Brian Bieler-Welcome Managers and Sales Professionals

How to Dazzle on Job Interviews

2010-03-04T21:17:00Z

Experience and education may not be a deciding factor in getting a job. Your wants and needs matter even less.

Getting a good job starts with a great interview and that means acknowledging the interview process is not just about you. It's equally important you understand the job you're applying for, what the company does and how it operates.

Without information about the job you may be putting yourself in a position of someone having little conviction or commitment. Worse yet, it may send a signal you have an entitlement mentality.

Competition for good jobs is fierce. Relying on skills, education and experience is not enough to cut it.

You must demonstrate you're not simply a candidate but the best candidate. Target your presentation to the company and people you're interviewing with.

Base your presentation on filling needs and fitting in. Don't leave key points to the interviewer's imagination.

Approach every interview like it's an opportunity to work for the next Cisco or Google. Keep in mind you can turn down a poor job offer but once you've blown an opportunity and been shown the door, it's almost impossible to get back in.

The knowledge you gain before the interview is what separates you from average. It's what helps get you to the top of the must-have list.

Use the internet to research the company. Seek help from people that can give you insight. In short, do whatever it takes to position you as the outstanding candidate and nothing less.

Don't take the risk of knocking yourself out of contention because you weren't willing to do the homework.

The secret to dazzling on job interviews is being prepared. Good interviews are not likely to happen by accident.

Two Simple Resume Tips Nobody Bothered To Tell You

2009-10-18T16:40:00Z

Fewer jobs and increased competition means simply emailing a standard resume probably won’t get you a job interview.

What gives your resume an edge is style and personality. All things considered, soft skills are as important as your degree, experience, and skill set. You’re more likely to get job interviews when people think they can work with you and you fit in with the company.

Strategies To Get Your Resume Read:

Make Your Job Search Personal

Decide what kind of job you want, desired salary, distance you’ll commute, and if you’ll move.

Use the internet, trade papers, newspapers, job bulletin boards, relatives, friends, and past co-workers to help you find companies and organizations you’re interested in.

But don’t just shoot off your resume to them. Find the names and addresses of individual department heads and HR directors and send them your information.

Create a Personalized Cover Letter

Think of your cover letter as a sales and marketing tool. Don’t view it as an after-thought to your resume; it may be the difference between getting an interview or landing on the bottom of the stack.

Make your cover letter short (one or two paragraphs) flawless and every word used correctly. Be positive and personalized, and make sure it shows your style. Include information to show that you know something about the company. The more you know about what a company does, the more you can personalize the letter and sell yourself. Your cover letter should tell a very short story which makes the data and information on the resume come to life.

And always state why you’d be a great addition to the company.

Leave detailed experience, history, details, and data to your attached resume.

Don’t take the risk that your resume won’t be seen, spam blockers are used by many to block scattershot job hunters and unwanted and impersonal junk emails. Job communications should be both electronic and followed up with a paper resume and cover letter.

Be sure you’re relevant and easy to identify but don’t be afraid to be different. Have fun, and show your personality to get people interested in you and what you can do for them.

Happy job hunting!

Brian J. Bieler is an author, sales trainer and consultant offering unique and innovative sales, marketing and business solutions drawing from thirty plus years experience as a marketing director, sales manager, President of Viacom Radio and General Manager of seven major broadcast companies. Reach Brian at http://www.brianbieler.com

Groupthink, Bland Cheese, Red Sauce and Floppy Noodles

2009-09-13T20:18:00Z

A team might not be as good at creating strategies as your own instincts and judgment.

Groupthink tends to be conservative when often what is needed is more focus and calculated risk-taking.

I was creating a start up company and expressed concerns to my marketing consultant about playing it too safe.

Do you know how they make airline lasagna?” the consultant asked.

“No,” I said.

He said, “It works like this.”

