1. Immediate Relatives and Friends – A young sales person will usually get the immediate family members to be his first customer.  This will follow by his relatives then friends, and then uh-oh… he is out of networks… Personally, I wouldn’t recommend selling to your relatives unless it is a really fantastic product that really benefits your relatives.  Picture this; if the product (1) wasn’t what your relative wanted in the first place or (2) does not prove it is beneficial or worth to your relative, you will be labelled for life for selling crappy products to them.  That will leave you with two choice, either stand up to the possible mockery in future or be absent from family gatherings.  But of course, not all failure stories end up that way.  However, if what you sold was genuinely good for them, then that is a plus point and they will propagate the benefits to their friends becoming your strong first line network!
2. Reconnect with long lost friends – Take time to look through the list of old friends.  Those during your college days, your previous company or friends from the old neighbourhood.  Browse through social network sites that you have accounts in and see if your friends are there.  You will be surprise at how your friends have grown and changed over time.  That point aside, do some catching up through online chats or an email.  Be genuinely interested in the events of life that they have gone through and not blast your latest offers immediately.  It is easier to link up with old friends as there are common topics to talk about.  This reconnection can reveal a network of different expertise or help that you need (but do not know where to find).
3. Get to know more friends at work – Have conversation with colleagues of a different team.  Arrange lunches with colleagues from those teams.  Not only you break the boring routine of having lunch with the same group of colleagues, you get to know what you do not (or may not know) that is happening (rumours) in the company, open new problem solving ideas and build links (and trust) to with another department!  Birds of the same feather fly in a flock.  It holds certain truth in this phrase.  You will have the same mentality (group culture) if you persist to stick with the same group of friends.  By interacting more with peers of different teams, you build a supportive network and trust and will be useful when an inter-team effort is required!
4. Build relationship by extending your current ones – Lastly, from your existing relatives, friends and colleagues, always take the opportunity to find out more about friends of friends, friends of relatives, friends of colleagues, etc… you know what I mean.  Get to know your friends and his friends.  Take the opportunity to build a relationship with this possible new friend.  Ask to be included in their next friends meet up sessions or even propose to link up with this new friend yourself!  This will help you expand your existing network to a bigger one!

These are just ways to build a strong network to support your goals.  Remember, network is your net worth!  So how do you build your strong network?

1. Build up your list of words for conversation. They can be through reading, listening or writing.  Pay attention to new and existing words used in different ways, and learn to use them correctly.  This is done every now and then in your everyday life, before actual conversation.  More often than not, people are lost with the right words then the thoughts.  They lack the ability to express their words in a more vivid manner.  They lack the ability to join, break, make similarities or differences, or interlink their sentences (thoughts) together.  And this can be a problem when you want to express or influence your partner in continuing the conversation.
2. Start with common topics such as the weather, family, job, company, neighbourhood that he is living in, financial market, children, education, hobbies, interests and the recently released movie.  You see, it can be anything!  You may find that these topics are boring! However, not only these topics allow you to understand your partner better, it can also spawn off many more topics for your conversation than you have thought off initially!  Talking about personal stuff can also build trust and open up your partner.  In the event that you run out of topic in a conversation, look back on the list here!  We are sure that you still can continue with the conversation with these everyday topics. J
3. Watch out for break points in the conversation or sentences. Use these break points as junctions for you to inject your sentences or express your thoughts.  Not only can you reciprocate with your partner, by agreeing or disagreeing with a simple nod, you get a chance of swaying the direction of the conversation.  How?  These break points are good for you to switch topic smartly and graciously.  You can use, “By the way, I recently…”, “Anyway, have you watch…” which are some examples to sway the conversation to another direction.  However, do find the correct break points.  By injecting at the wrong time, or commonly known as interrupting, it illustrates your impatience, insensitiveness, lack of interest and courtesy.
4. Finally, watch out for keywords that your partner is using.  These keywords are used by your partner for a certain reason.  Keywords can also be used for you to find avenues to spawn another topic or question.  Two things you should do on keywords: (1) acknowledge it and (2) keep track of it.  By acknowledging, you affirm your understanding of your partners concerns.  This is important as humans “want to be heard”.  By keeping tracking of the keyword, you have a new avenue to spawn a new topic to continue with the conversation.  Example of acknowledgment: “I’m reluctant…” can be responded with “I see that you may not be comfortable with…, however, would it be possible to tell me more about your actual concern?  I like to address it with my capabilities…” Example of tracking keywords: “I love watching TV series” may open a possibility of a topic on movies (through swaying) where you can respond in “What about movies? Do you watch movies too?”

