GREAT LEADERS ALLOW OTHERS TO PERFORM AT THEIR BEST

The most important quality of great leaders, the one quality for which you want to be known, is extraordinary performance, with the goal of achieving extraordinary results.
These results then serve as an inspiration to others to perform at equally exceptional levels. People ascribe leadership to those men and women who they feel can most enable them to achieve important goals or objectives.

Great Leaders: Why People Respect You

We develop great perceptions of those men and women we can count on to help us achieve what is important to us. Men and women who make great sales, or who establish admirable sales records, develop influence in the minds and hearts of their coworkers and superiors. They are spoken about in the most positive way.

The Halo Effect

Men and women who are responsible for companies or departments that achieve high levels of profitability also develop charisma and self confidence. They develop what is called the “halo effect.” They are perceived by others to be extraordinary men and women and great leaders who are capable of great things. Their shortcomings are often overlooked, while their strong points are overemphasized. Great leaders are charismatic and display self confidence.

Self Confidence: The Source of Charisma

Charisma actually comes from working on yourself. It comes from liking and accepting yourself unconditionally as you do and say the specific things that develop within you a powerful, charismatic personality.

Be Result Oriented and Purposeful

When you set clear goals and become result oriented and purposeful, backing those goals with unshakable self confidence, you develop charisma. When you are enthusiastic and excited about what you are doing, when you are totally committed to achieving something worthwhile, you radiate charisma and self confidence. When you take the time to study and become an expert at what you do, and then prepare thoroughly for any opportunity to use your knowledge, skill or experience, the perception that others have of you goes straight up.

Accept Complete Responsibility

When you take complete responsibility and accept ownership, without making excuses or blaming others, you experience a sense of control that leads to the personal power that is the foundation of charisma. When you look like a winner in every respect, when you have the kind of external image that others admire, you build your charisma. When you develop your character by setting high standards and then disciplining yourself to live consistent with the highest principles you know, you become the kind of person who is admired and respected everywhere. You become the kind of person who radiates charisma to others.

Focus on Results

Finally, when you concentrate your energies on achieving the results that you have been hired to accomplish, the results that others expect of you, you develop the reputation for performance and achievement that inevitably leads to the perception of charisma and self confidence.
You can develop the kind of charisma that opens doors for you by going to work on yourself, consistently and persistently, and becoming the kind of person everyone can admire and look up to. That’s what charisma is all about.

Start Today

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, ask yourself every day, “What is the one thing that I and only I can do, that if done well, will make a real difference to my company?” Whatever your answer, go to work on that.
Second, decide upon the most important results you can get for your company and make sure that you and everyone else is working on those results every hour of every day.

THE KEY TO RAISING HAPPY AND HEALTH CHILDREN

The most important single role of parenting is to love and nurture your children and to build in them feelings of high self-esteem and self-confidence. If you raise your children feeling terrific about themselves, and full of eagerness to go out and take on the world, then you have fulfilled your responsibility.

Why Parents Don't Love Enough

There are two major reasons for the failure by parents to love their children enough. First, the parents do not love themselves. Parents with low self-esteem have great difficulty giving more love to their children than they feel for themselves. The second reason that parents don't love their children enough is they often have the mistaken notion that their children exist to fulfill their expectations.

Children are Not Property

The starting point of raising super kids is to realize that your children are not your property. Your children belong to themselves. They are a gift to you from high above, and a temporary gift at that.

Children are a Precious Gift

When you look at your children as precious gifts that you can only enjoy for a short time, you see your role as parents differently. When you celebrate and encourage the special nature and personality of your child, he or she grows like a flower in sunshine. But if you try to get your child to be something he or she is not, your child's spirit will wither like a leaf on a tree in autumn.

Love Makes the Difference

The most important consideration in raising super kids is the amount of love they receive. Children need love like flowers need water. A continuous flow of love and approval from the parent to the child is the child's lifeline to emotional and physical health. Love deprivation is surely the most serious problem that a child can suffer during his or her formative years.

Unconditional Love and Acceptance

Make it clear to your child that nothing he or she does could ever cause you to love him or her less than 100%. The most wonderful gift you can give your child is the absolute conviction that you love him or her completely, without reservation, no matter what he or she does and no matter what happens.

Praise and Encouragement

Give your children continual praise and encouragement for the positive things they do, even small things. Praise and reinforce what you would like to see repeated. Praise them to build their self-esteem and self-confidence.

