Beyond Good and Bad
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
Experience is utility. Utility is the value of a thing to be used for certain ends - basically its usefulness. For example a set of tools are 'utilized' to perform certain mechanical tasks. Experience in and of itself has utility. What I mean by this is that every experience serves as a tool for use to expand our possibilities.
Often, we filter our experiences through a lens that tags circumstances and situations with a 'bad' label or 'good' label. This way of thinking is ancient. Ancient in the sense that it is obsolete and dangerous. To truly make utility out of experience we must create new filters through which we can 'see' reality through a pragmatic lens.
We can see value and utility in all experiences by asking questions that guide our awareness and focus. For example, instead of presupposing a situation is good or bad, you can ask "how is this situation useful.' Also, we can ask 'what opportunities does this situation present?'
By stopping yourself short of analyzing a situation as good or bad, it gives you a chance to apply a new filter and gradually acquire a habit that will increase your quality of life.
- Angel Armendariz
Showing posts with label sales tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sales tips. Show all posts
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Unified By a Threat
Unified By Threats?
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
JFK's vision of putting a man on the moon unified a nation towards a goal. Unification can be created through a vision or a threat. Remember the 9/11 bombings of the Twin Towers? What happened immediately after? All of a sudden everyone was nice to each other in America, everybody was patriotic; flags soared throughout our nation. Why? Because, a threat was encountered.
This interesting facet of human behavior works every time in most any situation. Take yourself for example. Have you ever felt lost? Or felt fragmented? Or unmotivated? Probably because there was no vision beyond your current state, or no impending threat. If we can find ways to create compelling visions, or artificial threats we can unify ourselves, and act as a whole towards an objective. Ken Wilber, American Philosopher, said that we seek "self realization, through self-transcendence;" in a way this exactly what we're talking about here.
Competition in essence in its basic form uses this model. Especially team sports where you're working towards a goal beyond yourself. In team sports you not only have a compelling vision to win, but you also have a powerful threat - the opposing team.
How about sales? In a sales you can establish immediate rapport by finding a common vision or threat with your client. Some sales forces already do something similar. For example, some finance companies will have the sales agent play the role of "being on your side" against the corporate presidents that will either deny or approve you. The sales agent becomes a team with you against the threat of the fickle executives.
The ultimate utopian vision of world peace and harmony would easily occur spontaneously upon the threat from outside our planet. If we were suddenly under attack by aliens....wallah!...the world would unify and differences, inadequacies, beliefs, history, and everything else would vanish and we would come together.
Angel Armendariz
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes
JFK's vision of putting a man on the moon unified a nation towards a goal. Unification can be created through a vision or a threat. Remember the 9/11 bombings of the Twin Towers? What happened immediately after? All of a sudden everyone was nice to each other in America, everybody was patriotic; flags soared throughout our nation. Why? Because, a threat was encountered.
This interesting facet of human behavior works every time in most any situation. Take yourself for example. Have you ever felt lost? Or felt fragmented? Or unmotivated? Probably because there was no vision beyond your current state, or no impending threat. If we can find ways to create compelling visions, or artificial threats we can unify ourselves, and act as a whole towards an objective. Ken Wilber, American Philosopher, said that we seek "self realization, through self-transcendence;" in a way this exactly what we're talking about here.
Competition in essence in its basic form uses this model. Especially team sports where you're working towards a goal beyond yourself. In team sports you not only have a compelling vision to win, but you also have a powerful threat - the opposing team.
How about sales? In a sales you can establish immediate rapport by finding a common vision or threat with your client. Some sales forces already do something similar. For example, some finance companies will have the sales agent play the role of "being on your side" against the corporate presidents that will either deny or approve you. The sales agent becomes a team with you against the threat of the fickle executives.
The ultimate utopian vision of world peace and harmony would easily occur spontaneously upon the threat from outside our planet. If we were suddenly under attack by aliens....wallah!...the world would unify and differences, inadequacies, beliefs, history, and everything else would vanish and we would come together.
Angel Armendariz
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
What Kind of Question Is That
Questions are brutally powerful. So powerful in fact that they are the very source of science itself. The very fact that you're able to read this from where you are right now is due to questions. I wonder how many people have actually studied the history of questions and the impact certain questions have had. In your own life questions guide focus, they guide decisions, feelings, moods, emotions, and concepts.