These are just some tricks that can be used for you to keep the conversation going and avoid being in the moment of silence leaving everyone feeling a little uneasy. Share with us if you have other tricks too! J

1. Be open about yourself – The first thing that you should ever do when you want people to talk is to be open about yourself.  Being open about yourself allows people to be comfortable with you.  How?  You give them trust by sharing information about yourself first.  In this way, people respond with theirs.  If you do not start somewhere, then it will be difficult to maintain the conversation for long.
2. Avoid talking too much of yourself – Being open is the first step that you should take too build trust in a conversation.  However, avoid the loophole of talking too much of yourself.  This becomes self-centeredness and attempting to put the focal point of discussion around you.  A right touch (amount) of self information that portrait openness is good.  Too much of it will irritate and bored your partner.  They will only view you as being self-indulging and living in your own world.
3. Be genuine curious and interested about your other partner but – Be genuine interested in finding out more about your partner.  By being curious about your partner, you tend to come out with questions that can relate to your partner.  When your partner finds that you are really interested in them (and after building trust between you and him), he will more likely share more information with you.
4. Give the right balance amount of attention to everyone in a conversation –In a group conversation, usually, there will be one or two “alphas” that lead the conversation.  And usually you are one of them as you are taking the lead to get people talking.  Be it any conversation; give rights to everybody for them to voice their opinion.  If they lack the initiative to speak, ask for their opinion or consensus instead.  Example, “Mary, do you agree with the Joe’s comment about banker’s salary?”  In this way, the introvert Mary will not feel left out in the conversation and you assisted to be brought into the conversation.
5. Bring similarities of topic in a conversation – Another tip in group conversation where there are individuals that lack initiative in voicing their opinion; Assist to bridge similar experiences of different individuals together.  Example, “Joe loves rock climbing.  He does that every weekend!  Hey, Mary, you are a rock climber too right?”  In this way, you bring two experiences (topic) together and a common topic both Joe and Mary can follow through.

Use these conversational tips to get people talking!  Are there other tips that you used to get people talking in a conversation or to break the silence?

1. Capitalize your strengths! – By delegating your tasks out.  Those mandate, boring and those that you feel unhappy about, you get to focus on those tasks that are strategic, exciting and you feel a sense of achievement doing it.  Why?  You are actually working on things that capitalize on your strengths!  When you are capitalizing on your strength, you feel good as you learn faster and complete work faster.  This creates a “always winning” feeling!  The more you win, the more you likely to be productive doing it!
2. You feel great! – Let’s be honest with each other, nobody will be happy working on something that they dislike.  When something that you dislike is being delegated out (especially those that can dragged for days), you would not feel bore down thinking that a pending (boring) task is your to-do list.  However, given that you had delegated out the boring tasks (those that you feel boring working at), now you are left with tasks that you like to do, and you will feel great with these tasks!
3. Boosts team communication! – This is the time to communicate with your colleagues.  Find out what they are doing AND what they are doing best. Find out if they like to work on something else or alternative work options instead of what they are currently too.  You be surprised!  They may be your answer to your problems.  Why?  They may want to take on those tasks that you are not keen working on but they are unsure how to approach you.  They may want to have a share of your work to boost their career profile!  Furthermore, through this communication, you get to know your colleagues and they get to know you better too!
4. You are not the right person to do it – Sometimes, you may not be the right authority to perform the assigned task.  You may not be in the right department to handle the task too.  The problem here is you do not know how to say “no” and pass on to someone else.  You blindly accept the task and handle it alone.  That is not the correct way to approach the task.  Find out if you should be doing it in the first place.  Hand it to someone that has the capability to handle it or the right position to handle it.

