Some relatives of mine, Dick and Lucille, own and manage a hardware store in a small town in Michigan. The hardware store they own is part of a chain of hardware stores that specializes in serving small communities. When Dick and Lucille moved to this community twenty years ago, they became part of it. They…
Nothing good ever comes out of negative comments. They make you, the sender, look bad to the people observing your behavior. They also make the receiver feel bad. If you regularly dish out negative comments, don’t expect any of these people to give you their best efforts the next time you ask them for a favor. –…
One habit that’s all too easy to fall into is to treat people like light switches–turn them on when you need their help, then ignore them until you need their help again. When you treat people this way, you send them a very clear message that you’re taking them for granted. Once people receive this…
For the most part, people prefer to do business with people they like and trust. That’s why personal relationships are far more effective when it comes to getting people to say ‘yes’ than the mastering of any sales technique. Let me give you an example: Eighty to ninety percent of the people who go…
I was consulting with a company that had education centers all over North America they taught various technical courses to high school graduates. This company had a fair number of salespeople whose job it was to sell these technical courses, which sold for about $9,000 at the time, to people who had graduated from high…
Don’t be nice to people just because you want something from them. Make it a point to be nice just to be nice. It costs you nothing, it make you feel really good about yourself and the payoff is incredible. Why? Because, when you’re nice to people, they’re nice to you in return. Make being…
Not long ago, I was staying at a hotel near the Toronto airport. When I arrived in my room, I noticed a placard on the bathroom counter. The card read: Dear Guest: As a responsible citizen, you are probably concerned about doing your part to help preserve our fragile environment. If you are, the management…
Everyone of us is motivated by the exact same thing. It’s something called self-interest–what’s in it for me. This is nothing new; we all know this. But here’s the big secret: nobody takes it seriously–99 percent of the people ignore this simple, obvious fact 99 percent of the time! If you want to get people…
Negotiation is not a contest to see who wins and who loses. Instead it’s a cooperative activity designed to make everyone better off. How does this work, you ask? It all begins with trust. Once the people involved trust each other, information can then be freely shared. When that occurs, the pie automatically expands and…
Most people look at caring as the expenditure of time and effort to benefit someone else. In reality, caring about others actually benefits you–big time! The reason is that when you care about others, they care back. And the more you care, the more they care back. Give people any indication at all that you…