Have yourself a merry little Christmas…
All The Best To You & Yours This Holiday Season!
Steve 
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
December 24, 2012
Success Lessons From Zig
December 10, 2012
Good Day & Happy Holiday Season All,
As you may know, famed motivational speaker, author and man with the coolest name in the biz, Zig Ziglar, died on November 28th at the age of 86.
Over five decades, Ziglar authored more than two dozen books on salesmanship and personal ‘self-help’ development, emphasizing that success is dependent mainly on ones attitude and motivation, rather than educational aptitude or salesy schmoozing ability.
Regarded as one of the best motivational speakers of our time, Zig would regularly pack arenas to share his message of positive attitude, motivation and success through stories highlighted with short quotes that have become like commandments for success with his legions of followers.
Below are my favorite lessons from Zig that apply directly to my Pinnacle Performance teachings:
You Have To Start To Be Great
Expect The Best
Your Attitude Determines Your Altitude
People Buy Emotionally
Be a Friend First
Motivate Daily
Help Others To Help Yourself
Make A Great Day!
Steve 🙂
More > Misc Brain Food
See All > Pinnacle Performance Quotes on Pinterest
John Maxwell: “Five Frogs Are Sitting on a Log…”
September 19, 2012
Excerpted from John Maxwell’s upcoming book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth –
When I was a kid, one of my father’s favorite riddles to us went like this: Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?
The first time he asked me, I answered, “One.”
“No,” he responded, “Five. Why? Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing!”
That was a point that Dad often drove home with us. American politician Frank Clark said, “What great accomplishments we’d have in the world if everybody had done what they intended to do.”
Most people don’t act as quickly as they should on things. They find themselves subject to the Law of Diminishing Intent, which says, “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.”
The reality is that you will never get much done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready.
Read more about John Maxwell in the October SUCCESS cover story.
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
Richard Branson on the Secret to Exceeding Customer Expectations
September 6, 2012
No doubt about it, Virgin Airlines is a Pinnacle Performance company. Over the years, they have accumulated many accolades and awards for outstanding customer service.
Virgin’s customer service philosophy and direction comes in large part from their eccentric leader, Sir Richard Branson. In this recent article from Entrepreneur Magazine, he shares his insight on how Virgin manages to deliver over-and-above customer service while maintaining competitive pricing.
Click-On Link To Open Article > Richard Branson on the Secret to Exceeding Customer Expectations
Source: Entrepreneur Magazine
Back To Business
September 4, 2012
Good Day All,
Hope everyone had a good long weekend and all is well.
With September upon us it’s time to end Summer vacation (even if only mental) and have a renewed focus on business.
Pinnacle Performance can only be achieved by those who are committed to continuous improvement and consistent personal progression.
Don’t wait for success to happen… Make It Happen!
Steve 🙂
Discipline for Success
August 21, 2012
Discipline is a fundamental component of success in anything in life.
Have you ever seen an athlete achieve world-class greatness without discipline to their sport and a commitment to working on their game and honing their skills? Champions rarely wing it.
Have you ever seen a seriously overweight individual get in shape without discipline to some form of diet and exercise? Most likely, no.
Sadly, it is rare to see the same level of discipline in sales and/or customer service reps. Sure, the consistent achievers (Pinnacle Performers) have it. But they are often the exception and not the rule.
Everyone wants success in their sales or customer service role. True performers achieve success by committing to continuously improving their skill set and performance.
I once had a trainee tell me that he didn’t like to role play (customer interaction scenarios) because he didn’t feel he was very good at it and he would be “a mess”.
Imagine telling your (pick a sport) coach that you don’t want to practice because you’re not very good at running the plays? That’s the point of practice!
I tell trainees all the time, the program works if you work the program. All it takes is discipline.
Steve 🙂
Persist To Succeed
August 6, 2012
Good Day All,
The attached image shows just a few but many of the world’s greatest accomplishments never would have been achieved without persistence.
Right now, in a tough economy, there is much to challenge your chances of success. Consumers limiting their spending, reduced traffic in the stores, etc. It is easy to fall victim to these external issues and lose your internal drive.
Persistence takes practice. It’s something you bring to work every day. Regardless of what your goal may be, you can only accomplish it if you persist towards it with daily focused behaviors.
Commit to moving forward every day, each another step of progress and one step closer to your goal and ultimate success.
Steve 🙂
View All Pinnacle Performance Quotes > Pinnacle Performance Quotes on Pinterest
Applying Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for Pinnacle Performance
July 17, 2012
Hi All,
As you may know, Stephen Covey, author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and three other self-help books that have all sold more than a million copies each, died today of complications from a bicycle accident in April.
