Important basics when cold calling:

Preparation:
Of yourself, environment, product/service knowledge, and your company. 
Introduction: 
Getting attention, key connection phrases explaining your purpose. Try explaining what your product or service has achieved elsewhere. 
Questioning: 
Use thought provoking questions to facilitate understanding and enable a dialogue - try not to sell or push just yet. 
Objectivity: 
Be objective in your call. You do not have the answers all the time. Nor does your product or service. 
Listen and interpret: 
Do not jump to conclusions. Try to clarify any areas that are unclear. 
Inform and recap: 
Work with the client/prospect to review needs. 
Clearly Identify Needs: If needs are Identified, underline them and then underline how you can address the needs. 
Keep notes & diary: Stay current and on top of you client list. The cold call will not be so cold the next time you call this prospect/client. 

A recent article in the Sunday Business Post shed some light on where services companies might see some sales leads. The article clearly identifies recruitment trends in Ireland and as any self respecting sales person knows, where there is recruitment activity there are sales. 

Full story here: http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=RECRUITMENT-qqqs=themarket-qqqid=53551-qqqx=1.aspweeblylink_new_window

If you want your team to be engaged, committed and good followers say 'thank you'! You expect team members to be cohesive and achieve great things; when they do, thank them. As General Colin Powell (US Army retired) once said “Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.” 

That's all very well when your competitors are underpricing you and your trying to cut costs to the bone. Can you really engage at the level required. Can 'thank you' suffice?

Well according to O.C. Tanner appreciation of staff creates the right conditions, for engagement and productivity to reach maximum levels. Employers can increase staff engagement by 20%-30% by simply saying "thank you" to staff according to the results of their survey of 10,000 employees across 13 countries. In addition, Chester Elton, one of the authors of The Carrot Principle, said: "We have always known appreciation positively affects employee engagement. What we wanted to determine with this study is whether of not this holds true on an international scale - and the answer is yes."

But Adrian Gostic, the other author of The Carrot Principle, added: "While employees in China and Russia value team recognition more highly than individual acclaim, the more modest British (ahem) prefer recognition from their boss. It is clear every country places a high value on the power of recognition."

The study also shows engagement leads employees to feelings of pride, trust, opportunity and wellbeing and reports simple appreciation of staff took the engagement levles of low-performing companies up to 63%. For more on this go to:http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?country=usa&webc=GBR/2009/200909/TurbochargingPt1.pdf

This is a small sample of the pictures taken at the First-Step Micro Enterprise Network Celebration Event on the 19th of December last. Congrats to all the participants and all our category winners. 

First Step networking events were characterised by a sense of shared effort, dynamism, and enthusiasm on the part of all mentors, facilitators, guest speakers and participants alike. On the basis of the feedback from my participants and evidence of their committed participation, this has been a very successful programme. It has met real needs and has empowered entrepreneurs to translate their business ideas into the early stage development of micro-enterprises. As lead mentor for 60 participants I believe we have stimulated the development of successful small businesses - which are the lifeblood of Irish entrepreneurial life and contribute significantly to employment in this country. 

COIMBATORE KRISHNARAO PRAHALAD, known as C.K. PRAHALAD, was one of the most creative thinkers of his generation. He brought new thinking on business strategy and economic development, and made a generous contribution to innovation. His admirers were legion, big co ceo's, heads of NGOs and founders of small start-ups. From Bill Gates to yours truly. 

Ten years ago in stark contrast to popular thinking of its time C.K. Prahalad, saw a big idea, but the big idea was not about big companies and grand visions for cloud computing or some such: he dreamed of creating wealth at the 'bottom of the pyramid'! His idea was about how firms should focus on the bottom of the pyramid—a phrase he shortens to BOP - the opposite of TOP. His book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Eradicating Poverty Through Profits” (Wharton School Publishing is essentially all about the potential profits to be made from serving the 4 billion-5 billion people on under $2 a day—an economic opportunity he values globally at $13 trillion a year. The win for the poor of being served by big business includes, he says, being empowered by choice and being freed from having to pay the currently widespread “poverty penalty”. In shanty towns near Mumbai, for example, the poor pay a premium on everything from rice to credit—often five to 25 times what the rich pay for the same services. Driving down these premiums can make serving the BOP more profitable than serving the top, he argues, and points to a growing number of leading firms—from Unilever in India to Cemex in Mexico and Casas Bahia in Brazil—that are profiting by doing precisely that. 