Action Exercise

Ask yourself what it would be like to be your own child.

Put yourself in the position of your children, and then evaluate yourself as a parent. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you do well and what do you do poorly? What are some of the things that you do that might be causing your children to grow up with lower self-esteem than you would like?

OFFICE WARS: COMMON ISSUES AND SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

An office space is a fragile work environment. Often, people’s ways of thinking and behaviors clash with that of others. With all of the time spent together in such a space, it is inevitable that some warring will occur between coworkers. There are several common problems that occur in the office, but all have solutions to alleviate some of the tension.

The air conditioner conflicts

Every person’s body is different, and not everyone appreciates the same temperatures. When it comes to the thermostat setting, people’s varying comfort levels can easily turn it into a battle site. It is important to remember that the office is not home. Although sometimes it feels like home due to the amount of hours spent there, it is a shared space, and everyone deserves an equal amount of comfort.
To avoid conflict over the air conditioner, keep in mind the usual office temperature while dressing in the morning. Or, keep an extra sweater at the office. The best solution is to find a median temperature that all can agree on. If that isn’t possible, take turns with the thermostat.

The coffee pot conflicts

In addition to frigid temperatures, an empty coffee pot has the potential to incite a bit of an office rage. Everyone loves coffee, but no one loves to make it. The easiest way to keep the peace regarding the coffee pot is to create a coffee-making schedule.
It is a simple solution that reduces unnecessary bickering. The schedule should be an even and fair rotation of the duty. Also, out of respect, the person who takes the last drop from the pot should offer to make more for any interested parties.

The copy machine conflicts

Other pieces of equipment that are often responsible for office quarrels are the printer and the copy machine. Arguments and frustrations arise when a person uses these machines, relieves them of paper, and does not refill the paper supply.
It is inconvenient for anybody to take the time to refill the machine; however it is the simplest, most respectful, and most obvious way to deal with this office problem. Respect others and implement and obey the simple rule of replacing what you use every time you use it.

The promotion conflicts

A less simple office problem to deal with is the issue of competing for promotion by being the first one to arrive at work and the last to leave. This is a difficult one to work out, but if you don’t try, it will result in constant one-upping. That is unflattering to all players. Try to focus on your work performance and not on your co-worker’s performance.
Show your dedication to the company and your duties by doing your job well. If you choose to come in early and leave late, do it in a manner that is feasible to you. Make sure it does not wreak havoc on your life because it will affect your job performance. Compete with yourself, not your co-worker.

 Although offices are often places where the simplest things cause unsavory behavior among workers, they don’t have to be. Everyone pitching in to create a calm environment makes the days smooth and tolerable. No one wants a tense and argumentative place to work. A collaborative effort to make small changes will have big, positive results.

HOW TO NEGOTIATE PRICE: GET THE LOWEST PRICE POSSIBLE

Do you want to pay less for products that you really want?
There are a series of price negotiating tactics that you can use to get a better price for nearly any product.
If you are in sales you can also use these to negotiate the price of the products you are buying or selling.
These techniques also work in long-term business arrangements, where you will be working with the same party again, year after year.
These are 5 negotiation skills that you should be prepared to use in any selling situation.

1) How to Negotiate Price Using “The Flinch”

No matter what price the other person offers, flinch as if you just heard something very disappointing. Put a sad look on your face. Roll your eyes upward and back as though you were experiencing great pain.

Say something like, “Wow! That’s an awful lot of money!”

Surprisingly, sometimes just flinching will cause the other person to drop or increase the price immediately. And if the first flinch gets you a lower price when you are buying, or a higher offer if you are selling, be prepared to use the flinch again and again throughout the negotiation.

2) Asking Questions as a Negotiation Skill

Ask, “Is that the best you can do? Can’t you do any better than that?”

When you ask the price and the person tells you the price, you pause, look surprised, or even shocked, and say, “Is that the best you can do?”
And then remain perfectly silent. If there is any flexibility in the price, very often, the other person will drop the price immediately, or raise their offer immediately.
If they lower their price in response to, “Is that the best you can do,” you then say, “Is that the very best you can do?”

Ask, “Couldn’t you do any better than that?”
You can also ask, “What is the best you can do if I make a decision today?”

This adds an element of urgency and triggers the fear of losing the sale in the mind of the vendor.

