Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Increase Your Sales by Max Garcia

This article is for the sales speakers out there. If you are trying to generate sales motivation through incentives and plain business speaking you need to re think your strategy. Incentives are great but if the ability is not there then no matter how much sales motivation your employees have your results will stay the same. Your sales speakers need to educate them and teach them sales techniques. They are used to the same old business speaking pitch about how much extra money they can make selling more product. Your sales motivation speakers need to show them the how.

I will give the sales speakers reading this a technique they can teach at the next seminar. I recently learned what I call the rejection technique from Master Peter Brusso. Peter is a master in the martial arts field, business speaking and marketing field. You can find him at infocard.cc. With the rejection technique it is basic reverse psychology. A client comes to you and says "I am interested in the investment house you have for sale". After making some small talk which is very important in business speaking, you say something like "have you ever done an investment deal like this?" "I would love to sell you the place but wouldn't want to put you in something you couldn't handle". People want what they can not have so many times when I state something like this the other person will immediately start justifying why they should be able to purchase the deal. This only enforces their want for what ever I am selling as they state the reasons the deal is right for them. In sales motivation I call this taking the person from being interested to wanting! If you are a sales speaker experiment with this next time you have to sell something to someone one on one.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Put Yourself In the Right Frame of Mind First by Max Garcia

It is essential that you start your day and continue your day in the right frame of mind. When you are in the right frame of mind you will get more things done and you will deal with challenges or disappointments more effectively. Here are some ways you can start getting more out of your life today.

Motivational Speeches to the rescue. Giving yourself a motivational speech out loud will make any situation better. I start my day mentally giving myself little motivational speeches. Usually I am too tired to say them out loud when I first wake up but if you can do that you will dramatically increase your happiness. A powerful Christian speaker by the name of Norman Vincent Peale says start every day by saying "I believe today is going to be a great day". Another Christian speaker by the name of Joel Osteen has amazing free podcasts I like to listen to while I run on my tread mil. After listening to his motivational speeches I feel like like the challenges in the back of my head are not so big after all. Really I feel like I can conquer the world after listening to him. It is a great thing to not only be able to learn about God and different verses in the bible but when it makes you feel unstoppable that is just the icing on the cake. I don't care to listen to a Christian speaker on the radio that talks about nothing but doom and gloom in the world.

Even as a leadership speaker myself I get discouraged sometimes just like anyone. As a leadership speaker your subordinates or audience will feed off of you. So when I get to work I will listen to something that empowers me. If you simply you tube affirmations for money, success, confidence or whatever you need. You can find plenty of things for free to listen to that will get you moving in the right direction. If you are a leadership speaker or boss in any capacity and you are grouchy don't blame your people when work is not happening the way you would like.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Be Flexible in Business by Max Garcia

In the U.S. Marines, sometimes a leadership speaker will utilize a common phrase to keep the junior Marines motivated during times of uncertainty. That phrase is “Semper Gumbie” meaning, always flexible! This motivational leadership comes from the Marine Corps motto of “Semper Fidelis” or “Semper Fi” meaning always faithful. Being flexible is one of the most important leadership characteristics a leadership speaker should build on in any business. It never fails, every time there is a change in plans it is usually for the worst. When there is a change some leadership speaker will always crack a joke by saying “Semper Gumbie”. It is good motivational leadership but annoying at the same time. The reason for this humor is that no mission, task, or any daily work gets completed with out an annoying change.

One instance in Iraq our platoon got tasked with a mission that was supposed to take 72-96 hours. What this means to us is grab the bare minimum and leave everything else at the firm base. So now were talking maybe a sleeping bag or not, hygiene bag, minimal combat load of ammunition and a couple changes of clothes at the most. For such a short time out what is brought basically depends on how lazy you are that day. For some it may be just the clothes on their back depending on the leadership characteristics of those in charge.

