10 Surprising Success Tips From Amazing Sales Guru Tom Hopkins

Need a nudge toward success? Tom Hopkins has been training winners for nearly 40 years. Here are his 10 surefire tips.

In a recent column I found myself quoting a man I met nearly 30 years ago. I didn't just use one of his quotes, actually, I found I have been quoting him regularly without even thinking about it. That man is Tom Hopkins, author of more than 20 books including Selling For Dummies.

Hopkins has been helping sales people and executives achieve success for more nearly 4 decades and his advice never grows old.  I was lucky enough to sit down for a rare personal conversation with Tom last week and get him to share his insights. We discussed whichsuccess actions seem to surprise people the most. We agreed that these were 10 of the most effective tips:

1.    Covet your time. Time is precious--only 86,400 seconds in a day.  Average people waste most of those seconds in unproductive or unrewarding ways.  Successful peoplemanage their time efficiently.  They are aware of how they spend it and make conscious choices to use it wisely whether to work, relax or regenerate with family.

2.    Have a personal mission statement. Hopkins has his personal mission statement at his desk: I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment. Mine is peppered throughout my published writing: Inspire people to pursue the awesome experience. Successful people identify what they are about and make their choices accordingly.

3.    Spend 5 minutes a day prioritizing. Without prioritization, it's difficult to be efficient and productive. Hopkins suggests taking 5 minutes at the end of every day to sit down, assess and choose the 5 or 6 priorities for tomorrow so you can begin with clarity.  Successful people don't squander effort and energy on unimportant issues.

4.    Surround yourself with likeminded people.  Wealth, status and accomplishment have their own rewards, but the more success you attain, the lonelier you can become, since others may no longer feel comfortable or relate to your lifestyle. Successful people are careful about who shares their time.  They look for people with a similar outlook, who can help them grow emotionally and spiritually.

5.    Be a follow up specialist. Many people talk a good game and then never deliver. Sometimes the cause is hypocrisy and sometimes it's simply being sloppy and careless. Successful people do what they say they'll do, and they pay close attention to detail so small issues don't get neglected and become major catastrophes.

6.    Take the best of the past to create the future. The world is full of shiny new toys and methods. It's easy for humanity to get lost in the glitz and glamour of modern technology.  Successful people embrace modern tools for communication efficiency and continue to use traditional and rare methods like handwritten thank-you notes to enhance connections.

7.    Don't be a lemming. If you are always heading the same direction as everyone else, you may move forward, but you'll have little control of your destiny. Successful people often figure out what everyone else does only to do the opposite, which many times puts them ahead of the pack.

8.    Keep a thick skin about rejection. For many each no is like taking a punch in the gut or a slap in the face. The way to get up and keep going is to remember that it's just business. Successful people know that the key to getting life's few brilliant "yeses" is to positively cope with the many "noes" you get on the way to receiving them.

9. Make others feel important. The greatest craving of most people today is recognition. Unfortunately, so many people are so tightly focused on their own status and problems they are ignorant to the needs of others.  Successful people recognize, support and encourage others on their journey, which brings synergy, energy and satisfaction to all involved.

10. Strive for more. Tom Hopkin's overall philosophy for success can be best summed up by his commitment on how to live life:

"I commit to learn more,
thus I'll serve more,
thus I'll build more,
thus I'll earn more,
thus I'll save more,
thus I'll be able to bless others by giving more."

Thank you for blessing us with your wisdom Tom.

By Kevin Daum

Source: Inc.

5 Sneaky Ways to Defeat Your Time Management Frenemy

5 Sneaky Ways to Defeat Your Time Management Frenemy


Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your frenemies glued to your hip with wacky tacky. That’s how the saying goes, right? When it comes to time management, it’s sage advice. Phone calls, emails and other interruptions may be proven time management enemies, but the real threat is infinitely more insidious in its subtlety. The real threat is you.The human brain is an elegant machine, to be sure, but it also has some fairly conspicuous performance limitations. Unfortunately, the modern workplace gives these limitations little consideration. In fact, nearly every aspect of office life is tailor-made to drive you nuts. Observe:

1. YOUR BRAIN RUNS IN “SAFE MODE” AFTER 10AM.
The phenomenon is called decision fatigue, and it affects pretty much everyone with access to email. Here’s what happens:The prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that makes decisions, prioritizes, and solves problems) needs a ton of glucose to run. The harder your brain is forced to work, the worse our judgement becomes. Check. To combat the consequences of poor judgment, our brain responds by refusing to make decisions at all. After about 10am, we just stop making an effort. Jonathan Levav of Stanford and Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University studied this phenomenon by examining parole judges in Israel. All circumstances being equal, the researchers discovered that the odds of the judges granting parole were about 70% early in the morning. By late afternoon, there was only about a 10% chance the judges would be lenient.