With all these reasons (and those mentioned in Achieve Personal Productivity Through Delegation!), it is really beneficial to start delegating tasks to your colleagues.  It will be unwise to put a boundary on delegation.  You never know how much benefit you can reap off through delegation. Keep options opened if tasks are assigned to you.  You will be surprise that your colleagues may want to have a share of your work to help them boost their career profile.  You never know too! J

1. You get work done faster than what yourself can – The first benefit of delegation, is things will move faster than you would when you do it alone.  Things will be completed faster as you distribute tasks and allow them to run concurrent to what you are doing.
2. You need not work on task that you find boring or unhappy handling it – The second benefit of delegation!  The boring mandate tasks are assigned to someone to do it.  You may not like the tasks assigned to you but somebody may like it.  You will be surprised that your colleague actually loves the printing of the sales documents or preparing the travel documents for you.  It is strange but it is true.  With something that is boring to you (where you will be unproductive doing something you do not like) being delegated out, now, you can focus on things that can keep you happy thus bringing up your morale and productivity.
3. You can focus on things that are strategic – When the boring and mandate tasks (in your perspective) are assigned to colleagues who love doing it, you are not free to focus on the things that are important to you.  Now, you have more time to meet strategic clients, business development, build relationship or attend to your customer’s needs!
4. You may uncover things that you may have missed out if you were to perform the task alone – Through delegation, with someone who is passionate about the delegated task, he may be able to uncover loop holes to the task and may manage the task better than you if you were to be doing it alone.

A word of caution, delegation may seem to be the choice for personal productivity.  It works really well when the task delegated fits directly with the prospective colleague.  However, most of the time, it is not the case.  Chances are likely that you will face resistance from the colleague as he will be taking on more responsibilities.

Another point that you should be careful is the abuse of delegation.  Delegation is not about shifting responsibilities.  It is to allow you to be free of work that is counter-productive to your overall productivity.  You will still need to hold responsibility of the output delivered from the delegate colleague.  If you have the mentality that delegation is shifting responsibilities (and put blame on others when they cannot deliver), unfortunately, this is the incorrect way to view delegation.

We hope you can see the benefits of delegation in relation with personal productivity.  A good fit in the delegated task is the key component to delegation.  With much boring, unhappy, mandate, etc type of tasks been freed up, now you can work on more meaningful and important tasks that will greatly enhance your personal productivity!

Again, they may not absorb information fully for various reasons such as the unclear presentation objectives and poor speech that may result in less attention span on what you are saying.  Their mind is floating somewhere else.  They do not find the topic interesting.  How do we get them paying attention to us and absorb the relevant information?

1. Present in diagrams and illustrations – Refrain from being wordy in your presentation slides and speech.  It takes more effort to pay attention through the ears then the eyes.  Seldom have we seen people with their eyes shut and putting full attention through the ears.  Studies have also shown that most people absorb information visually instead of the other senses (hear and touch).  With all these reasons, there is no doubt that it will be more effective for your presentation to be in diagrams and illustrations to allow better absorbing of information.
2. Repeat – By repeating the information that you are delivering, you are emphasizing the importance of the information.  Repeating also allow attendees that have missed your initial information delivered to be absorbed again.  They may not have understood it initially too and repeating the information allows them to re-think, and re-focus the information you are saying.  However, do not abuse repeat methods that may end up counter-productive.  It will in fact becoming a form of nagging than repetition of information.
3. Get people to think – A one-way communication from the presenter does not guarantee that your attendees are listening to what you are saying.  That means, that isn’t any guarantee if they absorb and understand the information fully as well.  Design presentations that get people to think.  Spur their thoughts in the presentation.  This is done through relating their life experiences.  The pain they are experiencing.  The benefits that they can reap by doing what you are saying.  When the attendees are engage with information that is in their context, they will be generally more attentive to what you say and absorb information in the presentation.
4. Get people to take action based on the information they had absorbed – To complete the entire presentation and get people to absorb information, you will need them to take action based on the information they had absorbed.  Not only it gets them to think on the absorbed information, they become experience by putting what they have learnt into use.