Well, to make a long story short, after about four weeks we realized, just how flexible are job requires us to be. We started from the border of Syria and ended up going all the way to Al Fallujah with almost no parts, support, re-supply of ammunition, food, or clean clothes. Times like these challenged my motivational leadership and helped me to understand why Marines want to fight. We eventually made it back to the Syrian border to get showers and creature comforts after five weeks of 110 degree weather and nothing but each other. The moral of the story is that we were flexible for weeks making the mission a success. The same applies in business.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Three Rules for Confidence II by Max Garcia

The second Rule. If you want to move up, you must master your current role and improve confidence to prepare for your next senior position. Too many times I see new Marines avoiding the undesirable task. Sometimes it is because they are lazy but other times it is because they don’t understand how to complete the task and do not possess the personal confidence to inquire. Before you know it a couple years goes by and that person is due to get promoted. Now you have a newly promoted manager who is lost, building self confidence at the last minute. I tell my people, “How can I promote you if you don’t have strong personal confidence of your everyday duties. If you’re in a leadership position you should be building self confidence in other people. They will be coming to you for answers. You don’t want to be the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) that causes a Marine say, I’ll ask someone else because he won’t have a clue. The judging does not get any nicer with the subject of proficiency. Lower level workers must understand that they don’t rate a promotion just because of time. They must prove they are ready to be junior leaders. The time to improve confidence in their job field is not after the promotion. This theory is backed up by the twelfth leadership trait in the Handbook For Marine NCOs. This trait is Knowledge (Estes 1995)

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Speaking, the Number One Fear

Most inspirational speakers will tell you that speaking is the number one fear among people. People would rather face snakes, or earth quakes than become a business speaker. If you think all the way back to your childhood you will realize the reason most people avoid business speaking is due their past experiences. We were embarrassed, made fun of or teased by teachers, students, family, friends and the list goes on. Even if it only happened a couple times it can have a lasting effect if you don’t learn how to deal with it. Some inspirational speakers call this previous programming. What they mean is that the experience programs the mind to have negative association for future experiences. This is why we usually hear people say that they hate being in front of people. These same people avoid any business speaking at all. Do you avoid saying what is on your mind during a meeting because you fear you might sound foolish? Do you dread having to give a presentation as a business speaker yourself? If so think back to what happened in the past that may have caused this feeling.

The same happens when someone has a bad relationship experience, the person involved fears the possibility of repeating the process so they avoid a potentially great relationship. This also happens in business relationships where the boss is lied to and taken advantage of by an employee they trusted. The next time the boss gets a new employee he or she will have their mental guard up right from the start, making it harder to establish trust. The same goes for the business speaker who messes up one presentation and so he or she avoids doing future presentations. If you have fears about business speaking I have a new program on confidence you want to look at http://themaxgarcia.com/Products.html or enroll in one of my personal coaching programs. The good news is that you can be the best business speaker your company has ever seen regardless of how you feel now. You just need a coach that can teach you how to change the way you speak to yourself. I have learned some great tactics from inspirational speakers over the years that everyone should know. I am dying to share.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Measuring morale in Business by Max Garcia

What do you and your business speakers do to determine the needs, wants, and satisfaction of customers? Of the employees? What would you do in sales motivation to improve gathering, distributing, or applying such information? What words would you choose as a sales speaker? Is Sales motivation even needed?

In most organizations, there is no way to determine the satisfaction of its members. If there is a good sales speaker in place, he or she can take the time to put in any plan or policy they choose. For me personally, I have meetings with my Non Commissioned Officers (working, lower level managers) about once a month. During this meeting I send away all the Staff Non-Commissioned officers (supervisors), and talk with the Non Commissioned Officers about different issues. Kind of like an upper manager who does sales motivation talking directly with the shift managers to find out the real scoop. For me the Non-Commissioned Officers are usually on their third to fifth year in the Marines with one or two overseas deployments worth of experience. They are the first person in the chain of command to the lowest level of workers. They are responsible for a twenty-six ton vehicle, all the Marines it carries, maintenance, and weapons employment. Needless to say their opinion is not taken lightly. One of the first things I do and what you can do as business speakers is point out that what is said in the meeting, stays in the meeting. Business speakers could do the same with the people they want to motivate. In fact, any sales speaker can do the same.