Here’s What to Do About It: Focus on making your hardest decisions early, before you get tired. Schedule your planned or routine work for later in the afternoon.

2. ONCE YOUR BRAIN SHUTS DOWN, IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PRIORITIZE.
The ability to evaluate trade-offs and opportunity costs is uniquely human. For this reason, it requires a ton of metabolic fuel to run. When our brain gets tired, we shut the power to the part of the brain that solves complex problems and run on instinct instead. On the one hand, this conserves energy and we live to fight another day. On the other hand, we’re now running around the office in “Mastadon-fighting mode.” Prioritizing becomes a nightmare.

Here’s What to Do About It: Make a plan for how to divide your day first thing in the morning, before you get tired or lose the ability to think critically about alternatives.

3. WE ARE TERRIBLE AT ENVISIONING THINGS WE’VE NEVER SEEN.Try imagining a color that doesn’t exist. Tough, huh? This task is made even tougher by the fact that the “mind’s eye” is a particularly feeble organ in humans. This is why it is so much easier to spend time thinking about problems (things we’ve seen) then solutions (things we haven’t seen.) The upshot for our schedule? We’re really terrible at estimating which tasks will be more difficult than others, or how we’ll feel about doing a task at a later time.

Here’s What to Do About It: After you’ve identified the two or three tasks that must get done, break them down into smaller chunks that are easier to estimate. In other words, don’t assume that writing a  report will be 2 hours. Write down the high-level tasks that are associated with that report, estimate time for each of them, and then add them up to get to a final estimate. This will help you more accurately estimate what can (or can’t) be accomplished in a single day.

4. OUR BRAIN IS LIKE A SPAGHETTI STRAINER…IT CAN’T HOLD MUCH AT ONE TIME.Scientists used to think that we could hold five to seven items in our head at once. Now they think that number is closer to four. The number is even smaller when you’re working with unfamiliar words or concepts (like during the first 90 days of a new job.) Unfortunately, any time you have to drag something from short-term or long-term memory into working memory, your glucose needs shoot up.

Here’s What to Do About It: A lot of people make their “to-do list” and then try to keep it in their head throughout the day. A better strategy is to use a visual technique (like a mind map or big boxes) to draw your high-level priorities. Then, keep it somewhere visible so that you can reference it whenever you need to. This will prevent you from needing to recall this information throughout the day–which, of course, involves draining your brain of glucose.

5. YOUR BRAIN CAN’T DO TWO THINGS AT ONCE.

…and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Our brain is just not physically capable of doing two cognitive tasks at once. It is capable of switching very fast from one task to another—however, doing so is very draining and usually leads to poor judgment calls. Unfortunately, HR departments everywhere are still putting this as a “must-have skill” on job descriptions. As a result, people are switching activities every three minutes and working an average of 11 minutes on a project before dealing with a distraction…and everyone thinks this is normal.

Here’s What to Do About It: Explore a time management method like the Pomodoro Technique, which helps you single-focus on important tasks while still staying accessible to your team. Also, wean yourself off obsessive email checking–try going an hour or two with email notifications disabled. Every time you check an email, your working memory is derailed and your decision-making center of the brain is taxed.

By Sara Gallagher
Source: Blogging4jobs

8 Things Really Efficient People Do

8 Things Really Efficient People Do

Everyone wants more time. Efficiency is one way of adding minutes or hours to your day. Here are eight tips effectively used by the most efficient.

Most everyone would like to be more efficient. Just think, you would spend less time doing the things that you don't enjoy and more on the things that bring satisfaction, happiness and profit. Some people are actually very adept at efficiency.  They manage every manageable moment so they have more time for themselves to do the things they love. Here are eight techniques efficient people use to gain that freedom.

1. Stop Multitasking

Many people fool themselves into thinking they are good at multitasking. But actually very few can solidly focus on more than 1 or two tasks, particularly if they require focus and depth.  They fool themselves into believing they are getting more done when in reality they are accomplishing less and the quality of the work is poor. Really efficient people know that concentrated effort with few distractions leads to better work product in faster times. Otherwise the work may not be up to par, which means wasting even more time and energy going back to fix the mistakes.