3) How to Negotiate Price Using Assertion

Whatever price they give you for a particular item, you immediately reply, “I can get this cheaper somewhere else.”
Whenever you tell a person that you can get that item cheaper somewhere else, from one of their competitors, they immediately soften and begin to back pedal on the price. When you use this negotiation tactic to tell people you can get it cheaper somewhere else, they lose their confidence and become much more open to negotiating with you on a better price, rather than lose the sale altogether.

The assertion, “I can get this cheaper elsewhere,” often demolishes price resistance because they think that you will go somewhere else.

Remember to make it easy for a person to give you concessions. Don’t be adversarial or confrontational. Be a nice person. When you ask in a pleasant way, it’s much easier for the person to concede to you than if you are serious or aggressive.

4) Lowballing in Negotiations

When they ask you for $100, you lowball your answer and say, “I’ll give you $50 cash right now.”

Whenever you offer cash immediately, the price resistance of the other party diminishes dramatically. There are reasons why offering an all-cash deal causes people to be more open to doing business with you. The three most obvious ones are reduced inventory costs, no credit card merchant fees, and the feeling of “instant gratification.”
Sometimes, you will offer them $50 for a $100 item, and they will come back with an offer of $60. Very often you will find that even if you lowball at a price that seems ridiculous, they will sell it to you for far less than you ever thought you were ever going to have to pay.

5) Using “The Nibble” Negotiation Tactic

A nibble is an add-on.

You say something like, “Okay, I’ll agree to this price if you will throw in free delivery.”

If they hesitate about adding something else into the deal.

You can say in a pleasant way, “If you won’t include free delivery, then I don’t want the deal at all.”

Make it clear that you are willing to walk away if they are not willing to add something complementary to the deal.
Here is the key to how to negotiate the nibble. Agree on the purchase of the main item. Agree on the price and terms. Make it appear as if it is a done deal. The other person thinks they have sold the item, even a house, a car, or a boat, at a price that they are happy to receive. Then you add on additional requests.

Conclusion

Use these negotiation techniques to secure the best prices for yourself in business sales and in life. Never be afraid to ask for a better price, remember that prices are an arbitrary number for the most a salesperson thinks you’re willing to pay. You can almost always get a better price.

149 LAWS OF SUCCESS

Have you ever heard the common catchphrase "The little things mean the most?" If so, then you might also be familiar with one of the greatest success principles of all is called the Law of Accumulation.
This law says that everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of hundreds and sometimes thousands of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever sees or appreciates.
It says that everything accumulates over time. That you have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.
It's like a snowball. A snowball starts very small, but it grows as it adds millions and millions of tiny snowflakes and continues to grow as it gathers momentum.

Learn What You Need To Learn

There are three areas where the law of accumulation is important. The first is in the area of knowledge. Your body of knowledge is a result of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small pieces of information.

Any person with a large knowledge base has spent thousands of hours building that knowledge base one piece at a time. And what you see when you meet the individual is an expert in his or her field, with that high level of knowledge that makes him very valuable in the marketplace.

Save Your Money

The second area where the Law of accumulation works is with regard to money. Every large fortune is an accumulation of hundreds and thousands of small amounts of money, and the place to start is to take any amount of money that you can right now and begin to save it.

When you begin to save money, it sets up a force field of energy and it triggers the law of attraction. As a result you begin to attract to you even more bits of money to add to your savings.

And I've spoken to many, many successful people and they've told me the same story. That as soon as you start to put savings aside, it starts to attract into your life and into your work all the money that you need to achieve your goals.
The reason why most people retire poor is they never put the initial savings aside to start with.

Get the Experience You Need

The third area where the law of accumulation applies is in the area of experience. You'll find that successful people in any field are those who have far more experience in that field than the average. And there is nothing that replaces experience. Whether it's in business or entrepreneurship or management or parenting or selling or anything else.

Many people do not take the risks that are necessary to move out of their comfort zone because they're afraid it won't work out.

Everything Counts

But the fact is that until you move out of the comfort zone and get the experience from making the mistakes, it's not possible for you to grow and become capable of earning the kind of money that you desire.
Now here's the key to the law of accumulation. It says that everything counts. Everything that you do counts. The biggest mistake that people make is they think that only what they want to count, counts.

When you read a book, when you listen to an audio program, when you go to a course, when you go to bed early and you get up early and you work, it all counts. And it's all going on the plus side of your ledger.

