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6 Ways To Communicate With More Authority

authority

It takes courage to voice your ideas and stick up for them. These tips can help.

Hierarchy is disappearing in many companies, and that’s opening the door for employees at every level to contribute–and even lead. The trouble is, many of us haven’t picked up the skills we need to make our voices heard. These six tips can help you get comfortable with communicating with more authority across your entire organization and even outside it.

1. DECIDE ON YOUR CONVICTIONS

It takes some courage to share your ideas at work. Especially if the goal is to influence people outside your immediate team, including those you don’t have any power over—your boss, a senior executive, a prospective client, you name it—you might feel like you’re stepping out of line.

But consider this: The word “courage” includes the Latin root “cor,” meaning “heart.” Don’t share ideas or beliefs that aren’t heartfelt. You need to have a strong conviction in your ideas before asking others to consider them. But if you believe you have a contribution to make, go for it!

2. DON’T HEDGE

Once you’ve decided that the point you have to make is worthwhile, state it boldly, clearly, and confidently. Never lead with an apology (“I’m sorry if I’m saying something you already know”), introduce caveats (“I’m not sure about this, but let me give it a try”), insert tentative language (“It could be that . . . “; “My best guess is . . . ”), fill in the background information first.

Get right to your point. Clarity and directness give you power and authority, especially when you’re trying to communicate with higher-level leaders.

3. STAND YOUR GROUND

Defend your ideas if it turns out that you need to. It may be tough to stand up to dissenting views, particularly if the opposition comes from people more senior than you. But remember that the ideas most worth sharing is likely to be at least a little controversial. So when you say something new, expect to be challenged, then rise to the occasion by showing why you’ve taken your position.

When you do respond, be careful not to be defensive or aggressive–that will only make you look less confident and undermine your message. Instead, acknowledge the other person’s point of view, and succinctly, politely explain why you see things differently. Remember that every challenge gives you an opportunity to reaffirm your point. Welcome it as an opportunity.

4. BE WILLING TO CHALLENGE OTHERS

I’ve coached leaders at all levels, and often senior officers tell me that they value thoughtful input that sparks dialogue—they like it when people challenge each other and share contrary views. “That’s what we’re paying them for,” one CEO told me. “We want their best ideas.”

So when you bring critical thinking to the table, do it in a collaborative spirit. When you challenge a plan, don’t just say, “You’re wrong” or “I disagree.” Instead, say, “I understand where you’re coming from, but let’s take your logic one step further.” Or ask, “Could we achieve the same goal more cost-effectively, by . . .” That dialogue builds better solutions than either staying quiet or getting combative.

5. ALWAYS SHOW RESPECT

It takes courage to communicate in the same open, confident way to everyone. Most of us are conditioned to address people differently, according to their relative authority. So keep that in mind. Don’t talk to senior leaders sycophantically. Phrases like “with all due respect” or “to be honest” sound condescending. By the same token, don’t let executives take over the conversation or silence you. There’s always a temptation to defer to those who have more power than you. But they won’t respect you for that. Ultimately, the best way to show respect for upper-level managers is by sharing your best ideas with them.

And when you address those less senior to you, show an equal degree of respect. Listen to them carefully, acknowledge their views, and build on their ideas wherever you can. Communicating forcefully isn’t possible if it doesn’t come from a place of respect, no matter where it’s directed.

6. BE AUTHENTIC

Finally, it can take extraordinary courage simply to be yourself while you’re sharing your ideas, especially if you work in a company on a team where you aren’t necessarily seen as someone to voice your views.

Sometimes that isn’t always personal–it’s cultural. As you look around at your peers, you might feel there’s a normal way of dressing, speaking, looking, and acting. There’s no need to resist corporate culture in your effort to become a more powerful communicator.

But you also need to have the courage to preserve your spontaneity, creative energy, vitality, and sense of humor. Suppressing those qualities won’t serve you, your message, or your company.

Source: fastcompany.com ~ By Judith Humphrey ~ Image: Canva Pro

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People Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Better Versions of Themselves

Sell the Lifestyle not the Product
I have a saying hanging on the wall next to my monitors: “People don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves.” (I would cite it, but it’s so well-known that I’m not sure anyone really knows who said it initially.) I like to keep it there to remind me that I’m not really selling online marketing services – I’m selling business exposure and growth. It’s just like shampoo. 