2. Delegate

So much productivity is lost when people take on more than they can accomplish. Don't be inspired by CEOs and leaders who overload their schedules and burn the midnight oil. Really efficient people are extremely good at delegating tasks to others who will perform them better. When you know how to break down a task and empower others to contribute effort, you can choose the tasks most suited for you and crank through them in record time without distraction.

3. Use Appropriate Communication

Poor communication is a huge time-waster. A fast email transmitting bad instructions or an offensive attitude can end up adding many unnecessary hours to a project. The masters of efficiency take a little extra time to think through their communication in the beginning. They consider their objectives when deciding to get on the phone. They craft their emails with purpose using the exact language necessary to get the desired effect.  It takes a little more time at the beginning but can actually shave days from a project.

4. Apply Structure to the Schedule

With all the available scheduling and productivity tools you would think more people would feel they have a handle on their schedule. And yet often people feel their schedule drives them instead of the other way around. Efficiency fanatics create standard routines in their schedule so they can achieve a disciplined approach and be ready for the important events. The more you control the calendar, the easier it is to make room for the unexpected.

5. Give Everything a Proper Place

A lot of time is wasted chasing down lost items. Keys, pens and clothing hunts can cause distraction and frustration, especially when you have something important to do or somewhere important to be. People get really efficient from being organized. Establish a home for all the items you have.  Factories that practice LEAN create common homes for necessary tools of the trade. You can do the same. Organize clothes, papers and electronics in a way that you can easily find what you are looking for.  It may take you a few extra minutes to put things away but you'll save a ton of time and irritation from having to search for what's important.

6. Time Activities

Do you really know how much time you spend productively versus how much time you waste? I often know that I am talking on the phone with someone who takes efficiency seriously because they tell me when the call is almost over. Efficient people set a time for each of their tasks and work to keep the schedule. Try logging your time on conversations and activities for a week.  Then spend the next week setting specific times for similar activities and work to reduce the times with similar output.  You'll be pleasantly surprised at the gains.

7. Commit to Downtime

Tired and overworked people don't perform well. People pleasers will sacrifice their own downtime thinking they are benefitting others, but in truth they detract from productivity. Really efficient people make sure they get rest and recuperation so they can perform at their peak. Since one amazing employee can do the work of three average employees, best to let the team rest up and be top performers.

8. Plan Projects

Effort is often wasted when people don't have a clear path to success. Impatience is the direct enemy of efficiency. Really efficient people know they must take the time to research and break down a project into basic steps in order to achieve success consistently. Yes, planning takes a little time. But considering the challenges, process and responsibilities in advance will make for clear direction with the team. With good communication everyone can move confidently and efficiently to achieve all the objectives in record time.

By Kevin Daum

Source: Inc.

Great Promotions

Lakeview Consultants is pleased to announce and welcome Allison Young as its new Director of Human Resources. Allison has been with Lakeview Consultants since the beginning of June 2012 as a Corporate Trainer. Allison has trained, mentored, and developed over a dozen employees in her short time with the company.
Lakeview Consultants is even more pleased to announce Jamie Vega as its new Director of Recruiting. Jamie also began as a Corporate Trainer in May 2013, switching to Lakeview's Administrator that October and has helped the company quadruple in size as well as open two new locations.

We welcome and congratulate Allison and Jamie and look forward to a prosperous future with them both.

5 Secrets of Public Speaking From the Best TED Presenters

5 Secrets of Public Speaking From the Best TED Presenters

Ask just about anyone these days for great examples of public speaking and you’ll hear a variation on a single thing -- "Did you see that TED talk by so and so?" Powerful enough to change your life in 18-short minutes and garnering millions upon millions of views, the best TED talks are a well deserved cultural phenomena.

Could you borrow a bit of their magic?

That’s the premise of TEDx organizer Jeremey Donovan’s book “How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World’s Most Inspiring Presentations.” Combing through the most viewed talks, Donovan tried to boil down what exactly makes them so gripping so he can bottle that special sauce for his readers. What did he come up with? A 33voices podcast featuring Donovan gives you a taster, including these tips:

One Big Idea

"If you had to say there was one magical element to the best TED talks, it’s that those speakers picked one really, really big idea," Donovan say, noting that the challenge is often that we have too much content rather than too little.

