We all want to belong

American psychologist Abraham Maslow theorized that human decision-making is undergirded by a hierarchy of psychological needs in his initial paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation” and subsequent book, “Motivation and Personality”from 1954. Maslow proposed that five core needs form the basis for human behavioral motivation, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up.


Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualisation. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Not everyone will move through the hierarchy in a uni-directional manner but may move back and forth between the different types of needs. Contact me via e-mail and let me know where you are on the pyramid.

“A river does not push, it just flows.”

— Burrellism

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What's your take on it?

Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to have worked with some outstanding people and these opportunities has enabled me to work across businesses and functions, allowing me to understand organisational dynamics through people, process and technology. This has been proven to be invaluable as I engage stakeholders and explore ideas and opportunities in line with business priorities.

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”

— Italian Proverb

I have had the pleasure of working for global companies and have acknowledged that humans and knowledge are the two of the most important resources. There are huge financial incentives that keep the status quo locked in place with the “this is just how it is” attitude. I think that all successful people begin with these two beliefs: 
1. The future can be better than the present, and
2. I have the power to make it so.
Do you agree? I have seen great results and productivity improvements in organisations leveraging this framework. Contact me via e-mail and let’s have a conversation.

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Don’t be afraid of making mistakes

The results that are expected of us in selling are sales, and the only time that we are working is when we are doing something that contributes directly to that result. Selling is when you are face to face with real life customers who are willing and capable of buying a product (or service). Today’s businesses are learning from the science of change that they must recreate themselves even when they would like to believe that the old business will go on forever. 

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

— Peter Drucker 

Which means to have a vision and even though the vision is in the air or sky, you start to build a foundation under your dreams. All high achievers are result orientated, they dream big dreams and focus on results not activities. The key is to be clear about the results that you are trying to accomplish and ask yourself the following questions:
1)    What results are expected of me?
2)    What am I supposed to produce in my job?
3)    Why am I employed here?
Please reach out if you have questions about how it can impact your organisation or yourself.

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The harder you work the better you become

Business is a vehicle for self-expression, for dreaming about creating the future we desire, for accomplishing together what we cannot do alone and for creating extraordinary amounts of value. Business is far more than a profit machine and can be the primary vehicle for building a better world, if we appropriately respect and care for people. You will need to design a strategy that attracts the target market in the right way, and you will need to immediately have the right mix of products and solutions developed so that they can engage you immediately.

We are not in a “You” economy, it’s a “We” economy. We are sharing, we are growing, we are expanding, we are finding ways to add value. The secret to business is to think about others, not about yourself! I think a meaningful life is serving something greater than yourself. When we are excited about something, the first thing we want to do is share it with our loved ones. A lot of people think you have to get it right before you start, the most important thing is to get started and begin learning as quickly as you can.

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A tremendous feeling of recognition

Image c/o Harvard Business Review

Having a feeling of worthiness regardless of what you are doing is the underpinning of unconditional love and built-in value. The most important opinion you will ever have is the one you have of yourself, no one looks at a photo of you with such scrutiny. We tend to be so critical of ourselves, every blemish instead of blessing is what we count. I think the best way to reinforce good behaviours and overcome fear is with knowledge, training, skills, and action. The best tips are given before anyone does anything because it raises the level of expectation. I think that a tip is an expected level of achievement which you want to give to yourself and other people because only an expected level of success is motivational. And if you expect more from yourself and others then you will perform more to that expectation than anything else.

If you are inexperienced, you see the danger in every opportunity and when you are experienced you see the potential. You can engage role models, coaches, and mentors, they will teach you the “correct swing” and then you will gain courage and confidence with knowledge and training. I think when you have the ability to influence people, it really does change the way you go about your day-to-day life and approach opportunities. I can help you eliminate the fear of the unknown, the fear of rejection, the fear of change and the fear of success.