These are some methods you can use to get people absorb the information you intended them to receive.  There are also other methods available too.  What works for you may not be for somebody else.  What are your techniques in getting people to absorb information?

It is no surprise that you experience such things.  In fact, most of us actually have this problem of bringing past information back for use. Our brains are excellent in filtering incoming information, retain those required ones and understand in our own world the relevant ones that are most appealing to us.   If our brain does not do all these filtering, we will be overwhelmed with the massive amount of information flooding into us.  Ironically, the main problem that disallowed us to be effective in absorbing information is the filtering mechanism in our head.  Our brain filter worked in a way not really intended by us.  We do not choose to retain the information we absorb.  It is sub-conscious.  Our brain chooses to retain “right” information that sometimes isn’t useful to us.

It may be difficult to really understand how our brain works.  They are built on our life experiences and our map of the world (NLP concept).  To really understand how our brain works, we need to be fully aware of what we are doing, hearing, seeing and thinking from our past till current date.  That is a topic by itself.  Ok!  Let’s leave the understanding of our brain aside for now and focus on making your brain effective in absorbing information.  Now, experience is the key word here!

We need to get our brains experienced with the things that we are doing, seeing, hearing and thinking now!  Experience is based on engaging certain similar things or events for a period of time, which means you, need to be familiar with the things you are engaging with.  Having experiences of the events, you will be able to understand things better.

For example, when you are reading a document, it may take ages for you to complete it if it is like hundreds of pages long.  If you are not familiar with the document, you definitely take a longer time to complete reading it.  Even so, you may not understand what you had read fully and have to restart the process again.  This is counter-productive and waste lots of time re-reading it.  How do you improve the effectiveness in absorbing information then?  To get you understanding the document faster, instead of reading the document line by line, drilling to every single detail, try this.  Make a quick glance of the entire document.  Get an overview of the document and its flow.  Do this a few times if you do not get the big picture initially.  Once you get the bigger picture, you know what to expect from the document and you absorb information faster as you know what is important in the document and what is not.  This top-down approach allows you to pin-point to specified areas that you require information.

There are many ways to improve efficiency in absorbing information.  This is just one of them, which is to improve familiarity and experience of the information to further improve the efficiency in information absorption.  Note, this works for many people but not everyone.  Everyone absorb information differently.  You may have your own method that works well for you too! J

Unhappy customers are trouble for any company. It only takes one of them to spoil the entire mood and momentum for everyone. What is worst, is having one that spread negative information and present negative images to prospective customers of the company. They have reasons to be unhappy. Some don’t feel well that day. Some may have unrealistic expectations while others are just bad character.

The customers may not be always right but even so, we should keep our cool and appease them in every way. Remember they are our profit $$$! They are our future businesses too! Thus we want them to be happy again! We need to take control of customer complaints and turn them to our advantage. Here we present steps to resolve their complaints which have proven over the years to work well. Do not allow time to lapse and make things worse by avoiding the. Be fast and responsive to their unhappiness is the key success in resolving their complaints!

1. Listen with your heart – Pay attention to your customer. Do not attempt to interrupt them. Let the finish what they want to say. They feel there is a need for their story to be said out and want it been heard!

2. Thank Them — Thank the customer for bring up the problem to your attention (even though deep in your heart you really not want to hear about it). If you don’t feel this way, make yourself feel that you are aware of a new problem

3. Apologize – Sincerely apologize to the customer for the situation that they are feeling. This will cool them down for a moment. Do not justify your cause or the company stand. This is not the time for reasons or justification. An apology is all that is ever needed here.

4. Seek the Best Solution – Find the best solution. Ask them first what they would like as a solution. You be surprised that they do not really want the solution you have in mind.

5. Reach Agreement - Reach an agreement of the solution proposed to resolve the problem. This includes the time to get the resolution completed.

6. Take Quick Action – After all the talk, it is time to act. Act with a sense of urgency. Customers will feel pacified when you are reacting immediately to their needs.