So how can you determine what your own single idea or message should be. Ask yourself: what is the best story I have to tell? Donovan suggests. Start with that story and what it taught you and then edit ruthlessly. He suggests asking yourself: "Is what I’m saying now a digression, or is what I’m saying now in support of that core theme?" Visualize the theme as a spine and ensure everything you say hangs nicely off that.

It’s Not About You

The biggest thing that people have to unlearn, Donovan says, is the notion that speaking is about your performance. It’s not. It’s about the audience. "I think the biggest transformation in speaking quality happens when you realize that this song is not about you," he says.

When speaking, your objective should be to give the audience a gift of something that you learned. If you conceptualize your talk that way you can come closer to being as relaxed and comfortable as the greatest TED speakers -- many of whom are not professionals, but simply passionate about communicating their message. Speak conversationally like you would to someone you care about. 

Nail Your Opener

How do you start your talk? Donovan offers three ways. The first and best, if you can manage it, is to jump straight into a story. And don’t skimp on the emotion. "Don’t retell your story. Relive your story with the audience," Donovan advises.

The most common opener is second best, according to Donovan, and involves starting with an an open-ended, thought provoking question. The answer must be your core theme. "You gotta be careful," Donovan cautions. "If you ask a series of questions, every single answer to each of those questions has to be exactly the same."  The final way is to start is with a shocking statistic, something unexpected that gets people disrupted.

The Catchphrase Is King

"The best talks have a repeated catchphrase," Donovan says, noting that this catchphrase isn’t mercilessly repeated but sprinkled through the talk at beginning, middle and end. So what makes for a great, memorable catchphrase?

"Catchphrases tend to work best when they’re three words up to twelve," he says. It’s also important to keep it  action centric: "You want people to make it personally relevant. Something they can do to change their lives." A rhyming or sing song catchphrase is more 'sticky' --  just think of ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit’ which you no doubt remember (if you’re old enough) from the O.J. Simpson case all the way back in 1995.

Channel Your Inner Screenwriter

"We’re hardwired from our earliest childhood on how to tell stories," says Donovan, who insists that we’re all natural storytellers. Still, you can buff up your inherent storytelling skills by keeping classical, three-act story structure in mind.

"You open in act one with the ordinary world of your protagonist,” Donovan says, explaining that you should start with what your life was life before something incredible happened. Then comes some inciting incident, "something that happens to you that throws you onto a journey" whether it’s physical and mental. That’s act one.

"Act two takes you from the inciting incident through a series of escalating conflicts that are increasingly difficult," Donovan explains (try to throw in some comic relief). The climax of your story is the end of act two. "It needs to have high stakes and a critical decision that you need to make," he says. Finally, "act three takes you from the end of the climax into the new world, so what is your life like now that you have gone through this journey? How has your day to day changed and how has your mindset changed?"

Want more of Donovan’s insights? Check out a this presentation summing up his takeaways, or listen to the entire 30-minute interview.

What’s your favorite TED talk of all time and why?

by Jessica Stillman

Source: Inc

Where to Start: 5 Tips to Tackling a Big Project

Where to Start: 5 Tips to Tackling a Big Project 

For many people wishing to tackle an important project, starting is the hardest part.  If a project is big or complicated it can seem overwhelming or intimidating.  Some people get stuck in analysis paralysis while trying to figure everything out before starting. Others start without ever thinking anything through and hope things just work out along the way.

Setting up a project for success is actually fairly easy with a little forethought and structure. Below are five tips to help you get a quick and sustainable jump off the starting blocks.

1. Do some homework. I remember as a kid excitedly trying to build model airplanes without reading the instructions. Ultimately I learned that approach leads to a hollow, mediocre result. Blind ambition can drive you to smash right into a brick wall. Most worthy projects have complexity and require process. You don't have to hire grad students or spend countless nights on the web, but a little advance research can go a long way in identifying obstacles before appear. When you are ready to tackle a big opportunity, budget a few hours or even days of research with a clear deadline to begin so you don't get lost in the exploration. Then you can approach the project with confidence and the security of knowing your time and efforts will be well spent.

2. Set up a basic plan. If you don't know where you're going then any road will get you there (paraphrased from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) is a great approach if you are crawling through rabbit holes and running from crazy queens. But for those of you with specific purpose, you'll want to set out a clear road map to success. A good plan has action steps, with milestones tied to specific dates to check progress. Don't make it too complicated or rigid as people need to understand it and remain flexible for surprises along the way. The plan is best used as structure from which you can deviate when necessary, as you are bound to become smarter and more adept along the journey.