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Movers and shakers

If you don’t know where you are going then any road will take you there! Human beings are goal seeking organisms and we only function at our very best when we are working towards accomplishing something that is important to us. Clarity is the starting point of all success, and this means clarity in thinking. Clarity means the ability to determine exactly what it is that you want to be, have, or do in life. The more I study successful men and women, the more I find that every single one of them are very clear about where they are going and what it is they want to accomplish. 

All the great movers and shakers throughout history have been dreamers. If you’re leading the ship and don’t know how to operate a compass, the journey will not be a fun one - for you or your shipmates. It’s vital to have a clear sense of where you are going. Clarity is especially important when you’re introducing change or working towards new goals with your team. The common mix of excitement and anticipation alongside anxiety and fear can be challenging and even unsettling. The differences between successes and failures are not that successful people make right decisions, it’s that successful people make their decisions right.

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Embark on your journey now

As a salesperson you already know there is a vast difference between understanding something well enough to buy it as opposed to understanding it well enough to sell it. Zig Ziglar described selling as a transference of feeling and I tend to agree with him. I think effective sales procedures work everywhere and you do not need to be a “natural born” salesperson in order to be a good one. Selling is an exciting profession and in many ways a complex one. There are many specialists in the field and no one person has a monopoly on all the information.

The reaction to success is different for different people. A common problem people experience, following success, is to go into an emotional dive or feel depressed. There may be a bit of an anti-climax afterwards due to the loss of focus and routine. I have never seen a spreadsheet that tells you how you should treat people. How do you react when you experience a dive in emotions? Contact me via e-mail for tolerance, understanding as well as solid actions.

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Walk the talk

Sales has always been about the power of persuasion and buyers always want to buy from people whom they trust. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, persuasion is a process whose objective is to change a person’s attitude and/or behavior towards an idea, event, person, or an object. I think that the understanding of various effective persuasion techniques will help sales professionals to make sales and meet their targets and it will also give them an edge over competitors in the market. 


Listening is a major component of persuasion, therefore:
·      Listen with interest
·      Reflect with grace
·      Think with sincerity
·      Plan with optimism
·      Speak with honesty
·      Give with gratitude
·      Act with integrity


Before persuasion comes knowledge, therefore, it’s essential that you do your in-depth research as “one size does not fit all”. Sales professionals need to execute a fine balance between transparency and persuasion to guide the buyer towards the intended outcome of buying. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops about mastering the science of achievement and the art of fulfilment.

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No one cares!

The world is changing fast but certain things remain consistent, for example, you have the leverage to make it better. I don’t think your customers buy from you because they care about you, they buy from you because they care about themselves. There’s a huge difference between tell the others and find the others. To tell the others says, “I need your support, please tell everyone else.”


A Gen Z’er recently asked me, “How do I become popular?”
As long as you're over a certain threshold of intelligence, what matters most is determination. And as you gain life experience you will create your own blueprint for how you define popularity. I think we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

— Theodore Roosevelt

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Learn to sell

The ability to get along with others and show an interest in the world around them is essential for sales professionals. If you can find someone with a problem and they will pay you money to solve the problem, you will never have a financial problem and you will be of service to people. Sounds easy! Would you like to learn to sell?


Here’s a simple formula to follow:
- Here's what this product or service is. 
- Here's what it does. 
- Here's how it can help you. 
- Here's why I think it's worth it. 
- Here's why you should take action right now.

Resilience is also vital if you want to succeed as you are likely to get knocked back a fair few times on the road to success. Just because one person isn’t interested, you just have to keep going. And that resilience, that refusal to give up in the face of adversity, is another lesson we can all take forward into our lives, no matter how old we are. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.

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Calm is a superpower

All the successful people that I have met in my life all seem to be at peace with themselves. No matter what the trials and tribulations they are faced with or are facing they have a level of acceptance, they are mentally prepared, tough, and ready to take on the challenge. As a result, their inner peace gives them a different perspective on the world. If you master the inside world then the outside world will be kinder and more beautiful.

“One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm.”