No shampoo company uses the pitch that their product will get your hair clean because everyone knows shampoo gets your hair clean and that won’t set it apart from any other product on the market. Instead, shampoo commercials feature attractive people with friends and dates… oh yeah, and great-looking haircuts. They do this because they want you to know that if your hair looks good, you’ll feel good about yourself and your life will be better. They’re not selling shampoo – they’re selling confidence in your appearance.

But saying that you’re selling more than just products/services and actually accomplishing that are two totally different things (especially for small businesses). So how do you sell a lifestyle rather than a product?

Focus on Benefits not Features
Every product has features that businesses can focus on, but focusing on benefits is far more appealing to consumers. Don’t tell your audience what your product is, tell them what it can do for them. 

In the case of shampoo, people really don’t care if it has pomegranate oil in it or if it’s less sudsy than its counterparts. People want a shampoo that will leave their hair with fewer split ends or keep it looking shiner because those benefit their appearance.

Solve a Problem
Some of the best benefits that consumers can get from your products/services are the solution to problems that are plaguing them. This is especially true in the case of B2B products/services because solving problems means increasing efficiency, reducing pain points, and breaking down barriers to growth. But regardless of the product involved, everything solves a problem of some sort. 

This is why shampoo makers target their products toward niches of people with specific issues. There are shampoos for dry hair, thinning hair, curly frizzy hair, color-damaged hair, flat hair – you name it! These shampoos solve the main problems affecting people with these hair types.

Use the End Result
Benefits are great, but often times they don’t tell the whole story. The “end result” is where the benefits of a product/service can take consumers. Sticking with this shampoo example, just having better-looking hair is a benefit for sure because no one wants to look in the mirror and feel ugly. But why do people really want better-looking hair? What is the end result that they are seeking?

Most people want good-looking hair so that they’ll get noticed – garnering compliments and attention from other attractive people. This is why shampoo commercials don’t show people standing in the bathroom looking at their reflection with a smile and then just ending there. They show people going out to lunch with friends, meeting up for a hot date, going to work and turning heads, etc. This is the end result that really motivates people to buy.

Source: lionsharkdigital.com ~ By Kate Pierce ~ Canva Pro

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Sell the Lifestyle not the Product

Sell the Lifestyle not the Product

It’s nothing new, in fact, it’s a tale as old as time, but nonetheless, it can help to go back to basics every now and then. Selling your product (or service) based on the lifestyle benefits you offer will ultimately result in more sales, here’s why…

If you use the why, why, why test to drill down to the core benefits of your offering, you will inevitably end up at the lifestyle benefits. For example, if you sell financial services, people need you because they need to make sure they have the financial security they need to make sure their family has a roof over their heads at night and food on the table because that will stop them from having a crappy lifestyle and dying cold and miserable.

So a financial services company would be well advised to sell the freedom they offer their clients. The peace of mind and the long-lasting happy life their clients can enjoy as a result of their help. The feeling of relief and gratitude they’ll have in their old age that they don’t have to work because they had a good supervisor, or made good investments.

Because that’s not only what people need, it’s what they want. People want an enjoyable lifestyle, they want happiness and freedom. They want to ease their stress, spend more time with their family, and live in the now worry-free.

That’s why this is the age of influencer marketing – the number 1 thing that rises above the noise time and time again, is people living an enviable lifestyle. That’s why there are thousands of agencies worldwide whose job is to connect influencers with brands. Because it’s the easiest way to associate the brand with an authentic lifestyle that people want.

Selling the lifestyle instead of the product will establish an emotional connection with your customers. It will make your offering something they wish they had in their lives because then they can have the lifestyle they dream of.

Source: blackirisfilms.com ~ Image: Canva Pro

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Surprisingly Simple “Secret” to Financial Freedom Most 9 to 5-ers Overlook

financial freedom

“I’m ready to get serious about financial freedom!”

I used to be that guy—loudly proclaiming my intentions to build wealth and passive income, with the desire to invest in anything and everything that might grant me the freedom from a life of 9-5 drudgery.

I was working 40-50 hours a week at a steady 9 to 5, earning a nice, median salary. I had an affordable, newish car, a nice apartment, and the best television package money could buy.

It’s a good thing that most people out there are like I was—because I recognize now just how weak and beatable I was. Just how lazy and incompetent. I for sure wasn’t serious. Thank goodness that most people are like I was. Otherwise, financial freedom might be difficult to achieve.

See, as a single person starting from zero, with no dependents and a decent job paying more than $40,000 per year, barring some extreme exception, I should have been building wealth at least a rate of $10,000, if not $20,000-$30,000, per year—if I were really “serious”.