3. Recruit great people. Sometimes projects get started with just the people in the room. So often would-be leaders try to be inclusive for the sake of being nice, knowing full well the wrong people are on the team. Setting up a project for failure with mediocre performers helps no one. Give an important project every opportunity for success by finding and engaging the most amazing people you can afford. Recruit the best and you'll never regret the performance of true talent. Then you can share the rewards of success with both those who did the work and those who stood aside selflessly.

4. Establish clear expectations. Great talent can deliver spectacular results, but lack of clarity can send even the best people into utter chaos. Make sure everyone knows their role and the deliverables for which they are accountable. Don't leave any aspect of the project neglected. Schedule specific discussions with the team where each member can clearly present their approach and expected deliverables. Talk about obstacles and share methodology for overcoming them. If everyone starts on the same page, it will be easy to tell when something or someone goes astray so you can quickly course correct.

5. Create communication protocol. In this day and age of smartphones and social media, there are too many ways of getting a message across to assume that everyone will communicate in the same manner and timeframe. That's why you need to get everyone on the same page from the start. Establish guidelines for the use of email or texting, and collaboration tools such as Dropbox or Evernote should be chosen. Required meetings with clear agendas should be scheduled so everyone knows when and where they will report.  No communication process should be left unaddressed. You should even consider how to give people a healthy way to express their emotion and relieve frustrations so they won't damage the team focus and morale. A little discussion at the beginning will create great efficiency until the end.

By: Kevin Daum

Source: Inc.

Grit: It Contributes to Success More Than You Think

Grit: It Contributes to Success More Than You Think

When you're trying to change an industry in a big way, it's the only thing that will keep you going.

If you spend much time with entrepreneurs who are radically changing anything--an industry, a technology, or a paradigm--you cannot help but be swept away by the possibility of it all.

I love being with them and all their optimism because I start thinking about what's possible for me. And isn't that what we all want? To have relationships that bring out the best in us and challenge us to imagine our lives a little bigger and better?

I want to tell you about two such people because their stories show precisely what you can achieve when you have determination.

Grit Trumps Everything Else

Bobby Huffaker had an idea. He realized he couldn't execute on it alone, so he talked to David Yoder. Together, these guys set out not just to disrupt an industry, but also to be a part of starting one that didn't yet exist.

In September of 2010, Bobby and David started American Exchange--a certified health exchange brokerage. They took a huge, huge bet that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would make its way through Congress, among the many other number of public opinion hoops it had to pass through, and find its way to the American consumer.

What I love most about Bobby and David is their grit. They not only saw opportunity and adventure, they seized it long before it was even a possibility. They raised a lot of money and stayed with the execution, even when some people insisted "this will never happen."

Like most start-ups, theirs was never a sure bet. Unlike most start-ups, however, people were actively working against them to snuff out their ability to exist. Their drive to keep going is what grit is all about.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth defines psychological grit as "perseverance and passion for long term goals."

Grit has emerged as a significant indicator for success--even more than IQ, talent, and social intelligence. It's the part of you that simply will not give up on your ideal future and works like hell to figure out a path to get there.

Your Future Is Yours to Create

Many people, even entrepreneurs, lack this grit because they see life as a series of circumstances that happen to them rather than an ideal future that they can create.

Actor Will Smith talks a little differently about grit.

"The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things--you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple."

That's what great entrepreneurs do. They have a vision that leads them on an adventure--a hero's journey if you will--and they are simply unwilling to stop until they change whatever is inefficient, status quo, unjust, or evil.

Regardless of your position on the ACA, you can't help but admire these guys. They epitomize the spirit of entrepreneurship unlike anyone I've ever seen.

They built something from nothing with a far-ranging vision. And instead of a potential upside, they were met with blank stares and Congressional backlash--and absolutely no promise of a financial return.

They jumped off the cliff with no parachute, no promise of a parachute, and, oh yeah, we might rip your parachute off you at some point.

But that's what entrepreneurs do. That's what Bobby and David did. And that's why I love these guys. They inspire me to think about my cliff, my parachute, and my fear.

Their hero's journey has inspired me to be alive to my own journey and to follow my own path--no matter what.

By: Shelly Prevost 

Source: Inc.