all about people and how technology could be used to serve them better.

Obviously, nothing beats the human interaction and the purpose of technology is to empower the individual and organisations to excel in whatever their goals are. So, finally I have taken the leap and am launching an online learning (e-learning) platform.

"Constant Learning Anywhere, Anytime” to launch 2014 by In Learning. It is simply all about you.There are over 400 courses available online, these being both for IT and Soft Skills. So, for you its about:

• Flexibility – you decide when and where you learn, manage your time as you want
• Accessibility – you select what device (PC, MAC, Tablet or Mobile) to learn on 
• Valuable – you work with investments that are within easy reach

The purpose of this easy to use online learning (e-learning) solution is:

• Blending learning for self development
• Engage with courses at your leisure
• Avoid unnecessary commuting to training venues
• Cost effective for individuals and organisations
• Eliminate expense such as travel and hotel stay
• Expand learning options 

Some of the common features for all the courses available online are as follows:

• Mobile Friendly
• Mac & PC Compatible
• Inline Quizzes
• Progress status
• Global access
• Easy to use
• Valid for 12 months

Go ahead, develop yourself anywhere and anytime.

Want to be simply awesome at customer service? Click here to see In Learning offers trainings in customer service.

Create Value to Sell More

When you create value it means you are increasing the the worth of a service/product or business. In our day to day life we see these examples all around us.

There are a number of ways you can create value. The three mains ways being:

1. Up-Selling - Selling more services/products than originally requested by the customer. A classic example is the selling to the fast-food customer. The customer orders a hamburger, and the server asks the “Would you like fries with that?”. There is an increase in the price of the purchase but the customer sees the value because if he bought the items separately it would have been much more expensive.
2. Cross-Selling - Selling additional product/service to the customer that complement the original requirement of the customer. For example, usually when you buy an item of electronics the server offers a service plan with it. The cost of the purchase has now gone up but there's  value created for the the customer of "peace of mind".
3. Value-Added - The value-added philosophy is clear in saying two things. The first one being the focus on the customer problem/requirement that needs to be solved. The second the customer is fully aware the seller is selling the service/product for a profit. In a value-added environment, both parties achieve their goals. A good example of this is when an IT firm sells services/products to a customer to resolve certain challenges they may be facing that can only be overcome by the use of the right technology.

In all three value creation cases you need to remember you should be ready to explain to the customer how the service/product will benefit the customer.

Want to excel in sales? Click here to see In Learning offers trainings in powerful selling skills. 

Before You Serve Your Customers

Almost every customer thinks and strongly believes he/she is the most important customer to your business. 

All that means is that a customer wants full attention from you when he/she is interacting with you. In simple terms the I-AM Service Excellence Model says that you are there for your customer.

Customers today are much more demanding than they were 10 years ago.  Your customer’s expectations are far higher than ever, they know more about your products/services. More importantly they also know what your competitors provide.

Before looking at what the customers want you need to be aware of three things:

• Your role and responsibilities
• Your products/ services
• Your organisation's vision, mission and values 

Once your awareness is set about the above then it is easier to deliver the needs and wants of your customers. You will be more aware of  “WICA” - Four Basic Customers Needs & Wants, 

Influences in making buying decision

A buyer approach in making a decision is affected by four main influences, these being:

1. Transactional Process Buyer - considered as a short-term sale. Buyer already knows what he/she needs. From a seller perspective little or no product knowledge is required.
2. Consultative Process Buyer – considered as a long-term sale. Both the buyer and the seller collaborate where the seller has to develop a relationship (in terms of needs and wants) with the buyer. In this manner crafting a solution for the buyer to achieve the buyer’s objectives
3. Strategic Alliance Buyer - An arrangement between the buyer and the seller that have decided to share resources to undertake a specific, mutually beneficial project. This is usually happens between companies. 
4. Consumer Routine, Limited or Extended Problem Solving – Buyers will not always engage in the five-stage buying decision-making process. The amount of effort exerted in information gathering and problem solving may vary. In reality, they may skip or minimise one or more stages depending on the level of involvement.

In all of this remember to review the buyer's "understanding", "black box" and "perception".

Your Buyers Perception

For your business to gain success comes from understanding your buyer.

To do this you have to comprehend the perceptions of your buyer. Their perception impacts and influences their buying decisions and behaviour. A classic error that a business gets into is a price war with other similar businesses. But this leads to sabotaging your profit margins.

Instead understand your customers' perceptions and only then your bottom-line will show the results.

To realise the buyers’ perception you need to enter the “BLACK BOX” of a buyer.  This permits to see to see the world form the buyers’ perspective. 

A buyer’s perception can simply be explained as follows (thank you NLP):

It is vital to understand the perception of the buyer in three ways:

1. Knowing Your Buyer Perceptions – in terms of what how they perceive the world around them
2. Comparisons To Competitors – in terms of how they compare you to your competitors
3. Understand Brand Perceptions – in terms of how the view your actual brand itself

According, to http://smartmoneysuccess.com there are nine key dimensions to buyers perception these being:

Primary  Dimension	1.     Perceived Risk 2.     Relative Advantage
Secondary Dimension	3.     Observability 4.     Immediacy 5.     Complexity 6.     Compatibility 7.     Trialability 8.     Divisibility 9.     Availability

Furthermore, it is important to be aware of the buyer types as this allows see what is happening in their “black box” thus adapt your style during the sales process.  

According to Merrill and Reid there are four personality types or social styles thus in simple terms there are four types of buyer (image from http://m-d-s.com/blog/):

In other words perception will allow you understand the process by which your buyer identifies, organises, and interprets information to create meaning of your product/service.