If I were married with or without kids, then progress toward financial freedom should have been far more rapid. With two people in my household earning serious incomes (and with tax advantages that I can only dream of), we would make our progress that much faster. Again, this is assuming that we truly were “serious” about building wealth.

Now, most people aren’t serious about building wealth, and that’s totally OK. I don’t intend to write for the average person interested in nice cars, fancy hilltop houses, and three meals out a week. I’m not judging them, and financial freedom is not everyone’s goal.

Nope, this article is intended for all the 9 to 5-ers out there, starting from scratch or close to it who really badly want financial freedom. I want to show them that as a fellow 9 to 5-er, there is only one way that truly makes sense for you to get started on your journey to financial freedom.

And you aren’t going to like it.

It’s not by investing or building multiple income streams. It’s a far easier and more common-sense approach:

Preserving capital. 

If you stop reading right there, that’s your prerogative. It’s likely that you’ll never, ever have the chance to compete in any serious real estate or business endeavor, and again, that’s totally fine.

Wealth building begins and ends with the preservation of capital, and for pretty much all of the people like me out there—those with full-time, demanding, but decently paying jobs—the hard truth is that that first step in the process to escape from a 40-year cubicle life has been and always will come down to the preservation of capital. Frugality. Savings. Penny pinching. Whatever you want to call it.

See, when I actually became “serious” about building wealth, I of course realized what everyone else does—that there are three things that all must be applied consistently over the long term:

    • I must preserve more of my current income.
    • I must seek greater and additional sources of income.
    • I must intelligently apply preserved capital to investments capable of producing outsized returns.

Almost anyone thinking about building wealth understands these basic premises. What most people don’t understand is that for full-time, W2 employees, any hope of real wealth must begin with the preservation of current income.

Nope, at zero/negative net worth, you cannot begin by seeking outside sources of income after long hours at your day job with a high probability of success. And no, you cannot expect any paltry investments made from your cubicle to pay off outsized returns (like investing in stocks, for example).

If your plan is to do either of those things, then you will have a long career. I hope that you like your job. You’ll never (or at best, you will slowly) accumulate large amounts of capital because you aren’t working the system correctly, and you aren’t approaching wealth creation in the correct order.

The 3 Secret Reasons Why Frugality is (& Always Will Be) the FIRST Step of Wealth Creation

Reason #1: Frugality exponentially increases opportunity.

If you are like me, then you might have been listening to all those big-shot investors and businessmen out there on the forums. Those guys say things like, “Don’t limit yourself to a scarcity mindset” and “Don’t sacrifice! Build your income!” They’ve convinced you to, “Expand your mind—money is unlimited.” They’ve convinced you that you need to focus on income, not savings.

Guess what? Mr. Big Shot isn’t wrong! Income (and chasing higher and higher investment returns) is a necessary path forward, the path to financial freedom and true wealth. You should build more and more income streams, in ever-increasing amounts over time!

But the intimidating big-shot investor that looms over you telling you to focus on investments and earning more is forgetting something that is painfully obvious to all of us currently employed in full-time, average, wage-paying work:

You CAN’T seek greater opportunity because if you lose your 9 to 5, you’re screwed! In fact, because you aren’t frugal, you can’t even take a lower-paying job with more upside. 

Think about that.

Let’s say you earn $50,000 per year. If I offered you a job that would allow you a ton of opportunity over the medium term, but resulted in a short-term loss of benefits and pay, could you take it?

I couldn’t—at least not back when I first started working. I had bills to pay. The car, mortgage/rent, the internet, the partying, the cable bill, and whatever else I spent my money on. But fast forward a year or so later, when the opportunity approached, I was able to quit my job and do exactly what I describe above. Why? Because I had become frugal. I lived far below my means and saved a ton of money every paycheck. I could afford to take a chance on a startup and pursue my dreams.

You will never be able to keep up with the frugal, truly serious fellow in the game of long-term wealth creation if you are totally dependent on that reliable stream of income from your employer. You can’t take risks. And scaling your income is a heck of a lot harder to do when you can’t take risks.

If you can easily get by on significantly less income than you currently earn, you open yourself up to an entire world of possibilities or opportunities. I like to call it “luck.” Those possibilities absolutely include jobs and business opportunities that offer short-term sacrifice for huge long-term gain.

Are you in enough control of your spending that you can take advantage of opportunity when it comes your way? Or will you take a long way around?

Reason #2: Frugality negatively impacts your lifestyle WAY LESS than trying to build a business.

