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 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 🙂
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 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 🙂
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 
Greetings Pinnacle Performers,
The attached excellent infographic highlights an abundance of data on customer service, why exceptional customer service is so important and what companies are doing to successfully meet the demands of today’s consumer driven market.
In short, a bunch of reasons why you and your business have to be consistent in delivering world-class customer service every day!
Walk The Path!
Steve 🙂
Hi All,
In one way or another, I speak about this all the time in my Pinnacle Performance training.
The fact of the matter is you’re not a monopoly in the marketplace. There’s likely many people and companies who do what you do.
When product and/or services are identical from company-to-company they are automatically commoditized with lowest price being the single biggest purchase influencer. When you are the same as everyone else in your role then you too are commoditized and worth only the “going rate” for your daily duties.
The best performing companies, and the people in them, are innovators. They don’t behave like everyone else. They go over-and-above to create special value for their customers, internally and externally.
They take the road less traveled and that truly does make all the difference.
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
See All Pinnacle Performance Quotes > Pinnacle Performance Quotes on Pinterest
In my Pinnacle Performance sales/customer service/professional development training, I teach clients that that they typically don’t have to do a major overhaul and change everything they’re doing to achieve superior results. Rather, they need to assess their personal performance and consistently make small changes in their behaviors and execution. It is these small changes that when compounded day-by-day can produce BIG RESULTS.
This short clip from Tony Robbins is very much in line with that principle. Here he speaks about how “millimeter shifts” can dramatically improve your outlook and performance.
Make a Great day!
Steve
Good Day All,
How true this next Pinnacle Performance quote is…
Executing extraordinary work puts your stamp of excellence and leaves a lasting impression with customers and co-workers.
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
See All of Steve’s Pinnacle Performance Image Quotes on Pinterest > Pinnacle Performance Quotes on Pinterest