Use Your Time Well

But when you watch television, waste time, hang out, fool around and so on, all of that counts, as well, and it's going on the negative side.
A person who has a great life, by the law of accumulation, is a person who's accumulated far more credits on the credit side than debits on the debit side. And here's an important point. If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it's moving you away from your goals. Nothing is neutral.
Everything that you're doing is either moving you toward the things that you want to accomplish in life, the person you want to be, the wealth you want to accumulate, or it's moving you away. Everything counts. The law of accumulation says that everything counts.

Action Exercises

First, begin today to build your knowledge base in the subject that can be most helpful to you in achieving financial independence. Whether it takes a week, a month or a year to become thoroughly knowledgeable, it doesn't matter. Just get started today.

Second, get as much experience as you can in your chosen field. Start a little earlier, work a little harder and stay a little later. Take risks and try every different way you can think of to achieve your goal. This experience is invaluable and it accumulates over time.

ACHIEVING PERSONAL EXCELLENCE

Personal excellence is perhaps the most important intangible "asset" that you can acquire. Achieving personal excellence in your business or industry requires lifelong dedication. But once you get into the top 10% of your field, you will be one of the highest paid people in the country. I think we can all agree that's something to aspire to.

Imagine how it will feel to have the utmost respect of the people around you. You'll be able to live your life the way you want to live it and enjoy high levels of self-esteem, self-respect, and personal pride.

Build Your Intellectual Assets

Each person can acquire three forms of intellectual capital. These require an investment of study and hard work but pay off in higher income for the rest of your life.

The first type of intellectual capital you can acquire consists of your core knowledge, skills, and abilities. These are the result of education, experience, and training. They determine how well you do your job and the value of your contribution to your business.

Build Your Internal Knowledge

The second form of intellectual capital that you possess is your knowledge of how your business operates internally, in comparison to that of your competitors or any other business.

Each business develops a series of systems, procedures, methods, techniques, and strategies to market, sell, produce, deliver products and services, and satisfy customers. Each business has internal systems for accounting, administration, and financial controls. These systems take many years to develop and considerable time for a new person to learn.

A person who knows and understands these systems intimately has a form of intellectual capital that is difficult for the company to replace.

Build Your Ability to Get Results

The third form of intellectual capital that you possess, and it's perhaps the key contributor to your earning ability, is your knowledge and understanding of how you can get financial results in a competitive market. This includes your knowledge of your products and services and how to sell them.

It includes your knowledge of customers and suppliers and how to deal with them. It embraces your familiarity with bankers, lawyers, accountants, and government officials and how to interact with them effectively. This form of intellectual capital may take years to build, and it is extremely valuable to your organization.

Your first responsibility to yourself is to develop your earning ability to a high level. You do this by continually increasing your intellectual capital, by upgrading your ability to do your job, by becoming a valuable part of your organization, and by getting more and better financial results for your organization.

Action Exercise

Take time to get to know every component of your business. Get to know your customers and learn everything there is to know about your products and services.

THE STUFF OF LEGENDS

Napoleon Hill, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard. What do all these authors and speakers have in common? It’s not what you might think.
Every person on this list has either overcame tragedy, illness, or debt in order to build a legacy that will last for generations. Every person on this list has been faithful with the little things, building a foundation that won’t easily be shaken by the weight of fame. Every person on this list is just like you and me: ordinary people, who have chosen to attempt extraordinary things.
You might think that the most successful people either came from a wealthy home, had prestigious schooling, or a perfect home life. But these people have proven this theory wrong—every single one had to work hard, find what they truly believed in, and do whatever it took to make a way for themselves. Let’s take a look at how we can learn from these people and their legacy.

Overcoming

“Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.” Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill, most famously know for “Think and Grow Rich,” knew well the sorrow of defeat that turned into the seed of success. After the passing of his mother, his father remarried and unknowingly gave Napoleon a great gift in disguise: his stepmother, Martha. She became a great source of wisdom, encouraging him that he was a intelligent young man that needed some guidance. She saw an author in him before he ever saw it himself, and encouraged him to use his overactive imagination to write. He went on to overcome more obstacles and became among the top 10 self-help authors of all time.
We are all undoubtedly familiar with motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, but did you know that he was pronounced dead nine days after birth? His grandmother prayed that he would not be taken from this earth, and he was revived in her arms. How amazing is it to know that a man who has had extraordinary success in his lifetime was not even expected to live past a few days old?