“When decisions are critical, get expert opinions--the more the better. As airlines serve lasagna by the tens of thousands, they get the opinions of experts to create lasagna that will taste good to everyone.

Many experts came up with great tasting lasagna. However,when they started mixing recipes to gain mass appeal they wound up compromising.The result was average tasting lasagna.

Airline food is safe food carefully prepared to avoid offending anyone. It tastes OK but hardly award winning. If you want great tasting lasagna, you need spices and that means taking risks.

When you try to please everyone you’re likely to get average results.”

If you follow consensus because you don’t trust your instincts and judgment you may wind up serving “Airline Lasagna” and your strategies may lack an important edge.

Three Tips To Avoid Groupthink Symptoms

Doing things a certain way doesn’t make it the best way
Take more risks--mistakes are part of progress and winning
Allow yourself to think and see things differently

Get more comfortable taking risks and your game will likely improve and you’ll be less likely to serve up average ideas.

Don’t be over-concerned with making mistakes. Focus on what it takes to win. Spice up your unique and individual style and dare to be different.

When you trust your instincts, your ability to influence people improves and more often than not, your own thinking will prove you right.

To develop confidence in making good decisions, you must be able to trust your own judgment as well filter through the ideas of others.

BrianJ. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit http://www.brianbieler.com or e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com.

Doing The Sales Two-Step

2009-09-08T21:38:00Z

What holds salespeople back from selling more?

They don’t spend enough time selling!

Salespeople typically spend twenty-five to thirty-eight percent of their time devoted to selling and getting orders.

The rest of the time is spent juggling balls, dealing with mistakes, fixing problems, fulfilling orders,searching for information, spending time in unproductive sales meetings,managing inventory, collecting data for company CRM reports, and servicing accounts to reduce customer costs.

No wonder salespeople complain there’s not enough time to sell.

Selling efforts must be organized for maximum performance; time is a limited resource. You may be working to hard to get things done, but the sales job is to work smart and make things happen.

Successful Selling Is About Productivity, Not Activity.

Here’s a simple two-step plan to help focus on what really matters; closing deals and making sales.

#1 – Stop creating a daily schedule of things to do

Every action we take does not have equal impact on achieving success or reaching goals.

If you don’t use this principle to your advantage it’s likely to accelerate poor performance and eventually lead to failure.

Use time and organization as a selling asset. Without a sense of priority, time may be eaten up dealing with things that have little to do with achieving goals.

Become a master of structuring activities for peak efficiency.

#2 – Start scheduling your top priorities first

The concept of “fit” or knowing how to fill up a jar with rocks, pebbles and sand illustrate the importance of doing the critical things first:

Start with a large jar. To fill the jar completely, put the big rocks in first. Next, add the pebbles and finally, fill the jar with sand. If you have a jar filled with rocks, pebble sand sand, you have effectively filled in the space.

However, if you empty the jar and fill it with the sand first, you will not be able to put all the rocks and pebbles back in the jar.

Just like getting the big rocks in the jar, manage time by scheduling priorities before you move on to less important tasks.

Don’t lose track of what you’re hired to do or what the sales job is. Salaries, commissions, advancement, added responsibility and security are based on your ability to perform.

What separates average salespeople from top sales performers is focus. Get more efficient at doing what works and dumping what doesn’t.

Don’t try and do it all, just do the sales two-step. It’s only what you sell and the deals you create that get measured,applauded and rewarded.

Copyright 2009 Brian J. Bieler – Reprints welcome so long as byline and article are published intact and all links made live.

Brian J. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit www.brianbieler.com or e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com

5 Tips to Keeping Your Job In A Bad Economy

2009-08-31T03:04:00Z

In good times, when the pendulum swings in the right direction, people get hired to fill needs with the anticipation of growth and often silly inane expenses get overlooked.

However, when the pendulum swings the other way, even paper clips will be counted and your job may show up on the expendable expense column of the company excel spread sheet.

