Arguably, the most important skill in selling is listening. Some of us are better listeners than others, but we all must work on our listening skills if we are going to maximize our success in the business world.
• If you are going to be effective in selling, serving customers or managing others, you will need to [...]

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Several years ago, the coach of the Louisiana State University track team, Boots Garland, conducted a running clinic for some members of my youth baseball team. Coach Garland demonstrated how to increase running skills and quickness. He showed the players the small, detailed things that would improve their performance. Things like hand [...]

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I plan to strengthen habits related to building and deepening relationships.
Included in this area are:

sending more (and more timely) thank you notes.
intentionally connecting more often - with colleagues, clients and other cool people.
making time for friends, creating meaningful memories and conversations.

The key to making these happen is to take action. I have been and will [...]

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I recently heard one of the presidential candidates asked about why their view had changed on an issue. Their response was something like: “I don’t think we want a President who never changes his mind, who doesn’t listen to new arguments, who isn’t open to change.”
This is an incredibly valuable question, because while you have [...]

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I believe this question is extremely powerful because it makes us intentional and conscious as learners. In many ways this is the necessary follow-up question to the
second in this series - What are my goals?
Why?
Because when we set goals by definition identifying gaps in our knowledge.
In my experience most goals require more than just [...]

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The answer for me is clear - I need to get better at execution and implementation. At
The Kevin Eikenberry Group we are excellent at surfacing ideas and opportunities, and while we do get a lot done, we don’t do as well in this area as we could. Let me rephrase that and put the [...]

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My answer to this one is simple. I will use my skills to serve others.
I believe this approach I allows me to not only serve others, but reach my personal and business goals, and ultimately make the world a better place.
I plan to do this by writing, speaking, listening, consulting, and training. I plan to [...]

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From a business perspective this one is pretty easy. I would have focused more on execution. My team and I are pretty good at coming up with new ideas and figuring out how to use and leverage those ideas. We aren’t quite so good at execution.
An outsider might say that we do get a lot [...]

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While I believe it is valuable to share your most important goals with one or a few people (specifically people who will be supportive of you reaching those goals), I don’t know that I want to share ALL of my most important goals with the entire world in this forum. Besides our family goal setting [...]

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As I will do with each of these questions during this journey, I won’t bare my soul with my complete answer, but I will share items that are true for me and perhaps hold a message for all of us.
The immediate accomplishment that comes to my mind is the publishing, and so-far successful marketing of [...]

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