Yes! Network Seminar Highlights 5/19/10

Yes! Network Seminar Reviews
by Clarity Patton Newhouse - Clarity.tv
Compliments of Metropolitan in Garden City - MetroMichigan.com

The Yes! Network is one of America’s leading seminar training companies. President Michael Jeffreys offers complimentary workshops that can take place at your business, networking group or association meeting. For more information, visit YesMidwest.com.

May 19, 2010 – Novi, Michigan.  This week’s seminars presented by The Yes Network started with a dramatic power outage in the city of Novi, which left the theater and all of us in the audience in the dark – literally. What happened next was impressive, but not surprising at all, for an organization as positive as The Yes! Network. They overcame the challenge, acquired a massive power generator and even entertained us with an impromptu presentation by Michael Jeffreys while all the power cables were reconnected. It was a first-hand lesson in tenacity. When the seminars started – complete with lights, cameras and action – they were well worth the wait.

AFTERNOON SESSION

The afternoon session featured Niurka, a passionate young woman whose sales career went from hawking knives door-to-door at age 15 to becoming the top sales trainer for Anthony Robbins at age 20. Her seminar titled “Supreme Influence: How to Inspire Yourself and Others to Take Definitive Action,” was jam packed with energy and information to help us achieve more.

Niurka offered specific insights and actions to help us succeed. One of her insights is that “the power of your life and business is directly proportional to your ability to effectively communicate.” She says that in order to sell a product or service most effectively, “we must communicate with a client in a way which uncovers what’s important to them and helps them overcome obstacles, so they want to do business with us not because we want to sell something, but because they can meet their needs faster and easier by doing business with us than by going to someone else.”

Communication is critical, Niurka explains. “It’s not only how you communicate with your clients but how you communicate with yourself.” You have to be able to sell yourself on something before you can sell someone else, and the voice inside you can either take you to higher levels or bring down. Our choice of words matters, because the reality is we don’t describe what we see, we see what we describe. Niurka’s advice? Increase your success by conditioning yourself to “only speak things into existence that are in harmony with what you want to create.” How? By asking the right questions.

“The quality of your life and your business is directly relative to the quality of the questions you ask, especially the questions you ask yourself,” says Niurka. If you ask disempowering questions, you’ll get disempowering answers. So ask yourself empowering questions. Use words that frame the questions in the affirmative. For example, ask yourself “How can I be even more productive…” instead of “How can I avoid procrastinating…” It’s important to focus on what you want to achieve, because if you focus on what you don’t want then you’ll simply get more of what you don’t want.

The great news about asking yourself empowering questions is that you don’t have to know the answers. “Your subconscious mind will go to work on any question you ask yourself,” Niurka pointed out. “The brain is like a missile that will move through all the information until it finds answers that fit the question, so your ability to formulate the question determines what you will get in the midst of infinite possibilities.”

The availability of “infinite possibilities” for all of us is another of Niurka’s key insights. “Science is now confirming what some of the greatest masters have long been saying,” she explained, “that we live in a universe of infinite possibilities, influenced by our thoughts”.

In the midst of infinite possibilities, Niurka says “we pick up less than one percent of what’s going on around us, because that’s all that harmonizes with our subconscious programming, our beliefs, values, identities, memories,” etc. That’s why when you buy a car, it suddenly seems like everyone else is driving the same car. The cars were there before, we just didn’t notice them. In other words, “Perception isn’t reality; Perception is projection.” The distinction: when you change, the world around you changes.

To recognize that we see the world through our own frame is one step; to recognize that other people see the world through their own frame is another step and a key to successful sales. Each person’s frame, their values – conscious and subconscious – drive their behavior. So ask you clients, “What specifically is most important to you in…(buying a home, for example).” This helps you to identify their frame and, as Niurka says, “speak into their listening.” Niurka also reminded us that in sales, the only objection we can’t overcome is the one we don’t know about.

Often it is also necessary to change the customer’s frame. “We must blow the boundaries out of old paradigms and old thinking,” says Niurka, “in order to introduce customers to new realities,” such as buying a more expensive product from us instead of the cheaper one they’ve been buying from someone else. Moving the customer out of their paradigm is what Niurka calls “reframing.”

The questions you ask are vital to reframing. “Frame your statements in a way that causes them to search for the pieces of information that align with the offering you’re making.” For example, if you know your product’s higher price is a likely objection, you can preempt with a question such as, “Even though we’re the most expensive, people do business with us every day. Would you like to know why?”

You can also reframe using the answers you give to other people’s questions. For example, Barbara Walters once asked Celine Dion how it felt to know Celine’s husband had a gambling problem. To which Celine responded something like this, “A problem - are you kidding me? It’s a godsend! If he hadn’t been willing to gamble on me I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Marketers use reframing all the time. For example, Niurka described a salmon company whose red salmon wasn’t selling as well as other pink salmon. One small change to the packaging and sales skyrocketed; they simply added the words, “Guaranteed to not turn pink.”

Niurka offered many other great insights and actions throughout her seminar. I’ll conclude today’s review with this final thought on improving sales success. When you’re asking questions of your customers, Niurka emphasizes that it’s essential to be “in rapport.” Rapport with customers must be developed first, before asking “game changing” questions that will reframe their paradigm and help open up the universe of possibilities that are available.

If you’d like to know more about Niurka beyond these highlights, additional information is available at NiurkaInc.com.

EVENING SESSION

The evening session featured James Lloyd, who for more than 15 years has been helping companies achieve dazzling customer service they can leverage as a competitive advantage. His seminar titled “Ultimate Service: How to Create Lifetime Loyalty and a Rock-Solid Reputation,” was inspiring and full of tangible measures to improve any business.