What would happen if you consciously chose which questions you asked yourself throughout the day? For example, during lunch time instead of the trite & overused "What's for lunch?" we asked "What can I eat right now to build a beautiful physique and enhance my energy level?" Do you see the power here?
The small distinctions questions can make in your life can be a gigantic lever of power. Here are some more questions, instead of "How could he...or...why would she?" we could use "How can I....or...what would it take to...?" The key difference here is the first form of question makes us focus on the problem and the power of it. The second set forces you to focus on the desired outcome. Amazing how simple, yet how effective.
Another trick to making question work for you is to refer the question back to you. This gives you honest responsibility, and thus the power to change things in your hands. For example, "why didn't he buy from me?" would be changed to "what could I do to make the sale?" Even better, in regards to a sale, is flat out asking "what would it take for you to buy?" at the point of sales, instead of second guessing and wasting time after the fact.
Novel forms of psychology stem from these lines of questions. The old school Freudian camp were the proverbial "why" junkies. This psychoanalysis was great at wasting time and making a persons problems overwhelming. Forms of psychology that started asking the "how's" and the "what's" questions actually produced radically fast results. Gestalt, Cognitive-psych, and NLP, were the primordial forms of these evolved, results/goal-oriented based psychology therapies.
To change anything immediately change the question. You'll have the honor of joining a group including Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Socrates, and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Angel Armendariz
What would happen if you consciously chose which questions you asked yourself throughout the day? For example, during lunch time instead of the trite & overused "What's for lunch?" we asked "What can I eat right now to build a beautiful physique and enhance my energy level?" Do you see the power here?
The small distinctions questions can make in your life can be a gigantic lever of power. Here are some more questions, instead of "How could he...or...why would she?" we could use "How can I....or...what would it take to...?" The key difference here is the first form of question makes us focus on the problem and the power of it. The second set forces you to focus on the desired outcome. Amazing how simple, yet how effective.
Another trick to making question work for you is to refer the question back to you. This gives you honest responsibility, and thus the power to change things in your hands. For example, "why didn't he buy from me?" would be changed to "what could I do to make the sale?" Even better, in regards to a sale, is flat out asking "what would it take for you to buy?" at the point of sales, instead of second guessing and wasting time after the fact.
Novel forms of psychology stem from these lines of questions. The old school Freudian camp were the proverbial "why" junkies. This psychoanalysis was great at wasting time and making a persons problems overwhelming. Forms of psychology that started asking the "how's" and the "what's" questions actually produced radically fast results. Gestalt, Cognitive-psych, and NLP, were the primordial forms of these evolved, results/goal-oriented based psychology therapies.
To change anything immediately change the question. You'll have the honor of joining a group including Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Socrates, and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Angel Armendariz
Thursday, August 23, 2007
93% of What You Say; You Don't...
Those of you who have read my e-book "How To Become a Sales God" know that I emphasize a lot of nonverbal communication strategies. A lot of this information comes from several sources. First, Richard Bandler, and John Grinder; the creators of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Other resources are Daniel Goleman, from Harvard (emotional/social intelligence) and Alfred Korzybski(General Semantics). The unifying thread among these individuals is their analysis of non-verbal communication. It turns out MIT re-discovered what's been discovered.
Research has pointed out that roughly 7% of what you say is transmitted to another via the content (actual words). That leaves about 93% in limbo. It turns out that the 93% comes from body movements, facial expressions, eye movements, tone of voice, pitch, and pace. The founders of NLP provided the most comprehensive outline of how what we think is expressed by our non-verbal "cues." They did so by meticulously observing 3 of the most powerful therapists of the 20th century, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, & Milton Erickson (Gregory Bateson, also provided context for NLP).
The popularization of NLP also had an ambassador in Anthony Robbins. Robbins through his books & training became a powerful leader in the Human Potential Movement.
What's most interesting about this is the fact that much of this research is ignored. However, some institutions, such as the U.S. Military, have used the expertise of NLP trainers to enhance soldier performance.
I was reading a executive level business magazine yesterday, and found myself learning about the re-discovery of the power of non-verbal communication. Forty years after Bandler & Grinder innovated NLP, MIT, Human Dynamics Group, found evidence, analyzing customer service reps; that successful reps talk little & listen much; and logic, context, words mean little, what matters is pitch and tone. Wow, MIT on the cutting edge. Why, do we extend our learning curves so much?
Just in case you didn't believe me about the power of non-verbal communication...now I can reference MIT, lol; at least that adds more credibility.