This is their opportunity to inform you as the CEO about any issues that need to be addressed. Most people will not ask business speakers their question in front of everyone. For me it is also a time to ask questions about certain workers that I am concerned about. If I noticed one Marine is not himself lately then I can ask someone who is closely working with that person. During these meetings things are not as formal to enable smooth communication. No matter what is said I do not react with anger or frustration because I am in fact asking for the information. This form of communication has been very effective for my unit as a whole.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Power of Technology and the Inspirational Speaker by Max Garcia

Is the ever growing speed of technology good or bad? For the last ten years of my life as a leadership speaker technology has completely changed everything. In some ways it has made life better, but in other ways it has made every day life nothing but stressful. From the Verizon Internet, to cell phones, to pocket personal computers, and on line colleges, I hope life does not get any faster for me. A well-known psychic and inspirational speaker named John Edwards once said that we live in a “Mcdonalds, want it now society”. Everybody wants everything “right now”. I have been no exception to that theory. Just today I stopped at an auto body shop to get estimates from an accident. After nicely asking if I could get the estimate done now, I mentioned the quote from the inspirational speaker and everyone in the office started laughing. The manager stated that he talked about changing the company motto to something similar due to the impatience of customers. I must say that technology did help me today, as I was able to fax the paper work to the insurance company of the driver at fault.

Sure it is nice to have a cell phone, but it’s not so nice when the boss can conveniently call you back to work on the drop of a hat. As a leadership speaker, now that I have a cell phone, I can’t live without it. I used to get several phone calls during the workday from the boss. Whatever the task, of course needs to be done “as soon as possible”. In the early 90s’, once the meeting was over and everybody went to work outside, if the company staff needed something else they had to drive out to the work spaces and look for that individual or wait until the next day. Those were also the days of handwritten paper work and verbal reports.

As a leadership speaker I prefer to use a pocket personal computer to take notes in the meetings and pass word to subordinates. It keeps everything very organized, holds all my recall rosters, blood type rosters, to do list, and phone numbers without messy papers. I know a wide variety of people in different professions use them for the same. A Christian speaker can easily keep track of what he has talked about to each group. This same Christian speaker can write his next lecture while waiting in line at the DMV. At the same time the Christian speaker may have to speak about the rise of internet predators, a very serious subject. Is technology growing too fast? We know that if the internet were to go away any inspirational speaker or Christian speaker would surely struggle. You decide!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Micro Managing, Not So Good Leadership Characteristics by Max Garcia

“During a local security patrol the fourth vehicle was hit by an Improvised Explosive Devise and small arms fire causing injury to four Marines and Mortally wounding the Platoon Commander. Despite his inexperience, while Cpl Buckley's Squad leader was calling in a Medical Evacuation he immediately took charge of the squad and the tragic situation by applying first aid to three of the Marines. Cpl Buckley was able to stop the bleeding from one Marine that Doctors later confirmed would have surely bleed to death had he applied first aid incorrectly. (Fallujah Medical Officer 2004) As the helicopter was leaving with the casualties the company was hit again, this time with incoming mortars. While his squad leader ran to stop the helicopter for more casualties, Cpl Buckley took charge of the Squad and placed them in to a safe position to better defend the company preventing further casualties. Ok, enough motivational leadership stories…
This is only one example of how empowering your junior managers through motivational leadership along with the freedom to make decisions will benefit the whole team. Any leader regardless of billet needs to use initiative and not be afraid to make a decision with out permission from the next supervisor. Likewise, if you are that next person in charge and you don’t leave specific instruction for your subordinate leader when you step away then you have no room to criticize any decision they make unless it is unsafe or unethical. Too often the supervisor steps away for a meeting and the time comes to execute something as simple as scheduling. It never fails, many times the Boss comes back and changes the decision the shift manager made in his or her absence despite the lack of instruction. These daily decisions lead to loss in morale, productivity and more important, loyalty. These types of leadership characteristics are seen far too often. Instead of giving motivational speeches or a pat on the back the senior manager makes the junior managers feel as if their position means nothing.
In my units the most junior Non-Commissioned Officer knows he has my support to make a decision if left with out instruction. Using these leadership characteristics has kept me alive in combat and kept my sanity when over tasked. I have had more than one instance where I forgot to do something and my next man in line was right there to pick up the slack. Had I trained them only to act like robots then certain task would have surely fallen through the cracks due to my forgetfulness. When they cover for me like this I always make sure to give quick motivational speeches to those involved to re enforce their loyalty for next time.
So, the next time you take a vacation and you assume your subordinate leader has “got it”, ask yourself if that person knows he or she has your support to make a decision and exercise their own leadership characteristics. Will you use motivational leadership and support their decisions even if you are not crazy about them? Or, will you step on your “right hand” man causing them to hesitate in the future when you really need them the most. Chief Executive Officers, remember this when giving your motivational speeches to your lower level business managers. In short, let them know you have their back and they will have yours.

