The Best Business Advice I Have Received – Association Hustle Podcast Episode 265 (8m 35s)

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12/29/2020

 

 

Here is a list of the best business, sales, and personal advice that myself and the Big Red M employees have ever received.

 
 
 
 
 
Hello and welcome to JP Moery’s Association Hustle Podcast. President of The Moery Company, JP’s mission is to arm today’s associations with insight and strategy to thrive and a progressively complex and competitive business landscape. 21st century associations must move forward with a little bit of hustle and revenue development at their core.
Here’s JP.
It is great to be with you today. The topic today is the best advice I have ever received. I had a great discussion with our team the other day, and I’m going to give you some of their thoughts. At the very end, I’ll add some of my special spice to the topic. I’m going to break this down into two areas. One is sales and marketing advice that our team has received over the years. The second one is more about things like productivity and personal preparation.
Sales and Marketing Advice
The best way to listen is to take notes. Silences are okay. In fact, after you put the price out there and the big part of the value proposition shut up and be quiet. Oftentimes, the next guy that talks loses. It is also important to make sure to smile, especially when you’re on the phone. A lot of us have gone through training where they recommend having a mirror for you to look into and smile as you speak on the phone. It’s a great tactic. Although it may make you uncomfortable or seem corny, it’s not a bad idea.
During negotiations, identify what the most important thing is to the other party and what’s the most important thing to you. Sometimes you can give things away or offer things in negotiation that aren’t really that important to you.
Establish a Meaningful Network
I’ve seen this before, when I’ve looked to hire someone in sales for an example. I go on to their LinkedIn profile, and they have less than 100 connections. Why would I want to connect with someone that doesn’t really care to know people? I’m not sure they would be a very good salesperson if they’re not interested in other individuals.
Address Problems Right Away
Frankly, nothing gets better over time. Crises are often problems that were just delayed and delayed continuously. When a problem is formulating, phone first. Don’t hide behind email. The true urgency intent is often lost during digital communications.
It’s All About the Prospect and Preparation
When talking to prospects or costumers, discuss solutions rather than the services that you provide. So many times in the association space, for example, I see where it’s all about the association and the committees and what they do. That does not really demonstrate how we help our members save money, make money, or save them time.
Prepare and research calls in advance. Never wing it, especially in sales and interviews. This advice was actually offered by my college daughter who’s going through the interview process. She always prepares for the interviews. One time, she listened to an interview that I was having with someone. Clearly this person was a professional and they’d been in this game for years, but they didn’t know me from the man on the moon. That’s not against me, that’s more on them. You want me to help you, you want me to hire you. And clearly you don’t even know what we do as a company.
Written Communication and Proactivity
Deliver the message in the first and second sentence and then support it through the rest of the document. Very important as people are reading things in mobile, and reading emails. If you get up and you let everybody take your time, your priorities are not going to be addressed. And often that’s because you’re not proactive and you haven’t determined what your primary goals are.
Progress Over Perfection
Eat an elephant one bite at a time and perform one activity so you can keep moving forward. And remember, you probably had the experience, skills, and support to be confident in your presentations and work that you do with colleagues. No one brings your unique talent.
Context Trumps Content
I heard this the other day: all of the information up until 2003 ever published and content published and viewed and produced until 2003, is now being produced every 48 hours. Now, it’s going to be all about the context in which you deliver the content and your self awareness or your corporate awareness. It’s the context, not necessarily the content, because everybody’s doing content now.
Personal Advice
Never ending improvement is something that I try to work on every day. This may partly come from my insecurity that I am really not that good. So, I need to keep getting better and better. I’ve got specific goals every year on things that I want to improve. You’re not going to outwork me. It has probably happened, and it still does. I use my work ethic and hustle as a framework to start from regardless of my shortcomings. Also, do what you said you would do. That’s so simple, but it’s so powerful. So many miscommunications and problems derived from someone saying they were going to do something and did not do it.
Tell the truth and be authentic. This helped me find my calling in serving associations over the last several years, instead of being a CEO of an association. I was interviewing with a search committee a couple times and I was changing my answer to what everyone else wanted to hear and trying to get hired. Well, obviously, it didn’t work but now it’s a blessing. And I’m not saying at all that association CEOs aren’t being truthful or not being authentic. They are in very many cases, but I was really uncomfortable when I wasn’t unleashing the truth that I felt in my heart, and I felt like the best way to do that was to run my own company.
Another thing: If you don’t have the cash, you won’t win the dash. That comes from President and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue. It’s not all about money, but I’m telling you, if you don’t have the resources, you’re not going to be successful. You must have resources to execute, to achieve your mission, and to meet your goals. Never forget that when you’re launching your own company. You’ve got to have some money to be able to do it.
Don’t light people up in public. Don’t flame them in front of everyone else. It’s not worth it. Everybody remembers what you said, not the person that you lit up in the first place. Here’s another thing to remember about your communications: If the email that you’re about to send was published in The Washington Post, would you be proud of it?
If you send me your address to JP@MoeryCompany.com, I will send you a complimentary copy of my first book Association Hustle. Here’s how you pay me for it: zero dollars. Instead, please share this podcast on social media, with a friend, or your audiences. I would be grateful for it.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of JP Moery’s Association Hustle Podcast. We’d love to connect with you. Check out our blog at moerycompany.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter. You can also connect with JP on LinkedIn and Twitter at @JPMoery, as well as The Moery’s Company’s Instagram and Facebook page
 
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