Pushing Past Rejection

Not only was Ziglar’s life a miracle from the beginning, but later on would endure rejection from THIRTY different publishers before Penguin went on to publish his first book, See You at the Top. It went on to sell over 250,000 copies!
He has been known to talk about his mother as a woman who overcame adversity, and instilled the values in him that developed his character before he ever had a platform. I’m sure she had something to do with his resiliency and perseverance.

You Have the Tools

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” Jim Rohn
Jim Rohn, motivational speaker, author and entrepreneur, dropped out of college and was bankrupt at the age of 25. He met a man named Earl Shoaff, who ended up personally coaching him and teaching him invaluable lessons about working hard and finding your true passions. He started as a department store clerk, knowing that he had to do SOMETHING in order to start crawling up the stairs of success. In six years, he overcame bankruptcy to become a millionaire, inspiring people everywhere that there was no such thing as “too far gone.”
Rohn has influenced many, including Tony Robbins, author, entrepreneur and life coach. Robbins came from a poor family who struggled to get by and often couldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. Despite his humble beginnings, he was inspired by Jim Rohn’s motivational seminars, and started out by promoting his products. He learned that it doesn’t matter where you came from or your financial situation—you always have resources to pull from and build upon. Tony has gone on to coach some of the world’s most high-profile people, including Oprah Winfrey, Andre Agassi, Bill Clinton, Paul Tudor Jones, Serena Williams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa.

Take Initiative

Stephen Covey, author, educator and speaker of 7 Habits fame was on track to a promising athletic career when he discovered a condition causing degeneration in his legs, leaving him to walk with crutches for the next few years. This didn’t stop him, but only propelled him into his true calling: speaking and writing. He could have let his illness destroy him, but instead built a legacy that all of us are gleaning from today.
“The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.” Stephen Covey

Start Dreaming

Brendon Burchard, author and motivational speaker, got in a horrible car accident at the age of 19. He explains the revelation after the accident as three questions that entered his mind: “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?” He knew that he was given a second chance to live, and wanted to look back on his life one day and see a legacy that mattered. He spent the next decade researching psychology and leadership, and went on to become a #1 best-selling author, performance coach, speaker and online educator.
“Imagine at the end of your life you are standing before your Creator, and He asks: Did you use the time I gifted you each day to be a purposeful being? Did you follow your own path and make your time count? How faithfully did you tend to the dream I sowed in your soul?” Excerpt from The Motivation Manifesto
The stories of these authors and speakers are both inspiring and motivating—we all have the tools with which we can build a legacy, regardless of where we are at currently. Whether it is an illness, death of a loved one, debt or accident, there is always a way we can turn our losses into a legacy. Let’s think back to the question we asked ourselves in the beginning of the series, and the challenge that Brendon Burchard’s story proposed:
What is it that you want to leave behind? What do you want to be known for?
There’s no better time to start dreaming, planning, and taking action in order to build your legacy.

7 WAYS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS

What does it take to be successful in today’s business world? It takes a lot of things to run a successful business.
To start, you have to have a product that’s wanted or needed, and it has to be properly priced. That’s just the beginning.

Tips for Growing Your Business

In order to have a successful business, practice these things. If your business strategy is lacking in a particular area, its time to fix it. These are seven tips to grow your business.

1) Be Hands-On and Meticulous

In order to grow your business, the business owner needs to be there all the time and hands on, like a doctor.
A business owner can never be afraid to do the small tasks. He or she should pitch in and straighten up boxes or pick up things. Small things do get noticed, so attention to detail is very important.”

2) Show Your Passion

Selling is a transfer of enthusiasm. Business owners need to show their enthusiasm for their product or service, as well as for their customers.
Besides showing passion, business owners need to be optimistic. In business, there are all kinds of problems. You have to look for the good in every situation and look for the lesson in everything that goes wrong.

3) Focus on the Customer

The purpose of business is not to make a profit. It’s to create and keep a customer. You want them to come the first time, then come again and finally bring their friends.
How you are doing is directly related to how many satisfied customers you have. To increase customer satisfaction, you have to listen to your customers and be involved in their buying experience.

4) Become More Competitive

Unless you have an exclusive monopoly, competition is everything and differentiation is the key to successful selling. You can’t be a ‘me-too’ company.
You must have a competitive advantage. If you don’t have one, create one.
It all comes down to your USP or unique selling proposition. This is what makes you better than your competitors. It can be your location, your product, but often it’s you. When customers think of a business, they often think of the people who make up that business and especially the owner.