Here are some ideas how you maybe able to avoid being a casualty of hard times:

1. Blend in and you could be setting yourself up to get blown out. If business in your company is going south it’s a sign that even more things are going to happen - if they haven’t already.

The wrong time to blend in or hide is when business is tough. Looking like you’re an average commodity may accelerate the perception your job has less value. When you blend in with other workers and managers you may be losing that important competitive advantage.

Everyone is uniquely different and you must make that uniqueness a competitive advantage. Don’t be afraid to be different and don’t think that simply following the crowd will keep you employed. Companies are likely to throw out babies with bath water.

2. Being a scaredy-cat won’t help. Fear is both a mental and physical reaction to something that may (or may not) happen. It’s hard to disguise the body language of fear; people around you are likely to catch on to your feelings.

What is most likely to keep you employed is the ability to overcome obstacles. You may have little control over a situation, but that is no excuse for throwing up your hands and giving up.

Don’t just stand there looking good and wait for things to happen to you. You don’t want to show up on the radar screen as excess baggage because that’s the first thing to get unloaded.

3. Use other people’s strengths to become more effective. People around you can help your success. Hang out with winners, watch what they do and think about how they can help you.

If you’re not running the team,department or company don’t let your ego tell you it’s simply because you have been overlooked. It may be a wake up call that you need to learn more and sharpen your skills.

Surround yourself with people that are the best at what they do, you may be able to catch a halo effect and pickup better habits.

When companies thin the ranks they try to save muscle and cut the fat. Your job is to get fit and strong. Play with the strongest people around you at work and expand your networking.

4. Give the news media a cautious eye. The media feeds on bad news to spice up stories often making small problems into huge news stories. Be careful of reacting to hype.

Balance what you hear and see with the reality of your experience and knowledge.

Trust your instincts, be a calm thinker and use your brains. Act on what will help you survive.

5. Dare to be different and see change as opportunity. When job markets get tight and the economy tanks, make the paradox of advantage work for you:

Changes and problems open new doors of opportunity

People willing to take chances and not give up when things get tough will most likely be the winners in both good times and bad.

Brian J. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit www.brianbieler.com or e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com.

Managing To A Strategic Advantage

2009-08-01T04:50:00Z

Passing Backwards

Rugby is distinguished from football; the ball can only be passed backwards. The object of the fast-moving game is to win points by carrying, passing, kicking and grounding the ball.

There is no stopping for time outs, limited substitutions and no pads. Rough tackles mean no wimps allowed. Ball control is by brute force. If you are averse to copious amounts of pain, this is a game you watch, not a game you play.

Only the fittest survive and deficiencies quickly exposed. The variation of skills and physical requirements means there is opportunity for individuals of every shape, size and ability…as long as you have the courage.

Managers can get power from hoarding information without sharing it, they hold on to the ball. Then they wonder why teammates don’t like to play with them.

If you want to help people achieve their best, they have to be in the game for more than a job or a paycheck.People do things for their reasons, not yours. Forget phony praise, baloney feedback, and useless criticism. Focus on the work environment and use tactics to influence self motivation.

Managing Is A Team Sport

The insider's secret is to understand how people are motivated. Use this knowledge as a strategy to manage more effectively. Knowing why people do things not just how they do things is a strategic advantage. People see things from their perspective, not yours.

What we understand about motivation is it drives all of us. However, it’s important to understand why you cannot drive other people’s motivations or change their values. People understand motivation from their perspective; it’s what works for them. You cannot assume your motivation will work for others.

The way to motivate more effectively is to create an environment for the situation. People in the right environment with the right incentive will motivate themselves. Adjust your attitude towards others and do not expect others to adjust to you.

The distinction between average management and extraordinary managers is trust, not envy or control. To be relevant in today’s new workplace, understanding how motivation works is essential.

