6 Leadership Lessons To Learn By Next Year

Here are 6 leadership lessons we should all learn by the start of 2016. This applies to all sales managers and sales representatives who are using CRM Software for lead management purposes.  The hope is to assist you in building confidence in your skills and make you one of the top sales people in your industry.

1. Make Time For Personal Growth

As a leader, you already know how important of a resource time is. As you work to grow your organization in 2016, you will notice that time will become even more valuable. Free up some time to learn, grow and lean in to what’s important to you, and inevitably, your business as well. As well, challenge yourself to be more open to opinions, ideas and suggestions from others.

2. Avoid Isolation

Effective leaders know that isolating yourself from the rest of your team is like shooting yourself in the foot. Being transparent about your goals, challenges and vision is important to developing a strong team as well as organization.

3. Understand Motivation

Effective leaders are motivated by different things and in different ways. Taking the time to figure out how you can motivate the various personality types in 2016 throughout your organization will make for more productive and satisfied employees.

4. Take Risks

In 2016, don’t be afraid to take risks. According to Seth Godin, if you never take risks, you will never succeed. Effective leaders know how to take calculated risks because they know that it is in the best interest of their organization. No matter what happens, remain confident in your ability to lead and be steadfast in your decision-making skills.

5. Preach Selflessness

Effective leaders will always put others ahead of themselves, take santa claus for example. They believe in working as a team and know that there’s strength in numbers.

6. Lead With The Why

Find the meaning and make connection between the work you do and why it affects a lot of people. Be sure to share  your vision with employees and clients so they can help spread it.

 

What are you doing to improve management and leadership skills? If you feel like you need to work on these two traits, contact Carmel Vision.We have just the right solution for your business needs. It is our belief that change does not always have to necessitate breaking the bank.

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7 Big Communication Errors Leaders Must Avoid

Here are the 7 communication errors that we find leaders in sales are making before they CRM Software implementation. By the time they’ve embraced InfoFlo, they’ve learned how to avoid them.

 

1. Schedule Back-To-Back Meetings

When a leader has no breaks in between meetings, they have little or no time to prepare or follow-up. To prevent this, you should schedule no more than two meetings a day; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Give yourself 1 hour between the time you walk into the office and the time you enter the meeting.

 

2. Failure To Plan Thoroughly

Point number 1 brings us to point #2. Poorly-prepared presentations, reports, emails and meetings frustrate your audience and, over time, damage the reputation you worked so hard to build. This is why it’s important to prepare and plan your communication carefully and thoroughly before being broadcast for the world to see.

 

3. Too Irrelevant

Irrelevant communications have given rise to what email marketing gurus dubs the “deletist consumer.” In 2014, over a third of Canadians were deleting or only reading the title of emails or text messages from companies.

No communication is better than some communication. Messages you sent out often have content that your recipients don’t need – pointless tips, outdated promotions and bulky paragraphs that don’t get to the point. To avoid customers or prospects from disengaging, brands have to ensure they’re sending the latter the right message at the right time and via the right channel.

 

4. Too Selfish

Communication is not about you and what you need. It is about what your customers need and believe in.

Take Steve Jobs, for example, he was not able to convince people to use iTUNES because he felt the product was good for them. People started subscribing to iTUNES because they believed Steve Jobs wanted to make it easy for them to purchase music and synchronize all their data under one umbrella.

It’s therefore not about what you want; it is always about what your customers want. Your objective should always be to improve your customers’ businesses and providing them with what they really need.

 

5. Failure to Deliver Bad News in Person

Written communication channels don’t permit you to soften convoluted messages with nonverbal cues (i.e., body language) and they don’t allow you to deal immediately with the emotions that come after the bad news is shared. If you have to deliver some bad news, do it in person.

 

6. Failure to Try New Things

In a time of need, leaders must adapt and be willing to adapt quickly, to embrace new ways on the fly and to use problem-solving techniques never before thought of. And they must act without show signs of fear.

 

7. Overaggressive Selling

Customers are tired of the conventional, self-focused, product pusher who only cares about getting the deal signed. It is very common today for prospects to become immediately defensive or suspicious of business owners because of the way they have treated them in the past. Overaggressive selling has caused tension and problems with customers and must be replaced with helping the customer do what is best for them and in the time frame the customer wishes to make a decision. Provide useful information not a sales pitch.

 

What are you doing to improve communication? If you feel like you need to work on productivity, contact Carmel Vision.We have just the right solution for your business needs. It is our belief that change does not always have to necessitate breaking the bank.

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8 Tips for Beating Procrastination

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” – Theodore Roosevelt

 

Having  a hard time completing tasks on time due to a lack of motivation? Here are 8 tips for beating the biggest productivity killer – Procrastination.

 

Sign to beat procrastination

 

1. Get Rid of Distractions

How often have you finally gotten to start a difficult project, only to be interrupted the minute you get to it? Turn off your mobile phone, access to social media (unless it is for work, television ad do some work.

 

2. Use Headphones

Cancel out noise and distractions by listening to some music. Very often, I create an extensive play list on YouTube that plays the music non-stop for 2-3 hours. That way I don’t have to touch anything or switch tasks to put on a new song.

 

3. Set a Time Limit

Commit to working for the time you have set. You will also know when it’s time to take a break. I encourage you to take on the Pomodoro Technique, which has you work in four 25-30 minute intervals and take 3-5 minute breaks in between the intervals. After 2 hours have past the technique encourages its adherents to take a 15-30 minute break.

 

4. Know Your Energy Cycle

Work only when you feel peppy and awake, not when you’re exhausted. That regularly means not starting a new task 30 minutes before home time. It may be wise to start the task the next morning on a clear mind.