5) Mind the Money

In putting together a business strategy, business owners should always focus on sales, revenues and cash flow, and to know every day how much money is being made. Focus on your net profit, not your gross profit. This gives you a more realistic view of how the business is doing.
Look to ‘idealize your business.’ Think about what your perfect business would look like, and figure out what you need to do to create it.

6) Be the Best

Successful business owners are always striving for excellence. They want to be the best at what they do. Being the best is about being in constant motion, working harder and faster. Being the best is also about wanting to learn more.

7) Measure Your Success

Everyone defines success differently. The best measure of success: Number one, you should enjoy what you do. That’s the ultimate success. Next, you should consistently hit your numbers, it shows that you know what you’re doing. Lastly, you should love your product or service, and you should love your customers. If you do all these, you can’t help but be successful.

Conclusion

All of these tips to growing a successful business are important. Having your own business is challenging and rewarding. It is important to plan and set your goals in the long term.

HOW TO SELL VALUE RATHER THAN PRICE

One of the great areas that I work on with corporations all over the world is called value selling, or the customer value offering.
Value selling says that customers buy your value or service because they anticipate enjoying a value that they would not have in the absence of your product or service. People don’t buy products, they buy the results the product will give them.

Sell the value and the benefit of your product or service to your customer.
Focus on explaining and expressing how it works for the customer. If you focus on the value, the price becomes less and less important. If you don’t focus on value, the only thing you can talk about is price.

What is Value Selling?

Now, here’s the research…
The research says that the value is the difference between the price you charge and the benefits the customer perceives they will get.
If the customer perceives they will get a lot of benefit for the price they pay, then their perception of value is very high. So you can control that.
Teach people how much they will benefit, how much your product or service will help them, and all of the things your product or service can do to help them achieve their goals and solve their problems. The more you focus on these values, the less important price becomes.

How to Sell Value Instead of Price

Here are a few actionable items you need to do to ensure you’ll get the sale.

1) Who Will Buy Your Product?

Ask yourself, “Who is the person who is most likely to buy my product and buy it immediately?”
Then create a customer avatar based on this information. How old are they? Are they male or female? Do they have children? How much money do they make? What is their level of education?

2) Identify Your Customer’s Problem Clearly

Once, you’ve done this, you’ll be able to move onto the next step which is identifying your ideal customer avatar’s problem clearly.
What kind of problem does your customer have that you can solve?
If you have identified your customer correctly, these people will pay you to solve their problem. Sometimes the problems are obvious and clear. Sometimes the problems are not obvious or clear.
Sometimes the problems do not exist for the customer. If the problem does not exist, the customer will not buy your product.

3) Make a List of All of Your Product Benefits

Finally, make a list of all of the benefits of your product or service and the ways it will solve your customer’s problems.
The more benefits and solutions you can clearly provide to your customers, the less they will be able to deny your product will solve their problem.
Those are my strategies for selling value versus selling price.

HOW TO TURN A NEGATIVE SITUATION INTO A POSITIVE ONE

Negative emotions are the single biggest enemy that any of us have.
If we had no negative emotions, our lives would be wonderful — as would our relationships, our health and everything else.

Where do Negative Emotions Come From?

The great business of life is to eliminate negative emotions. To solve this, we have to answer the question:
Where do negative emotions come from?
Almost all negative emotions depend on blaming someone or something else for negative situations that happen in their life. The problem here then, is that people hold on to those negative emotions, even if they cannot change the outcome and are angry about it.

The Key to Eliminating Negative Emotions

The key to eliminating negative emotions is this:
Take responsibility for yourself, your reactions and your situation.
You cannot take responsibility for your life, your situation, and your reactions and be negative at the same time. Your mind can only focus on one thought at a time, positive or negative.
So anytime you feel negative say to yourself over and over again:

“I am responsible.”

You might be thinking right now: “But Brian, in a situation involving other people, how can I be responsible for what they did?”
Here’s how: In every situation, whether it involves you directly or not, you are always at least partially responsible for what happened.
You got yourself into the situation, you stayed in the situation, you did or said certain things in the situation, so you’re not completely innocent. You at least had something to do with it.
Here’s another possibility: Let’s say you had nothing to do with the negative situation, maybe you weren’t involved at all. You’re still responsible for how you respond to it.
This is what is called your ‘response-ability’ — your ability to respond in a positive way. And again, to respond in a positive way, you simply repeat to yourself “I am responsible.”