— Bruce Lee

The trick is not to be fooled by illusions of superiority and to learn to accurately reevaluate our competence each day. Think about it? When you are angry or upset you often see the things around you in a negative light, but if you are happy, suddenly, everything around you are bathed in rainbows and sunshine. Dealing with your inner demons is a necessary step towards living a truly fulfilled and successful life. 

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Understanding how people listen

I think the basics of human interaction and communication is to speak to others the way you want them to speak to you. I have heard some really bad speakers, but I have never heard a bad speech. When I create material, I try to envisage that I am going to be the receiver, in other words I pretend that I’m in the audience listening to myself. Do you know what I mean? The reason I do this is because I think as a receiver, even if I don’t agree with your point of view, I will appreciate the fact that I am giving an honest effort to delivering what I truly see as the better point of view.


Taking a person from a place where they are right now and giving them the tools to invest in a better future. I think ultimately, people buy emotions and then justify their purchase with logic. Here are a 5 tips on how to create a human context speech:
1.     Greet your audience
2.     Explain early what your speech is about
3.     Speak slowly, use short word sentences
4.     Share what you think or how you feel
5.     End your speech with a conclusion

Would you like to learn how to write an authentic story that truly connects with your ideal customer? Sales happen when we inspire our customers to invest in a better future, please do not manipulate or trick them as sales professionals our mission is to inspire. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.

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Empathy can drive a lot of value

Customer retention is so important if you want repeat business and growth. Every successful company, without exception is obsessed with taking good care of their customer experience once they get them. Very few methodologies sell better than offering excelling professional services, but just as importantly you’ll need to provide a great customer service experience. Making your customers so happy at the beginning and end of their interaction with your product or service will ensure that customers keep coming back. 

I recently had a terrible experience with British Gas, who sent a letter to my deceased mother, asking her to renew an insurance policy for the boiler in my parents’ house. I spent almost 45 minutes waiting to speak to a human, listening to awful music and even though the recorded voice had prepared me to wait for 35 minutes, the worst was still to come. The young lady (who was human) declared that I could not cancel the direct debit as I was not the person named on the letter - my mother died in June. “You have to speak to the Probate Department., please hang on a minute and I will transfer you.” Another 8 minutes of waiting and more of that awful music, the first question the young man asked me was the date of my mother’s death…
This young man solved my problem and was extremely apologetic. 

I just wanted to cancel the direct debit and it took almost one hour with awful music and only 3 minutes of human conversation. This customer service was not good enough if British Gas are to survive in these turbulent times.

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Hope is not a strategy

Who’s in the drivers seat?
Some people go through the day with their fingers crossed and there are other people who are blaming others for their current life situation. My advice is to grow up and take some responsibility:

·      If you wish to be successful, study success.

·      If you wish to be happy, study happiness.

·      If you wish to be wealthy, study wealth.

I think that the only way you can change your economic, social, and spiritual life is through study. You may not be able to do all that you find out, but you should find out all you can do.

“Hope is not a strategy.
Luck is not a factor.
Fear is not an option.”

— James Cameron

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Preparation is key

I think a good salesperson can book a meeting regardless of the product or service. In fact, a good salesperson is not selling the product or service when they ask for a meeting. Instead, the meeting is the product that they’re selling. A good salesperson is selling the value of having a meeting with them. To be effective here, you have to believe that it’s valuable for your potential client to have a meeting with you, regardless of the product or service.

The better prepared you are prior to a negotiation, the more likely it is that the outcome of the negotiation will be satisfactory for both parties involved. Preparation requires that you do two things:

1. Get all the information that you can about the upcoming negotiation.

2. Think the negotiation through from beginning to end, and be fully prepared for any eventuality.

The first kind of information you need is about the product or service and the person with whom you will be negotiating via Linkedin. You obtain this information by choosing good questions to ask that are well thought out. In this sense, information becomes a form of power, and the power is always on the side of the person with the best information.

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Confidence is a key leadership quality

c/o Getty Images

Regulating and balancing feelings of confidence requires considerable self-awareness and knowledge. I have seen really good salespeople lose confidence in their ability to sell simply because of a bad relationship with their boss. It’s normal to feel quite confident in some circumstances and less confident in others, this is influenced by past events and how we remember them. Over-confidence can make you take on projects that are beyond your capability, and you might not be able to complete them, so in the same way that you don’t want to lack confidence, you also don’t want to be over-confident. 

Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and abilities. Self-confidence comes from really feeling good about yourself, and one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is knowing that you did your best in every situation. This state is changeable according to the situation we are currently in and our responses to events going on around us. This knowledge will allow you to accept and trust yourself as you are and generate a sense of control in your life. On the other hand, low self-confidence might make you feel full of self-doubt, be passive or submissive, or have difficulty trusting others. 

Are you familiar with the “ACT” acronym?
A = Action, C = Changes and T = Things.
Individual mentoring can also help increase your self-confidence if you need more help contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.

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Preaching to the choir

Think about the times you have sat in an audience - whether in person or on a digital device – listening to a speaker, you are being influenced. It doesn’t matter what they are saying whether you think it is good or bad, how much you agree  or disagree with it, you are being influenced. This morning I looked up the word, influence and according to the Oxford English Dictionary, influence means “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.”

Each of us live our lives based on a worldview, and our worldview is essentially one’s spectrum of perceptions from knowledge to beliefs with countless opinions in between. In other words, our worldview consists of our knowledge, our opinions, and our beliefs. And if we have self-confidence, we hold each of these or all of them as truths, not true in that they could be proven, true, in that is how we see it. 

• Knowledge is what we know with enough certainty and evidence to support it.

• Beliefs is what we hold as true, although there is no objective or formal evidence to prove it. 

• Opinions is what we hold with enough evidence to know that is the way we see things.

I can inform someone’s knowledge and if they disagree, I can support my view with enough evidence to convince them unless they just object no matter what. On the other hand, beliefs are what I believe even when I have no direct evidence to support it. Most of us have had beliefs through our lives that changed and became opinions. Opinions are what we hold as true because we have enough evidence and strong enough beliefs to see something as being proper. We have opinions about everything, for example, sports, relationships, health, parenting, leadership, management, etc. The reason why I have different views today than previously is that I have been persuaded to change many of my opinions through additional evidence and by views of others I trust.

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To listen is to pay attention to

Without the ability to listen effectively messages are easily misunderstood. Most of us listen to the degree we can understand points of agreement or disagreement, or to prepare what to say in response, rather than to learn. And when we do that, we are not so much hearing other people as we are waiting for our turn to speak. Listening is key to all effective communication. I think that if there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is the one.


From the sales perspective listening is the key to all effective communication as this skill is indispensable when seeking to build mutually beneficial relationships with potential clients.Listening means stepping outside one’s own interests, to actually want to know more, and to care what others’ interests are. To not just hear words, but to pay attention to the underlying needs and frames of reference, because in the end, successful sales numbers are the result of effective information gathering. If a salesperson can guide the conversation toward that prospect’s goals, roadblocks, and ambitions, it becomes much easier to design and deliver a pitch. Are you a good listener?

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We all have the power to improve

Pre-pandemic I began a Crucial Conversations course via Vital Smarts, I qualified as a certified Crucial Communications Trainer in February 2020.


What Is a Crucial Conversation?
A crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong. These conversations - when handled poorly or ignored - lead to strained relationships and dismal results. The education taught me skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics - at all levels of an organisation. We learned how to speak and be heard and how to encourage others to do the same. 


What Does Crucial Conversations Training Teach?
Crucial Conversations teaches participants how to:
• Speak persuasively, not abrasively
• Foster teamwork and better decision making
• Build acceptance rather than resistance
• Resolve individual and group disagreements


Who Needs Crucial Conversations Training?
Does your organisation suffer from taboo topics, deference, disagreement, analysis paralysis, information hoarding, office politics or alienation? Is your organization battling declining productivity, safety violations, low morale, reduced quality, poor customer satisfaction or other bottom-line concerns? Then you, your team, or your organisation needs Crucial Conversations Training.

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This is not my responsibility

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