Friday, September 11, 2009

3 Rules for Confidence by Max Garcia

It doesn’t matter whom you work for or what your occupation is. I tell all my new people when they check in that I have three rules for building self confidence. These personal confidence rules I made up when I was a Drill Instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina. I told every platoon I graduated and now I tell every new member of my current companies. The three rules for building self confidence are: personal appearance, learn your role as quick as possible, and last but not least, always, no matter what happens, always be respectful. These rules of personal confidence I live by and train others to live by. I guess you could call these my tools to improve confidence because so many people feel inferior when starting a new job. I call them the three rules for success. The fact that I brief these rules to every new join has saved me time, frustration, paper work, and has made my Marines stronger. I believe this is fact only because of my three rules for success. To apply these when building self confidence in the corporate world some complimentary thinking will be needed. For now we will discuss the first rule.

The First Rule:
Improve confidence through a first impression. A first impression is a lasting impression. From the second you walk up to hand in your resume, to your first day on the job up until the day you leave, everybody is judging your personal appearance. Despite that it’s against what we are taught in school, not to judge a book by its cover, the fact remains people are judgmental creatures. You can have stellar performer, but if their personal appearance is lacking no one is going to promote them to a position where they have to deal with upper management. That’s just fact. If you are in a position of leadership then this rule should be gospel to you when it comes to personal confidence.
Everyone regardless of position or occupation is critical of those senior to them. The last thing you want is to be known by your subordinates as the sloppy or eccentric boss. It doesn’t matter how great you “know your job”, you lose prestige if you don’t look sharp in the eyes of those junior to you. Not only that, when you look good you feel good. When you feel good you will perform as such resulting in solid personal confidence. We will talk more next time about building self confidence using my other two rules. I want you to first improve confidence for your self by first assessing your own appearance. If you are in a leadership position, ask yourself if your people would work better if they simply dressed sharper?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Motivation vs Brains in Sales by Max Garcia

Well, what would you rather have on your team, someone with knowledge or someone with lots of sales motivation but knows little about the sales business? In sales, we have several types of people, and each one of these people require different types of business speakers to unfold their potential through sales motivation seminars. I believe the ability or skill level lies within the sales motivation of that person. As always there are certain exceptions when it comes to level of education and learning ability. This is why a business speaker or trainer must know his or her audience ahead of time (we will talk more about that another time).
When it comes to selection for a billet in the sales department, some leaders select based on previous performance with total disregard for the sales motivation of that person. I used to work as a Drill Instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. For a short period of time my job was to identify recruits that were not physically strong enough to start recruit training and identify the challenged ones that still had potential. We would send the rest packing to physical conditioning platoon. Physical conditioning platoon kept them for several extra months until they either passed the physical requirements or quit. I would talk to each kid separately, and the first thing I would do is ask them if they would rather go home at this point or go to physical conditioning platoon knowing they would be in boot camp longer. Some recruits would instantly state they want to go back home to Mommy, while others will violently yell “No Sir” stating that they will stay longer if needed. My psychological trick was that the ones who genuinely seemed like they wanted to be a Marine got to come to my platoon to train, while the ones that wanted to just quit got dropped to physical conditioning platoon because I did not want their lack of motivation. Many times once properly instructed the recruits who came to my platoon uncovered their talent and ended up becoming good Marines. At the same time some that came in physically fit were unsuccessful because they had no motivation.
The same goes when sales speakers try to improve a company through sales motivation. Professional athletes don’t become the top five percent of the sport they play naturally. They have to work extremely hard for years and they have to have the right people help them get recognized. Many of them took lessons or received coaching there whole lives. That sounds like learning to me. I could care less how much “brain power” someone has if they don’t have a strong work ethic and drive. Whatever and whoever it is, good sales speakers can teach them if they really want to learn. You may want to think twice before hiring someone just because the have a certain qualification.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Power of an Inspirational Speaker by Max Garcia