-Angel Armendariz
Research has pointed out that roughly 7% of what you say is transmitted to another via the content (actual words). That leaves about 93% in limbo. It turns out that the 93% comes from body movements, facial expressions, eye movements, tone of voice, pitch, and pace. The founders of NLP provided the most comprehensive outline of how what we think is expressed by our non-verbal "cues." They did so by meticulously observing 3 of the most powerful therapists of the 20th century, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, & Milton Erickson (Gregory Bateson, also provided context for NLP).
The popularization of NLP also had an ambassador in Anthony Robbins. Robbins through his books & training became a powerful leader in the Human Potential Movement.
What's most interesting about this is the fact that much of this research is ignored. However, some institutions, such as the U.S. Military, have used the expertise of NLP trainers to enhance soldier performance.
I was reading a executive level business magazine yesterday, and found myself learning about the re-discovery of the power of non-verbal communication. Forty years after Bandler & Grinder innovated NLP, MIT, Human Dynamics Group, found evidence, analyzing customer service reps; that successful reps talk little & listen much; and logic, context, words mean little, what matters is pitch and tone. Wow, MIT on the cutting edge. Why, do we extend our learning curves so much?
Just in case you didn't believe me about the power of non-verbal communication...now I can reference MIT, lol; at least that adds more credibility.
-Angel Armendariz
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
7 Answers To a Highly Effective Question
"What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal, professional, or work life?"
7 Common Answers:
- Improving communication with people
- Better preparation
- Better planning and organizing
- Taking better care of self
- Seizing new opportunities
- Personal development
- Empowerment
That is a question Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People asks at his seminars. What a powerful question. The usual responses are fascinating; how many of you would answer in a similar manner?
If you think about the most valuable resource you can have; it would almost certainly be "improved communication with people" (sales ability). Want improved relationships? How about more friends? I know, we all want more money. Some parents might want a resource to help with their kids. There are also some of us who are depressed. Some of us lack motivation. A group of us just doesn't believe in ourselves....Do any of these sound like you?
If so, then you must agree that improved communication would be the one ability you would like to do superbly well and consistently, to have a significant positive impact in your life. With all the power promised by communication...you would think that we would all be flocking to resources via books, training, coaching, etc.
Do you?
It amazes me that with all the value in communication we are so atrophied in that arena. A colleague of mine once commented, "Angel serenades his clients over the phone with his voice..." I took this as a complement, however; I couldn't say the same thing for him. Truth be told, I have worked on my voice...and I still do. If how well I live my life has to do with how I communicate with people then I'll definitely work the probabilities in my favor and work on all channels of communication consistently.
Now here's something few people ever think about. You communicate with yourself all day long. You talk to yourself, you convince yourself, you insult, provoke, congratulate, sell,... You are both the buyer and the seller. You try to sell yourself on working out, or the new diet, or taking care of important things. How good are you at selling yourself? Unfortunately, I've met few individuals who are aware, much less competent, at being able to make themselves do the things that they "know" they should do. Why is that? Again, because we have not consistently worked on our communication and selling skills. We don't know how to sell ourselves on anything...thus we are sold anything being peddled in our environment.
As you can see...I'm passionate about communication and its effect on every aspect of our lives.
-Angel Armendariz
7 Common Answers:
- Improving communication with people
- Better preparation
- Better planning and organizing
- Taking better care of self
- Seizing new opportunities
- Personal development
- Empowerment
That is a question Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People asks at his seminars. What a powerful question. The usual responses are fascinating; how many of you would answer in a similar manner?
If you think about the most valuable resource you can have; it would almost certainly be "improved communication with people" (sales ability). Want improved relationships? How about more friends? I know, we all want more money. Some parents might want a resource to help with their kids. There are also some of us who are depressed. Some of us lack motivation. A group of us just doesn't believe in ourselves....Do any of these sound like you?
If so, then you must agree that improved communication would be the one ability you would like to do superbly well and consistently, to have a significant positive impact in your life. With all the power promised by communication...you would think that we would all be flocking to resources via books, training, coaching, etc.
Do you?
It amazes me that with all the value in communication we are so atrophied in that arena. A colleague of mine once commented, "Angel serenades his clients over the phone with his voice..." I took this as a complement, however; I couldn't say the same thing for him. Truth be told, I have worked on my voice...and I still do. If how well I live my life has to do with how I communicate with people then I'll definitely work the probabilities in my favor and work on all channels of communication consistently.