It’s always fun to hear people talk about how frugal people “sacrifice” and that “life’s too short” to pinch pennies. It’s pretty incredible that most people out there like to say things like, “Yeah, I wish I could save, but I’ve got a family and want to have fun. I need to focus on earning more money instead!”

These people have created an argument that I am unable to comprehend. They claim that both financial security AND family/recreational time are priorities in their lives, yet they somehow believe that being frugal will hurt their lifestyle more than attempting to earn more money. These people must be living on a different planet than me.

Imagine this scenario:

You currently work a 40-50 hour per week job, and though it pays at or near the median US income of about $50,000 per year, you spend almost everything you earn and live paycheck to paycheck. Also, you live in the United States of America where employers don’t take too kindly to you working on outside businesses or freelance work while you sit in your cubicle.

For those living in a world like the one described here, there are only two times during which they can work on this whole “earning more money” thing:

    1. After work, during those times when they would have otherwise been relaxing with friends or family
    2. During the time they would have been sleeping

Now, I don’t know about you, but having attempted to do those things, I can tell you that working harder and longer hours for my own side businesses was WAY more intrusive to my lifestyle than cutting back on certain physical amenities.

Do you know what affected my life way less than working really hard to start a business after work? When I moved my work closer to home (new job) and then moved my home even closer to work (new home). I did both and now bike to work.

This approach to wealth creation creates both more time and money. Contrast that to me driving an Uber after work. Or trying to build a website from scratch. Or starting a tee-shirt business. All of which I tried. All of which were hard. And all of which produced taxable income. All of which was not fun in the slightest.

Biking is easy. It’s also fun and healthy and FREE. It actually doesn’t negatively impact life at all. When I’m forced to commute via vehicle because of snow, that affects my life. I have to sit in a traffic jam, get no exercise, and deal with parking and the rest of it.

I’m not sure where the word “sacrifice” comes in for you, but you are out of your mind if you think that cutting back on spending in the ways that I’m talking about—intelligent frugality—is hurting my lifestyle, especially in comparison to trying to develop outside income streams from scratch.

But let’s say that you hate biking, love your big swanky apartment/house, and love eating out, even on your own. Think about this: Is it easier to find a business that creates a meaningful income or to get happy with a bike commute, some cheap and healthy lunches, and a slightly smaller, but 2x cheaper apartment/house? Which of those activities allows for more quality recreational time and more financial comfort?

If you think you are going to build a business that will earn you hundreds or thousands of dollars per month while maintaining your quality of life, think again.

Reason #3: Becoming frugal does NOT preclude you from earning more income!

I somehow had the ridiculous proposition in my head that frugality excluded me from focusing on earning more and achieving excellent investment returns. Wow! I hope you’ll laugh at my ridiculousness and learn from it. The complete opposite was actually true.

See, instead of trying to start side businesses and invest with close to nothing, as I became frugal, I started to accumulate thousands of dollars with which to get “serious” about investing and building businesses. Then, I started to accumulate tens of thousands of dollars, which allowed me to get even more serious. Give me another year or so, and I plan to have accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I’m not talking about taking the employer match on my IRA or building up an emergency fund, which everyone should do regardless of what their other life goals are. No, I’m talking about building up large, liquid capital, enough for you to consider buying things like real estate and small businesses.

If you’re really serious about building wealth, then go out there and earn more and spend less. As I see things, there are really only three logical ways to build wealth, assuming you have low to no liquid assets with which to currently invest:

    1. Save more and earn the same
    2. Earn more and spend the same
    3. Spend less and earn more

Of these approaches, the only approach that seems absurd to me (as someone who wants the maximum financial gain at the least cost to my quality of life) is option two. As someone just entering the game of wealth creation with low to no assets, that is the lowest marginal use of my time of those three approaches and the one most likely to frustrate me.

Trying to earn more money after work starting from scratch is the approach that will have the largest negative impact on your lifestyle with the lowest impact on your financial position. You’ll give up after six months. And you’ll pay a hefty amount of income tax on your earnings.

It’s amazing to me that I even considered doing the really hard stuff involved in becoming an entrepreneur from scratch when tens of thousands of dollars I was already earning were begging to be rescued. And it was so easy. And it made my life so much better. And enabled me to buy real estate, which I guess made me an entrepreneur automatically.

Conclusion

Before you write off frugality as a limited mindset befitting only the narrow-minded, remember that in this article we are referring specifically to the case of those who currently work full-time jobs. These are the people who currently have no or low liquid assets and live paycheck to paycheck.