You Have Complete Control

The truth is nobody can make you feel negative, other than you. If you think about things that make you feel unhappy or angry, you are going to feel negative. If you think about things that make you happy and excited about your life, you will feel positive.
The most important thing to remember about negative feelings is this: you have complete control over the way you feel, the way you respond to any situation and the things you think about at any minute of the day.
Exercise your ability to respond positively, take responsibility for your role in negative situations, and allow yourself to let go of negative feelings that might be trapped inside of you.

THE LAW OF ACCUMULATION

The little things mean the most.
Have you ever heard that common catchphrase? If so, then you might also be familiar with one of the greatest success principles of all:

The Law of Accumulation
Everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever sees or appreciates.

Imagine a snowball that starts very small and grows as it gathers momentum, adding millions and millions of tiny snowflakes. There are 3 areas where the Law of Accumulation helps you…
Area 1: Your Knowledge
Any person with a large knowledge base has spent thousands of hours building it one piece at a time. When you accumulate such know-how, you are viewed as an expert in your field — and it’s that high level of knowledge that will make you extremely valuable in the marketplace.
Area 2: Your Experience
Successful people in any field are those who have far more experience in that field than the average person. Whether it’s in business or entrepreneurship, management or parenting, selling or anything else, there is nothing that replaces experience. Nothing. But many people don’t take the necessary risks to move out of their comfort zone and gain that experience because they’re afraid it won’t work out.
Area 3: Your Money
Every large fortune is an accumulation of hundreds of thousands of small amounts of money. The best place to start is to take any amount of money that you can right now and begin to save it. When you begin to save money, it sets up a force field of energy and it triggers the Law of Attraction. As a result, you begin to attract even more money. I’ve spoken to many successful people and they’ve all told me the same story — as soon as you start to put savings aside, it starts to attract into your life and work all the money that you need to achieve your goals.
Every little thing counts. Use your time well.
Until you move out of your comfort zone and accumulate the knowledge and experience you get from trying new things and making mistakes, it’s not possible for you to grow and become capable of accumulating the kind of money that you desire.
Now here’s the key to the Law of Accumulation: everything that you do counts. The biggest mistake that people make is they think that only what they want to count, counts. That when you read a book, listen to an audio program, go to a course, go to bed early, it all counts towards your ledger. However, when you watch TV, waste time, hang out, fool around and so on, all of that counts as well, but negatively.
A person who has a great life is a person who has accumulated far more credits than debits. If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals. In life, you’re either moving forward or you’re moving backward. Nothing is neutral. Everything counts.
Get started today.

1. Make a commitment today to build your knowledge base in the subject that can be most helpful to you in achieving financial independence, no matter if it takes a week, a month, or a year.
2. Get as much experience as you can in your chosen field. Start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later.
3. Take risks and try every different way you can think of to achieve your goal. This experience is invaluable and it will accumulate over time.

What knowledge do you want to accumulate?

2 LEADERSHIP TRAITS YOU NEED TO BECOME A GREAT LEADER

The great Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, once said that there are three types of people: the people who make things happen, the people who watch what’s happening, and the people who haven’t the slightest idea of what’s happening. Today, as never before, our society is experiencing a pressing need for great leadership.
This need for leadership can be felt in our homes, in our business organizations, in our private and public associations, and in our government. We need great leadership more than ever before. And we especially need great leadership to take us into the future. We need people who have key leadership traits, they have a vision, courage, and the ability to chart new seas and break new ground.

Two Types of Leadership Traits

Leadership is the single most important factor in the success or failure of any business. Leaders are primarily self-made . . . they continually work to improve their skills and become more capable. In order to be successful in business, we need great leaders with two types of leadership traits.

1. The first type of leader that we need is the transformational leader. This leader is a pathfinder, a visionary. These types of leadership traits motivate, uplift, inspire, and empower people to perform at levels far beyond anything they’ve ever done before.
2. The second type of leader we need is perhaps the most important or foundational. They are the transactional leader. The transactional leader is the person who gets things done with and through others.

What is Great Leadership?

One of the major reasons that people go to work for any organization is because of the leadership. So what exactly is great leadership? Two excellent definitions of leadership apply especially to business organizations. The first one is: Great Leadership is the ability to elicit extraordinary performance from ordinary people. Another definition is: Great Leadership is the ability to get followers.