Through dedication, hard work, good luck and bad luck, any company can improve in any situation if they have a good inspirational speaker. Someone who gives good motivational speeches will not only create an up beat work environment, he or she will help the workers change their thinking pattern. When people shift their thinking from can’t, don’t know and try to we can, we will, we are the best it doesn’t matter what the odds are improvement must take place. We will take for example Andrew Grove.
Although he is not one of Intel's founders, Grove was a powerful force in the company almost from the start. Grove developed as a leadership speaker based on integrity. He is known by his employees as an honest person and a motivating boss to work for. Once during the 1980s hard times came when the company produced some products with flaws. Quickly Grove was able to discover untapped markets to help the company recover. Again in the 1990s the company was struck by major disaster when flaws were found in Pentium microprocessors. Once again Grove was able to react saving the company from possible failure when he launched the famous “Inside Intel” campaign. Of course he didn’t do all these things by him self. He had to deliver motivational speeches that would inspire the company to push forward. These are just a few testaments to Mr. Grove as a bold leadership speaker. The right inspirational speaker can get anyone to do anything. Regardless if we believe it or not motivational speeches are used on us all the time by politicians, commercials, and sales demonstrations.
Where most people would have folded, Grove inspired the company to be stronger. It was due to this time period that Wharton and Nightly Business Report named Andy Grove the "most influential" among the other Top 25 leaders profiled (Business week 1997). In 1997 Time Magazine named Grove “Man of the year”, the same year in which he became chairman and CEO of the company (Neff & Citrin 1999).
The lesson that we can learn from an inspirational speaker like Andrew Grove is that no matter how bad a situation is a company can recover if they have the right leadership speaker in place. A Marine Leader named Staff Sergeant Young once said: “It’s not how bad you “screw up”, “it’s how good you recover”. I respect that Mr. Grove was such a hard charger that he recovered remarkably from cancer at the same time as financial loss. Many people are hesitant to start their own business because they say things like: “it’s risky” “nine out of ten businesses fail”. Well to me that means if I start ten businesses one of them well make a million. You must be willing to make horrible mistakes, wealthy recoveries and learn from both. We all must keep in mind that no one makes it to the top and stays with out going through the hard times first.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Preventive Maintinance Leadership by Max Garcia