For these folks, I believe that for the reasons stated above, starting with frugality is the fastest, highest-probability way to accumulate large amounts of wealth quickly and to increase income and investment opportunities exponentially. It’s also the way that they can do that without significantly hurting their lifestyles. To repeat what we all know, building wealth comes down to two things:

    1. Accumulating larger and larger amounts of capital
    2. Investing accumulated capital at higher and higher returns

For the employee with low assets, there really are few good ways to accumulate wealth by focusing on investing or building additional income streams after work hours. Sure, it’s possible and you’ll hear about those stories from time to time, but I’ll bet you that those stories exemplify extraordinary hard work or some little-known advantage.

Why do all that hard work and not take the easy pickings of giving up needless luxuries that really don’t improve your quality of life at all? If you really want to get rich that badly while also living the good life, why would you work long hours on earning taxable, after-hours income, when you can put in far less effort for a far greater marginal return by focusing on preserving what you already have?

Want to live comfortably with more free time and experience the magic of exponentially increasing control over your own destiny?

Cut back on needless expenses. Become frugal. Build assets.

Then, build businesses!

Source: biggerpockets.com ~ By: 

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Why You Need To Sell A Lifestyle—No A Product

Selling a lifestyle will help you close more sales than actually selling a product. These days, thanks to social media, everyone wants to be rich. We follow people like Tom Brady, Dan Bilzerian, and a slew of others who have worked their asses off to become successful in life. We want the results of their hard work.

But a lot of folks just aren’t interested in the hard work part.

I’ve followed guys like Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, and Gary V for years now, and I have noticed all three have a trait in common that’s made them successful.

They’re not necessarily selling a product.

They’re not selling a digital product. They’re not selling sales training, affiliate marketing, or books. But what they are selling is the opportunity to enjoy a lifestyle similar to theirs.

When these guys roll around in their fancy cars and hang out in their huge mansions, even though what they might be saying on camera is relevant, intelligent, and helpful, the average person is studying the lifestyle they live. Viewers are saying, “I’d like to have that lifestyle. I want to model this person, so I can ultimately have the same end result for my life.” You never hear these guys really pitch products. Even on their webinars, they position themselves to the people watching as if what they have is attainable. “This could be yours.”

You’ll note excellent takeaways if you follow them closely. Watch their entire process, and you will learn their strategy and why it works. These guys are some of the most popular business gurus in all of the social media, and when you pay attention, they will reveal to you what the populace wants. If they’re the most popular and it’s working for them, don’t fight it.

I’ve been saying this for years: people want the hole, not the drill. You see, a lot of times, salespeople try to sell the drill. But what people really want is the hole. I use this analogy with my mortgage clients all the time. People don’t want a mortgage, they want a house. They don’t want a realtor or investor, they want the profits that come from flipping a house. I tell people working in insurance that their clients are not looking for an insurance policy. They simply don’t want to go to jail or be broke in the event a catastrophe happens.

But often, people get focused on selling the insurance, on selling the mortgages, on selling the real estate, instead of selling the result and the lifestyle that comes along with it. To use the example of real estate, people only move for a finite number of reasons: relocation, families expanding, families contracting, empty nesters, kids going off to college, retiring, upsizing, downsizing, and so on and so forth.

An event has altered their lifestyle that’s causing them to move. Once you understand what it is, that’s in their life right at that moment, and you position yourself as the key to them having that lifestyle, true sales will be made.

Let’s be real. Nobody, including me, wants to work hard. Working hard is a result of what you see in my life—the supercars and living in a nice neighborhood, trips all over the country and the world, etc. But no one wants hard work.

Hard work separates the average person from getting the result, and from having the lifestyle they crave.

If you sell cars for a reason, the cars are not important. It’s the lifestyle that goes along with owning that type of car that matters to the consumer.

So, if you want to make more sales, especially if you’re a social media personality, coach or mentor, if you’re on video on a regular basis, or you sell through webinars, instead of focusing on selling your product, focus on the result of your sales and the lifestyle that comes along with it. When you do that, you will find yourself with a massive following just like the people I mentioned above.

But, remember, the average person isn’t looking to work hard. The average person doesn’t want a digital product. The average person doesn’t want a mortgage. What they want is the lifestyle that comes as a result of those products and services. Start selling the lifestyle, and you’ll be light years ahead of your competition.

Source: influencive.com ~ By RYAN STEWMAN ~ Image: Canva Pro

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