Leaders Are Made, Not Born

Leaders are made, not born. Nobody comes into the world as a natural leader. A person becomes a leader by, first of all, deciding to become a leader, and second of all, by learning the skills necessary to “elicit extraordinary performance from ordinary people.” Along a continuum of personalities at the very bottom are people who haven‘t the slightest idea about what is going on.
Then at the very top are those 1 or 2 percent of people in our society who really are the spark plugs in the engines of change. Every one of us is on that scale somewhere, moving up or down depending upon the things that we are doing and saying on a daily basis. You are what you think you are. Your self-concept determines your performance. You can become a much more effective leader by changing your self-concept, by changing the way you think about yourself as a leader.

Select Leadership Traits to Emulate

The starting point of developing great leadership traits is to begin thinking about the leaders you know, who you admire, and then to think about how you could emulate their behaviors. Think about the types of leadership that you could develop. In no time at all, you will actually begin to imitate their qualities and behaviors, and become a better leader yourself.
All great leaders were at one time good followers. All great leaders at one time worked closely with other successful leaders and learned from them and emulated their behaviors. The study of great leaders of the past and present is one of the fastest and surest ways to develop leadership traits and qualities. The more you study what constitutes great leadership, the more likely you will be to internalize the same values and behaviors. These values and behaviors will then be externalized in your actions and in your results.

Timeless Leadership Qualities

Today we find that the only lasting type of leadership is one that does not come from position, or from money or authority. It is what we call ascribed leadership, which occurs when people decide for themselves that they are going to follow the direction, the guidance, and the vision of someone else. In other words, it is a voluntary form of following that marks great leadership today. Great leaders have great leadership qualities and leadership traits that lift up and inspire people to achieve the same mission.

HOW TO CONQUER YOUR FEARS

Fear is and has always been the greatest enemy of mankind. The conquest of fear is perhaps the greatest challenge you will ever face in life. When Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he was poetically explaining that the emotion of fear, rather than the reality of what we fear, is what causes us anxiety, stress, and unhappiness.
Overcoming fear is essential to your success. The future belongs to the risk-takers, not the security seekers. Life is perverse in the sense that, the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve what you desire.

When you develop the habit of courage and unshakeable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for you.

Fortunately, the habit of courage can be learned just as any other habit is learned — through repetition. We need to constantly face and overcome our fears to build up the kind of courage that will enable us to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life. The starting point in overcoming fear and developing courage is to look at the factors that predispose us toward being afraid.

The root source of most fear is childhood conditioning.
During childhood, we most likely received destructive criticism. Although well-intentioned, parents, teachers, and mentors are often too critical of children. “What is wrong with you?” How could you be so irresponsible?” “Why didn’t you get the best?”
As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, this causes us to develop two major types of fear:

1. The fear of failure, which causes to think “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
2. The fear of rejection, which causes us to think “I have to, I have to, I have to.”

Fear is also caused by ignorance.

When we have limited information, our doubts dominate us. Ignorance causes us to fear change, fear the unknown, and avoid trying anything new or different. Think about the parts of your life where you have no fear at all because you know exactly what you’re doing. You feel competent and completely capable of handling whatever happens.
With all the recent events in our communities, our country, and the world, it’s clear to see that ignorance breeds fear. If we only took the time to learn more, educate ourselves, and understand what we may not know, we would have the courage to change everything. The more we know, the less we fear.

How to master your fears:

Once you have identified the major factors that cause you to feel afraid, the next step is to objectively define and analyze your personal fears.

1. Write “What am I afraid of?” at the top of a clean sheet of paper.
   You can also open a word document or a note on your mobile device.
   
2. Write down every major and minor fear that you have.Think about the aspects of your work and personal life where your fears might be holding you back or forcing you to stay in a job or relationship in which you are not happy.
   
3. Arrange them in order of importance.What are your biggest fears? Which ones do you need to conquer first?
   
4. Write out the worst possible outcome of each fear/situation.What is the worst possible thing that can happen as a result of this problem? Will you lose your money? Relationships? Job? Prestige? Write it down.
   
5. Resolve to accept the worst possible outcome, should it occur.
   Once you’ve done this, you no longer have anything to worry about because you’re no longer resisting to face the worst possible outcome.
   
6. Begin to improve upon the worst.
   Now think of everything that you could possibly do to make sure that the very worst does not occur.

Remember, everyone is afraid of something. It is normal and natural to be concerned about your physical, emotional, and financial safety and that of the people you care about. A courageous person is not a person who is unafraid. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.