Every Tuesday, sales expert Andy Bounds shares his top tips to improve your sales and communications. This week’s is…
Are your minimum standards high enough?
When British singer Seal proposed to supermodel Heidi Klum, he flew her by helicopter to unchartered terrain on a Canadian glacier. Once there, they stayed in an igloo he’d had built for them, and had it filled with rose petals, romantic bedding and candles…
Now, as well as this story explaining why most people don’t get to marry supermodels, it also reminds us of an important point: you’ve got to put the right levels of effort into your communications.
Most people claim they do this, but it’s always worth doing a quick self-test to check you do. So, when you/your team have an important communication to deliver, do you:
1. give yourself enough time to write compelling content
2. test this content, and incorporate people’s feedback
3. invest in impressive visuals
4. rehearse until it’s as good as you can get it
5. rigorously follow-up, until your communication has worked
If you always do these, that’s great.
However, in my experience, most people don’t.
And because doing all five is rare, some people think they’re going the ‘extra mile’ when they do them. I don’t agree with this at all. When you look at the list, they should be everyone’s minimum standards for important communications. They’re not the ‘extra mile’; they’re ‘the mile that everybody ought to take, but often don’t’.
So, what are your minimum standards? What are your team’s?
They might not work for you quite as quickly as Seal’s approach did for him, but having a ‘high minimum’ gives you more chance of achieving more, more often.
Action point
What’s your next big communication? Have you done the five fundamentals? If not, find the time to do them.
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Andy Bounds
Emma Merry(PA): +44 (0) 7900 217 929
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