 

5. Be Accountable

Ask a family member, friend or co-worker to remind you of your task if you get distracted or off task. Have them keep you in check and don’t forget to return the favour if they ask you.

 

6. Reward Yourself

Take yourself out for lunch or coffee break when you’re done the hard task to reward yourself for staying on task. Feel good about your accomplishment and feel the large strain off your back.

 

7. Ask For Help

This is one of my most useful secrets to productivity. Why is this so hard? I could never understand. But whenever I have trouble getting started because I don’t know exactly what to do, and I ask for help, I’m amazed at how much it benefits me and my team.

 

8. Set Macro Goals & Micro Quotas

President Eisenhower once said “plans are worthless, but planning is everything”. Motivation for doing things is inter-woven with what goals you make as well as the plans you build to achieve them. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that abstract thinking about goals can go a long way to help with disciplining yourself. Your goals should be the large scale things that you hope to accomplish, but your quotas are what you must get done everyday to make it happen.

 

What are you doing to stop procrastination? If you feel like you need to work on productivity, contact Carmel Vision.We have just the right solution for your business needs. It is our belief that change does not always have to necessitate breaking the bank.

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8 Smart Time Management Tips For Managers

What makes a productive manager successful at Time Management? I went ahead and asked 300 managers in the Information Technology, Marketing, Pharmaceutical, Education and Property Management sectors and here are 8 common time management traits (or tips) that they shared with me. I now proudly share them with my readers here at Carmel Vision, the leading provider of affordable CRM Software Solutions.

Before you scroll down and browse through the tips, I encourage you to closely examine the image below and see how you fit in the picture. Once done, continue reading!

 

Time Management

 

1. They Listen

Failure to listen to others’ opinions, new ideas or sound advice benefits no one. Not only does it slow down your learning, but it allows others to ignore you and leave you in the dust.

 

2. They Finish On Time

The best way to measure how successful a person is with their time is to measure the percentage of the work they get done. Successful and productive people are always great finishers, on time too. They seldom forget their responsibilities and almost always make sure they meet their deadlines.

 

3. They Plan Ahead

Few things negatively affect productivity like lack of planning. Taking the time to plan and organize your day in advance negates the need to waste time and make adjustments on the whim.

 

4. They Do Not Let Technology Dictate Them

People who allow technology to control them as opposed to them controlling the technology are addicts. Technology should be an asset, not a distraction. If you know the telephone is a distraction, put it on silent and place it in the drawer. Suggestion: Customize your incoming calls so that only second time callers will go through; the rest will go to voice mail.

 

5. They Take Initiative

Biting off more than you can chew is one of the leading ways to over-complicate things in the most unproductive ways. Know your limit and play within it.

 

6. They Delegate Well

Leaders see delegation as proper alignment of resources such that the best talent is matched with the greatest opportunities or the biggest challenges.

 

7. They End Work At A Fixed Time

Successful people end their working day at a fixed time. Don’t let work fill up your entire evening and break other arrangements. You can also have two finishing times: one for an ideal day and another for the latest time that you won’t work past.

 

8. They Are Organized

Being organized helps you to be on top of everything both at home and at work. It’s your central tool to organize information, to-do lists, projects, and other miscellaneous items. 2 in 3 productive sales managers use a CRM Software tool to help them stay organized and on top.

 

What are your goals as manager of your department or business? If you feel like you need to work on some of the above-described traits, contact Carmel Vision. We have just the right solution for your business needs. It is our belief that change does not always have to necessitate breaking the bank.

Download free trial of our Customer Relationship Management tool here.

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5 Killer Tips To Achieve Your Goals Faster

Do you want to be successful? Of course, that’s a silly question to ask. Everyone does, but it takes a special someone to commit to it 100%. Here are 5 tips for helping you achieve your goals faster and become successful at what you do.

 

1. Share Them

One reason why many goals never get off the ground is because the person making them never shares them with others. It is a quiet goal that only lives inside of their minds. The one who wants to achieve their dream must tell that dream to many people. One reason: As we continually say it, we begin to believe it more and more. If we are talking about it then it could happen. Another reason: It holds us accountable. When we have shared it with others, it spurs us on to actually doing it so we don’t look foolish.

 

2. Commit To Them

Commit to accomplishing your goals you set out to complete. Make an inward commitment to yourself that this is what you want to do. This takes tons of courage, but it’s still only a decision. If you have to, write it down, tell someone, or make a promise to yourself. Whatever you have to do, decide to go into it 100%.

 

3. Do something every day

Momentum is key when it comes to achieving your dreams. Once you get started, you need to keep the ball rolling; the more things happen, the closer you will get to realizing your dream. If you just do things every so often, it’s going to take so much longer for you to get there and you’re more likely to give up. Do something every day, even if it’s something small. Doing something daily keeps your dream in your mind and it reminds you of what you’re aiming for. It’s easy to get lost in the routine of everyday life and not to make any time for realizing your dream.

 

4. Be prepared for all eventualities

Goals are not easy to achieve. By their very nature, they are things that need a lot of time and work invested in them for them to be realized. Roads are never paved gold: there is always going to be some setbacks on the way that you have to prepare yourself for. You always have to be prepared for every eventuality, even ones you would prefer not to happen, and you have to remember not to let these sway you on the wrong track. If you’re prepared for the worst, you can deal with more effectively, move on and put it behind you.

 

5. Be optimistic

Having a negative outlook is the main thing that can put you off realizing your dream. If you think you cannt do it, you won’t achieve it. If you think you can do it, you’ll have a much better chance of success. Get rid of any negative thoughts you might have and replace them with positive ones. Build yourself up with positive thoughts to motivate yourself. Keep telling yourself you can and will get there, rather than telling yourself you can’t and won’t ever get there.

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