“Some people think customer service is at an all time low,” James began. “Based on the following survey, it probably is true.” To determine levels of caring, American men were presented with a hypothetical situation. Imagine you’re on the Titanic today, it just hit the iceberg and is about to sink. There’s only one lifeboat left and only one seat. Would you give up the seat for your wife? Only 67% of the men surveyed said “yes,” even fewer would sacrifice for their mother, and only 74% would give up the seat for their own child. How sad is that.

“Customer service is about caring,” said James. “You can set your business apart very easily by genuinely caring about others, because it’s not the norm. Great customer service comes from the heart.” James described levels of service like a report card. “To get an A from your customer, you have to dazzle them and knock their socks off. It’s tough to get A’s, especially consistently. You have to exceed expectations to get a B. Getting a C means the customer got what they expected. And the difference between a D and an F is that with a D, the person wasn’t dependent on your company or service. They could go elsewhere. But if they have no other option but you to sort out their issues, they feel victimized. That’s an F.”

Customer service grades are important, James explained. “People who grade you an A or B will advertise for you for free; the Ds and Fs will advertise also but they’ll tell more people. They’ll tell everybody. When we’re in business, the odds are we have people out there advertising against us, people who are looking for opportunities to tell people about their bad experience with us.”

James’ first emphatic piece of advice regarding unhappy customers is, “Give these people a call tomorrow. Tell them, ‘I was thinking about you last night and I still don’t feel good about the way things were resolved.’ This is critically important.” You can also ask all you customers, “What grade would you give us? What could we do to make the grade higher?” When you ask this question, you score a lot of points. It goes back to caring.

Often a distinction is made between “internal customers” and “external customers.” When the question is asked, “Who’s treated better in this company, internal customers or external customers?” the answer 90% of the time is “external customers,” often followed by a comment such as, “They’re the ones who pay the bills.”

James’ key advice, “Make your internal customer your Number One customer. Employees in a company will treat their customers exactly as well as they are treated.” For example, James quoted a Southwest Airlines Vice President of Human Resources who said, “We have two customers, our employees and our flying public. We focus most on our most important customers, our employees. That way we don’t have to teach them how to treat customers, because we model it.”

Showing enthusiasm is also an important aspect of customer service. “We’re wired to pick up immediately on how excited a person is about their business,” said James. The same words, spoken with enthusiasm or without enthusiasm, can tell a customer exactly how excited or not we are. If we’re not enthusiastic about the business, there’s little chance the customer will be, which introduces the topic of why customers leave a company.

There are a lot of misunderstandings among business people about the main reasons customers leave. James shared the results of a survey that studied the reasons, such as being lured away by the competition, dissatisfied with the product, etc. It turns out that “68% of customers who leave were turned away by an attitude of indifference on the part of an associate or company.” More people left for this reason than all the other reasons combined and doubled. We’re not even talking about rudeness, just indifference.

James warned us that “We spend too much time focusing on the competition, when we need to focus on the customers we’re losing as a result of a single interaction with an employee.” We must guard against apathy. Although we’re able to spot rudeness in the workplace, we’re not as good at spotting indifference. James pointed out another survey reporting that the phrase rated most annoying is “whatever,” probably because it signals the thing we like least, which is indifference. Word choice matters. For example, when assisting someone, instead of saying “No problem,” say “My pleasure.”

Sometimes things go awry and customers become irate, so James offers specific advice for these situations a.k.a. opportunities.  First, keep in mind that when a customer is “irate” they’re just trying to tell you, “I Rate. I matter!” James equates handling irate customers with driving on snow and ice. Both involve the following essential principles. (1) When dealing with irate customers, don’t slam on the breaks. Let them vent a little bit. (2) Steer in the direction of the skid. In other words, steer in the customer’s direction in order to first regain traction and then gently ease back on track.

While the customer is talking, think “what are they saying that I can agree with.” James emphasizes that the first words out of one’s mouth should be, “I agree with you.” For example, James shared a scenario from an insurance company he assisted. The caller was ranting, “You’re the worst company in all of California. My son could file a claim better than you. That claim has been on file for five months and I still haven’t received a check!” Of course, James didn’t agree with the “worst company” or “my son” statement; instead, how he responded was, “Sir, I totally agree with you that five months is too long to wait for a claim.” The magic, as James points out, is that as soon as you say, “I agree with you,” the customer stops arguing.

James went on to provide numerous other examples and tips to help create a customer service competitive advantage. I’ll conclude with his advice regarding “powerful apologies.” James emphasizes that a powerful apology includes no “if” or “but,” no sarcasm and no excuses. “A powerful apology,” says James “is one of the best ways to change customer perceptions. People who are advertising against you may start advertising for you – after you apologize.”

If you’d like to know more about James Lloyd beyond these highlights, additional information is available at JamesLloyd.com.

P.S. What do you think of these reviews? This is only my second time writing about Yes Network seminars and I’m interested in your feedback to make sure the reviews I write in the future are beneficial to you. If you’re willing to take a minute to email me at claritypatton@MetroMichigan.com or post your comments below, your feedback will be appreciated.

1. Were these reviews helpful?
2. Were these reviews too long or too short?
3. Any other comments?

P.P.S. I’d be happy to include you in my Friday morning Sunny Note email. I write sunny notes because I enjoy being helpful and connecting with people, and I think we can all use a little cheer! You can subscribe at JoinSunnyNotes.com.

Sincerely,
Clarity

Clarity Patton Newhouse
Quality & Business Development Manager
Metropolitan Lincoln Mercury

32000 Ford Road
Garden City, MI 48135
734-458-1928 Direct
claritypatton@MetroMichigan.com
MetroMichigan.com

Home