Written for the Harvard Business Review, “The Core Competence of the Corporation” (1990) incidentally remains one of the most frequently reprinted articles ever published by Harvard Business Review. C.K. Prahalad died April 16th 2010, may he rest in peace. Find out more at http://www.ckprahalad.com/.

I found myself with an interesting group of business people last week. Each was an optimist (by their reckoning). Each had ‘the glass is half full’ mentality, each had a sense of direction and of conviction. And as I drove home after the meeting I thought to myself that although we face economic turbulence the like of which we've never seen, and there's plenty to be gloomy about, each person that day thought that there arethings to be optimistic about - opportunities and such. But in reality it is not the relevant opportunity that I am concerned with here, but the nature of optimism in management. 

I would contend that optimists are better equipped to manage difficulty: they have a capacity (or naivety) to take on new and challenging tasks, extend their remit, and learn new things. But this gusto must be tempered by realism and substance. In order to lead into new uncharted territories you need the courage of your convictions and a good dose of collateral evidence/research. Gen Colin Powell once said: ‘Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.’ And I do agree. But there are many downsides to being an eternal optimist. You can overstretch yourself, get carried away with a sense of expectation that never actually comes, and suffer disappointment (which a pessimist will never have to endure). A lot of pessimists take the view, 'I'll fear the worst and then I'm never going to be disappointed'. But remember you do get better results from collaboration, enthusiasm, optimism and conviction. Or am I being optimistic?

1: Be familiar with the phases of Teamwork. Tuckman’s forming, storming, norming and performing model.

2:.If you want good leaders to lead team give them the tools to do it. Train and manage the process of leadership building.

3: If you want followers (team members) train them to work together – manage the process and monitor progress.

4: Support the process from the very top but be prepared to be lonely. Leading is often a lonely role – the buck stops with you.

5: Give each leader and each team an identity to hold onto. A reason to be proud of membership and an acknowledgement of achievement.

6: Foster the identity to increase group/team cohesion. Leading and following is not always doom and gloom. Make business fun – work hard play hard.

7: Establish The Norms You Want. It is imperative to agree on the core norms setting ground rules to prevent problems later on.

8: Clearly define roles and responsibilities in order to establish boundaries and set expectations governing relationships.

9: Establish key group/team processes. Meetings, decisions, brainstorming, timekeeping and problem solving.

10: Everyone’s time is valuable. If you don’t expect your team to waste your time – don’t waste theirs. Give power to the team on the ground – trust in their judgement. They are the ones delivering the goods.

11: Truly great leaders have mastered courtesy along with being bold, courageous, dynamic and visionary.

12: Communicate, communicate, communicate. But above all get to the point! Make sure you get the message out to your audience – don’t waffle. Do not leave people wondering what all the slides were about when there was only one point to be made. Leaders have a knack of cutting through the BS, simplifying the solution so that everybody can embrace it.

13: Don’t be afraid to give bad news. Every company has bad news – it makes the good news look better too.

14: If you want your team to be engaged, committed and a good followers say thank you! You expect team members to be cohesive and achieve great things; when they do, thank them. As General Colin Powell (US Army retired) once said “Organization doesn't really accomplish anything.  Plans don't accomplish anything, either.  Theories of management don't much matter.  Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.”

15: Integrity counts. Neither your customer nor your team is wedded to you so they need to believe and trust in you.  

16. Never doubt your own vision – you are the leader, you are expected to know all the answers until the proven differently. And remember optimism multiplies if fostered.

17. Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. It’s better to get the right thing done in the right way than letting your team believe that mediocrity is good enough. Keep looking below the surface – even when what is below may not be palatable.

18. Be happy with your team bringing problems and complaints as well as the good news. The day this stops either means they don’t care or have lost confidence in you.

19. Advisors have their place. But at the end of the day it is your judgement that counts. Separate data from judgement and constantly reference your own hard won insight.

20. Pick good followers for now and leaders for tomorrow. Formulate your list of criteria and be choosey who you work with. Make sure each person ticks most if not all of the key boxes. E.g. Intelligence, judgment, insight, loyalty, integrity and a high energy drive.