One of my personal favorite personal development authors, Mr. Covey’s taught invaluable lessons and principles that have inspired me and countless others to improve both their professional and personal lives.
The following is an article I wrote that is based on the relation of champion performers and Covey’s most popular work, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Applying Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for Pinnacle Performance
Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are a simple set of rules for life – powerful principles anyone can apply to improve their personal productivity and performance.
In this article, we’ll overview each of the habits and how they apply to achieving Pinnacle Performance as a sales or customer service professional.
Habit 1: Be Proactive ®
Covey states that this habit is the ability to control one’s environment, rather than have it control you, as is so often the case. This habit is in perfect harmony with one of my Pinnacle Performance Essential Elements of Extraordinary Service, “Responsiveness”. This element affirms that customers want their needs met with speed and purpose and service providers that take initiative and are proactive to their needs rather than them having to ask for assistance.
Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind ®
Covey describes this as the habit of personal leadership, the ability to lead oneself towards desired goals. In a meaningful way, this habit really is the foundation of my Pinnacle Performance teachings with focus on market-leading ‘world-class’ businesses and performers and how to apply their winning best practices and principles to individual efforts and the organization as a whole. In a nutshell, a sure path to achieving world-class performance is to begin with what world-class performance is, how it got that way, and then use that model to guide personal behaviors and those in your own organization.
Habit 3: Put First Things First ®
Covey states that this is the habit of personal management and organizing and implementing activities in line with the goals established in habit 2. This habit represents the execution elements of Pinnacle Performance. Too often sales and service personnel go through the motions and don’t follow any real process. Successful organizations and individuals recognize that success has a code and that by maintaining adherence to proven processes they can achieve their performance goals.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win ®
This Covey habit is based on the principle that success is a natural extension of a co-operative ‘win-win’ approach over that of confrontational win-or-lose mindset. I see this all the time in sales organizations… Personnel try so hard to sell, to ‘close the deal’, that they lose focus of the most important person in the business relationship – the customer. By focusing on helping customers solve their needs/wants we properly position ourselves as trusted advisors (rather than salespeople) and create sustainable win-win relationships.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand and then to be Understood ®
This is Covey’s habit of effective communication. My personal favorite, this principle goes hand-in-hand with Pinnacle Performance. A chief component of successful communication is the ability to actively listen to what is being said first before responding. Too often sales and service personnel do not seek first to understand and instead push their agenda and alienate potential customers. The Pinnacle Performance Therapeutic Selling model aligns with this habit by positioning personnel to behave as doctors and diagnose first, then prescribe.
Habit 6: Synergize ®
Covey says this is the habit of creative co-operation, the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the glue of the Pinnacle Performance ‘winning team’ culture framework. Pinnacle Performance organizations recognize the sum of collective knowledge is greater than individual wisdom and they encourage information sharing and an environment of open communication where employees are comfortable contributing their feedback and ideas to improve performance.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw ®
According to Covey, this is the habit of self-renewal, enabling personal growth and development. This is the reason many sales/customer service trainings fail, organizations conduct a one-time training and don’t continue to sharpen the saw. This is the reason most individuals are not Pinnacle Performers. They attend a training session and don’t continue to sharpen the saw. To truly create world-class performance and lasting success, you must consistently sharpen the saw with a disciplined and committed training regimen and personal continuous improvement.
For a pdf version of this article, click-on here > Applying Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for Pinnacle Performance
The 7 Habits are registered trademarks of Stephen Covey.
Poor Wellbeing Is Killing Your Business!
July 13, 2012
Hi All,
Anyone familiar with my Pinnacle Performance training knows that we spend considerable time learning about market-leading companies and how, to the point of this post, building a winning team corporate culture leads to increased employee engagement and, ultimately, greater customer engagement and sales performance.
Well here’s a fantastic new article from the Gallup Business Journal that supports those principles and then some.
A Q & A wih Tom Rath and Jim Harter, Ph.D., authors of the bestseller Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, the result of decades of research into wellbeing.
Click-On Here To Open Article > Poor Wellbeing Is Killing Your Business!
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
Keep Moving Forward To Succeed
July 2, 2012
Hi All,
As any calendar will tell you, we are now officially half-way through 2012. And this midway point comes smack dab in the summer season when it’s easy to be distracted by the nice weather and thoughts of being out of work for a little fun in the sun.
That’s great and well deserved for your efforts. Just don’t take that mental vacation while at work too…
You are (or should be) on the right track to a Pinnacle Performance year. This is no time to stop and smell the roses.
Keep moving forward towards your goal and striving to be better today then you were yesterday.
Walk The Path!
Steve 
Pinnacle Performance Champions 