In my opinion there is no different level of difficulty between processing a do or don’t do order, the difficulty is within the business speaker. The only difficulty is if the person doing the business speaking for upper management forgets or doesn’t know exactly what needs to happen. It is difficult to remember to pass every step to completing the task but if you forget something specific then you can not complain when it is not completed the way you would do it. That is the only difficulty in the “do instructions”. It is a motivational leadership failure if you only state what you desire as an end result and then complain about how it was achieved.
The business speaker or leader needs to do what I call “Preventive Maintenance”. If you know there is a project coming up then you need to start writing down all the things that helped you achieve or not achieve results from before. Then you must give a quick brief. Your brief should include what specifics you want to see happen. Without focusing too much on the negative you should firmly state the things you don’t want while maintaining your motivational leadership style. This will keep your people on your side. I will give you an example.
Let’s say you are cleaning up your work area and checking your paper work for an inspection of upper level management. While business speaking you can not just simply state, “our inspection is coming up”. “The place needs to be immaculate and the paper work needs to be perfect”. A good business speaker for the boss will do preventive maintenance by stating, “every desk needs to be cleaned free of dust, loose papers, pictures, and all trash taken out”. If desk are your major concern, then you know you just covered it and everyone should be taking note of what you just said. Next you might want to cover paper work by stating “everyone needs to check his or her own log book for mathematical errors and then hand it in to the shift managers for further editing”. Then you can state what you do not want as long as your tone is of a motivational leadership style.
An example of that would be mentioning that how you don’t want to see any white out on the pages or pen scribbles. Now you have just covered what you want and what you don’t want. You may also want to mention that if anyone can think of anything else feel free to bring it up to your shift manager. Now, your people are thinking outside “the box”. If you forget something they will use their own initiative because you used motivational leadership while asking their opinion. The last thing a boss ever wants if for his business speaker to run a dictatorship where they act like robots because then you have no room for error.
If during your inspection a desk has outdated paper work and some of the paper work is sloppy you have a solid ground to informally counsel your employees with anger. If you just said “I want the place cleaned up and all the paper work straight”, then you have no room to counsel anyone because you did not specify.
Keep in mind that it is not any easier while business speaking to process a due instruction, it is just easier for people to complain that it isn't the way they wanted it. It takes guts to get up in front of your people and clearly articulate the objective at hand (Captain Handon 1999).

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Choosing the Right Leadership Characteristics by Max Garcia

When developing your leadership characteristics you want to pay close attention to the various styles of leadership. Your style of leadership can and will greatly affect the results of your employees. Those affects, negative or positive will be a direct reflection of your leadership characteristics. Most people are familiar with two forms of leadership, persuasive or athoritative. The truth is that there are as many styles of leadership as there are characteristics of leadership. Every leadership challenge is going to call for different styles. Some subordinates are very easy to work with, show up on time, take initatiave, work hard and never question orders. These employees allow you to display relaxed leadership characteristics and courtesy. Other subordinates wait for you to give them an inch so they can take a mile. These co workers tend to be more disrespectful, question directions and require more supervision. The characteristics of these employees may call for you to use more force and athority. The key, is finding balance between the two. My father Dan Garcia, who retired from the Marine Corps, called this firm but fair leadership.
Many leaders, particularly those in the military feel that you always have to be consistent and treat every one exactly the same. This is true to some degree however, if you treat your best guy like your worst guy he won't be your best guy for long. If you have someone who knows exactly what your intent is and follows it to the letter wheather you are there or not enjoy it. Don't micro manage that person like they are incompetent and they will most likely continue on that path. I'm not saying don't supervise, in fact you should always inspect what you expect. Just keep in mind those that micro managed you in the past when you were doing excellent. Did you resent them to a certain degree? Did you feel as if they didn't trust you despite your consistent results. I know I totally resent any micro management, especially when in a leadership role. Why give someone a promotion and then stand over their shoulder? You might as well lead for them.
The moral of the story is to deal with each leadership challenge according to the situation, not just a standard style of leadershp characteristics you read in a book. Some bosses have fun simply being mean to their employees. They run the show out of fear and laugh about it. Sure they will work because you say so or else! They may even move a little faster when you are around. But, let there be no doubt if your subordinates hate you it will adversely affect you in the long term. They will only do the bare minimum, they will not take initatiave and they will probably stab you in the back the first opportunity they get. You will have no loyalty what so ever. This style will not improve confidence as a leader, in fact it displays a lack of personal confidence in one self. I once was about to make a huge mistake, one that could have possibly gotten me fired. Fortunately for me I had plenty of loyalty in my unit. One of the subordinates quickly pointed out the mistake for me, saving my butt. I said thank you and let him know how much I appreciated him having my back. This warning came from a subordinate that I had to firmly counsel on more than one occasion. That is where the firm but fair part comes in. If someone needs corrected, correct them. If the situation calls for a little harshness, make it harsh. However, if someone deserves a pat on the back you should be just as fast to do that with much more enthusiasm. Leadership characteristics like these go a long way and will assist in building personal confidence while in a postition of authority. Stay tuned for more articles like these or visit my website at http://www.themaxgarcia.com/