Now here's something few people ever think about. You communicate with yourself all day long. You talk to yourself, you convince yourself, you insult, provoke, congratulate, sell,... You are both the buyer and the seller. You try to sell yourself on working out, or the new diet, or taking care of important things. How good are you at selling yourself? Unfortunately, I've met few individuals who are aware, much less competent, at being able to make themselves do the things that they "know" they should do. Why is that? Again, because we have not consistently worked on our communication and selling skills. We don't know how to sell ourselves on anything...thus we are sold anything being peddled in our environment.
As you can see...I'm passionate about communication and its effect on every aspect of our lives.
-Angel Armendariz
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Communication Universe - Are there Absolute Laws?
"Desire is possibility seeking expression, or function seeking performance."
- Wallace D. Wattles
In quantum physics scientists are in a race to find the "absolute" laws of existence. The presupposition is that "absolute" laws actually exist. We generally assume that there have to be absolute laws or ultimate truth. But, why do we think that? Maybe its a desire for a sense of certainty of some permanence to our lives. Nonetheless
I now ask the same question of Communication. In the broad category of Communication lets include all interpersonal forms of communication. Sales, marketing, casual persuasion, pick up strategies, essays, and public speaking. Would we be able to assume that these communication modes abide by "absolute" or "universal" laws? We would of course use something more fundamental to communication to describe this underlying template we suspect. Principles, are generally the equivalent to the quantum physicists "absolute" laws.
Acting is Sales?
Lets look at some principles. We'll first venture into Acting. Acting is all about communication...
James R. Alburger, acting and voice-over coach, gives this as the recipe for Selling the audience:
-Interrupt
-Engage
-educate
-offer
James, gives his students those for "principles" for capturing listeners attention. Hmmm...If i didn't know any better I'd say that those principles look eerily familiar to a sales pitch process. Or even a marketing pitch. Lets look at a famous sales pitch process. This is Neil Rackhams's Spin Selling formula:
-Situation
-Problem
-Implications
-Needs-Payoff
Courtship Ritual
Interesting...Could this apply online? Maria Veloso, a web copyrighting master, says yes. In Mitch Meyerson's book, Success Secrets of The Online Marketing Superstars, Maria Veloso describes a sales script meticulously made to move in the same linear format as the two examples above. She obviously gets the fact that the process is not about a "quickie"...she describes it quite intimately however, courtship like -"Seducing your Web visitor is like a dance, wherein you lead and they follow. You make a move, they respond accordingly, you take another step and they follow your lead in a seamless relay that ultimately leads to the sale." How's that for using the courtship analogy...
-Angel Armendariz
- Wallace D. Wattles
In quantum physics scientists are in a race to find the "absolute" laws of existence. The presupposition is that "absolute" laws actually exist. We generally assume that there have to be absolute laws or ultimate truth. But, why do we think that? Maybe its a desire for a sense of certainty of some permanence to our lives. Nonetheless
I now ask the same question of Communication. In the broad category of Communication lets include all interpersonal forms of communication. Sales, marketing, casual persuasion, pick up strategies, essays, and public speaking. Would we be able to assume that these communication modes abide by "absolute" or "universal" laws? We would of course use something more fundamental to communication to describe this underlying template we suspect. Principles, are generally the equivalent to the quantum physicists "absolute" laws.
Acting is Sales?
Lets look at some principles. We'll first venture into Acting. Acting is all about communication...
James R. Alburger, acting and voice-over coach, gives this as the recipe for Selling the audience:
-Interrupt
-Engage
-educate
-offer
James, gives his students those for "principles" for capturing listeners attention. Hmmm...If i didn't know any better I'd say that those principles look eerily familiar to a sales pitch process. Or even a marketing pitch. Lets look at a famous sales pitch process. This is Neil Rackhams's Spin Selling formula:
-Situation
-Problem
-Implications
-Needs-Payoff
Courtship Ritual
Interesting...Could this apply online? Maria Veloso, a web copyrighting master, says yes. In Mitch Meyerson's book, Success Secrets of The Online Marketing Superstars, Maria Veloso describes a sales script meticulously made to move in the same linear format as the two examples above. She obviously gets the fact that the process is not about a "quickie"...she describes it quite intimately however, courtship like -"Seducing your Web visitor is like a dance, wherein you lead and they follow. You make a move, they respond accordingly, you take another step and they follow your lead in a seamless relay that ultimately leads to the sale." How's that for using the courtship analogy...
-Angel Armendariz
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