7. Follow-up – After the resolution is being acted on. The problem should be resolved. Do a final closure to their complaint. Follow-up with the customer to ensure that they are fully satisfied. Ask them if there is anything that they need to be addressed if they are not fully satisfied. Be patience and you will reap the reward of a satisfied customer that will come back to you for business in the longer run.

Problems happen every now and then. It is how we admit it honestly and handle them suitably which counts. Customers will remember you for resolving their complaints and will give you another chance to delight them with the correct solution. However, a cautious note, do not drag any resolution. Be swift and accurate as possible in resolving the problems. A prolonged resolution will only worsen the customer expectation of you.

1. Communicate effectively – Be clear and concise of the things you are communicating.  This way you avoid misalignment and misinterpretation of goals and objectives
2. Be approachable – Allow your customer to approach you.  Your customers want to be involved and be updated of the progress of their deals.  What they do not want is his sales person is unapproachable and not revealing anything after the sales deal is done. J
3. Get them involved – Get your customers involved in the things that you do.  Keep them in the loop.  They want to know what they are getting along the way and not just the end product.
4. Build a seasoned team – Your customer wants to be confident in your team.  To do that, you will need to have a strong experienced team that delivers consistent results.  Their confidence may be slightly shaken if they see your team comprising of young inexperienced staff.
5. Anticipate their needs and wants – Be always ready of their new needs and wants.  Your customers will be delighted to know that you are always looking out in their interest.
6. Ensure good work – Nobody wants to accept a crap piece of work.  Deliver something worthwhile that both you and your customer can agreed that it is good work!
7. Keep your promises – Whatever promises you made to the customer should be honoured.  What customers are looking up in you is your integrity.  Once you broken the promises made over and over again.  They loose confidence in you and will be considering another company to address their needs in future.
8. Exceed expectations – Deliver more than what you had initially promised to your customer.  They will be delighted and will be keener to further any new businesses with you.  Not exceeding expectations will put you like any other competitor in the market.  Eventually, your customer will look for better alternatives in future if you are not able to win their heart!
9. Meet their goals – Last but not least, deliver what they want and meet their goals!

1. Forgetting to follow-up – You forgotten to follow-up with the recipient after he requested for you to follow-up either through the email again or through a phone call. Honestly, you will not look good if you are doing this all the time.  Your recipient will feel that you are always not contactable, irresponsible or not interested in attending to their emails (which usually they feel this way).  Remember to follow-up promptly.  Set a flag to follow-up if you cannot do it on the spot.  At least, it’s now in your to-do-list.
2. Sending to the wrong person – Ensure that you are sending to the right person.  Email programs are often too smart and recognize the wrong similar name in the staff directory.  Review your list of recipients before you send out to avoid confusion in them.
3. Sending mass emails – Ensure that you are not sending email to the entire organisation.  Similar to sending the wrong person, you create confusion to the entire organisation.  You are also become the “careless clown” for sending emails to recipients not intended to receive it.  And hopefully it is nothing sensitive and personal that can put you in a really embarrassing situation.
4. Forgetting the attachment – A common mistake made by most of us.  We completed the content of the email and send it out.  Later to realize that you have forgotten to attaché the document relevant to the email.  Either you follow-up with an additional email apologizing about the blunder and include the attachments or you wait for your recipient to write back asking about the missing attachments.  Therefore, review your emails before you send!
5. Not leaving contact information when you asked your recipients to contact you – Your recipient will be feeling, “DUH!” You forgotten to include your contact information such as phone number for them to get back to you after requesting them to get back to you over the phone.  One small careless mistake illustrates your carelessness in emailing and rushing to send the email out.
6. Clicking “Send” too fast – Another common mistake made by many of us.  Often we rush in our content of the email and attempt to send it in the shortest time we can.  In this way, you may fail to review your email and commit the above mentioned mistakes such as sending to the wrong person and forgetting to attach the relevant documents to the email.  Slow down cow-boy!  Review your email before you move your mouse over to the “Send” button!