Motivation Principles:
All People Are Motivated
You Can’t Motivate Other People
People Do Things For Their Reasons, Not Your Reasons
A Person's Strength Overused May Become Their Weakness
The Very Best One Can Do To Motivate Others Is To Create An Environment That Allows Specific Individuals To Motivate Themselves

Managers and Leaders do it Different

Managers supervise. They rely on operating skills, organizational ability and use power, authority and resources to achieve goals. Managers solve problems and create policies.

Leaders develop visions, use insight,and rely on communication and people skills. They empower others to get results. They look for opportunities to do things through innovation and creativity.

Leaders tend to have less formal arrangements of the decision making and supervision process. The difference between leaders and managers is style.

Good leaders are able to manage and mangers are able to lead.
What is critical in today’s workplace is the ability to have others become part of the success. Understanding motivation helps you lead others to greatness.

Managers who don’t lead but simply make rules and laws kill the spirit. They are out of step with the times.

The wealth in management and leadership comes in creating excellence in people. The best performing managers’ help others accomplish goals and let them enjoy winning.

The job of the manager and leader is to inspire others. Hire the best, let others play in the game and lead like a champion. People around you will help you get to the goal and push you forward.
Copyright 2009 Brian J. Bieler – Reprints welcome so long as byline and article are published in tact and all links made live.
Brian J. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit http://www.brianbieler.comor e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com.

Were Wired for Stories-Selling and Telling

2008-10-16T20:50:00Z

If you want to sell more, tell more tales. A good sales story stimulates the mind and engages people to conversation. If you are selling and people are not tuned to what you are saying, it's almost impossible to move them to action. Executives and world-class sellers tell stories to get people involved.

Stories are not more important than features and benefits; they help emphasize points and create feelings. Combining data and left-brain logic with emotional right-brain stories is a powerful and professional way to make dramatic sales points. Executives, politicians and professionals tell stories to start people thinking and make important points.

What sells people is how they see benefits working for them. Storytelling engages people in their own minds, emotions and imagery. Although decisions are largely formed with logic, data and information, decisions are mostly made with right-brain subjective emotions. Storytelling is a strategic sophisticated sales tool. We know that people are going to forget data and information but are unlikely to forget a good story.

President Ronald Reagan exploited his age and was nearly 70 when he became president. He left office at 78, the oldest man ever to serve in the office. He joked about himself and repositioned a problem to an advantage with wit and humor:

One of my favorite quotations about age comes from Thomas Jefferson. He said that we should never judge a president by his age, only by his work. And ever since he told me that, I've stopped worrying, and just to show you how youthful I am, I intend to campaign in all 13 states.

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series has sold over 26,000,000 books since 1997 and has earned tens of millions of dollars. You may have read his books or seen him on TV. Three of his books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, have been on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times.

Much of the success of Rich Dad is not simply because Robert wrote a book. The message of becoming a better money manager, understanding taxes, dealing with expenses and using the power of leverage to create wealth created a story that challenged conventional thought: only high income leads to wealth.

Robert crafted a story of logic and emotion so he could repeat it virtually word for word in seminars and in radio, TV and newspaper interviews. He took a simple boring subject about money and made it visually and emotionally unique by telling a story.

The story of two fathers is an unusual message. Without that story, Rich Dad would likely have been like so many other books telling of money and investing. Robert is a gifted storyteller and his messages are motivating, entertaining and lead to his record-breaking success as an author. Robert is a master of sales.

· Are you successful because you simply sell a product?

· Do you master sales because people relate to you, your values and your knowledge?

· Do you get people emotionally involved?

· What makes you unique and a standout in a crowded field?

What Are Stories?

Stories are images and eye candy for the brain. Words are ways of communicating the images in the mind. When we tell stories well we are actually imagining what happens in the story and using words to describe what we see.

Remembering And Telling

Storytelling has a common problem. More salespeople would use stories if they could just remember how to tell the story.

It's the same problem in public speaking. Remembering words can stump people. People try to memorize things that are far too difficult to remember. Unless you have a photographic memory, remembering word for word is out of the question. That is why we invented computers, to keep track of lists and words.
To tell stories naturally, imagine what happens in the story. You can use the same words every time if that comes easily to you or you can use different words every time to tell a story. As long as you connect the words to the images in your mind, you can deliver a good story.

Three Keys to Storytelling

1. Learn The Story. Focus on the story and get the image in your mind. It is far easier to remember scenes or sequences of several images of things like sounds and pictures than the literal sequence of many hundreds of words. Remember, it's never the story, it's always the emotion that communicates the real meaning. Tell the story from your memory of how it made you feel.

2. Telling The Story. Relax, have fun and enjoy the story; it will be easier to tell. Imagine what is happening in the story. Use your natural style and expression.

3. Remembering The Story. You will not easily forget a good story. Images stay with you. However, words escape you. As long are you are confident that you do not have to remember word for word, the story will be easy to remember.

The Secrets Of Story Strategy

We tell stories in sales situations because it helps compel people to action. It is hard to make a computer chip exciting, a stack of lumber enthralling. That's why selling features and benefits are rarely enough to bring people to action. People make decisions in their minds, not from your mind. Draw pictures for people and reach them emotionally.

Use Stories As Sales Tools:

1. Use stories to keep ideas in order and show ideas sequentially: First this happened and then that happened
2. Use stories to point out how this happened or that happened
3. Use stories to help others understand why things happen
4. Use stories to share information and to illustrate
5. Use stories to help illustrate principles that can be used in other situations

Stories Stimulate Even More Stories

Have you noticed people clamoring to tell you their story before you finish your story? When people listen to your story, they are actually visualizing their story.

Stories stimulate more stories and start conversation. You learn a lot from talking to people and when people tell you their stories, you learn even more about them.

If people don't talk back to you, you will have a problem selling them anything. Passive listeners may be thinking about dinner or picking up the dog from the veterinarian. Even worse, they may be thinking, "when is this presentation ever going to end?"

A client telling you a story is very likely the one to be telling you to write down orders. A storytelling client is an order waiting to happen! Remember that features and benefits are boring but people engaged in a story are emotionally connecting to you.

People see things through their paradigms. Be sure your story develops not simply from your point of view but a story that will stimulate a positive associate idea in others.

What sells people on your story is not your story, it's how they interpret the story for their own benefit or viewpoint. A story should not simply jump out of your mouth. It should be constructed to achieve your objective.
The key to crafting a story is the logical flow. It must have a beginning, middle and end. However, it needs a trigger to set off an emotion. The trigger can be something that will literally force the prospect to ask a question. A trigger can set off ideas of what to buy, when to buy and how to buy because your story is compelling.

How To Craft A Story

· Start with simple recognizable truths

· Show the way out of problems and situations

· Show how customers win

· Show why your products or service works better than competitors

· Show why your products or service has more value

· Use scenarios of what and why to make things work and happen

· Leave room for the listener to have their own points of view

· Have fun telling stories, be real, be alive

What will make you a great storyteller will be how well you craft stories to fit situations.

Ad-libbing stories without following an outline and strategic thinking may be hit-and-miss. Without a roadmap in your mind, a story told differently every time might have a different meaning every time.

You may be adding things that will get you off track, forgetting important ideas and getting yourself into twists that may alter the outcome. Critically, you may miss using an emotional trigger in the right place. You cannot expect the best results if you wing stories.

Develop a bank of sales stories that you can use to illustrate important points, scenarios, answer objections and show benefits though real-life situations or people and how others can meet their needs from your stories.

BrianJ. Bieler is the author of Powerful Steps and The Sales Operator. He draws on thirty plus years of experience as the President Viacom Radio Group and VP/General Manager of seven broadcast companies. He is a one-one-one leadership coach and consults companies on strategic planning and sales development. Visit www.brianbieler.com or e-mail Brian at brian@brianbieler.com.