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How to Be More Influential By Adding Great Value to Others

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“Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give.” – Dr. Ben Carson

“People don’t know how much you know until you show how much you care.” – Dr. John C. Maxwell

Two of my favorite quotes. You know that people will listen if you share knowledge that helps them. Want to go a little further and get some influence? Add some value to their lives. In today’s post, we’ll be talking about how you can be more influential with people by bringing them value.

So what did you learn from that? Hopefully you got the impression that giving value is important in sales. You say you’re not in sales? O contraire! You definitely are!

Did you know that every day people are selling themselves? Whether it’s a salesperson doing a direct sale or an engineer with a proposal for a project, or a mother trying to get her kid to eat vegetables, everyone is selling. Everyone is thinking about how they’re going to influence their audience (the customer, the client, or kid) to buy their product or services, or eat carrots.

One of the largest difference makers in making that sale is whether or not that person has influence on their audience.

As Jeffrey said, he tries to give value first… and that’s what gets you influence.

Which is much different than what a lot of people do today. Instead of looking for the win-win, they’re looking for the “how can I use this person”? The person who is looking for the win-win is looking how to give value. The second type is taking value. The first one is the influencer while the second one, I think, is the persuader… the manipulator.

Giving Value in our Daily Lives

Before we talk about giving value in our professional life, let’s just make sure we get a better idea of what giving value means for sure. Something simple. Nothing drastic.

If you were to give value in something that you’re already doing right now, how would you do that? You might be thinking that you’d have to start thinking and acting differently than you currently do. But would you really? I’m sure there’s things in your life that you’re already doing for others that give them value. For instance, while I’m the guy of the household, and traditionally men supposedly don’t cook, I know that I can bring value by being the person who cooks dinner on a regular basis.

Think about something you might be good at that you could use to benefit those around you. Believe me, it’ll help later.

Giving Value In our Careers

In the professional space, you might think that people are looking to get ahead of each other by beating each other down. By stealing ideas and contacts. It’s total competition out there – even in the same company. People are trying to beat each other for that next position. So you have to take what you can get! When the boss asks you a question, you better respond with a “Yes, sir!” response.

Right?

Wrong.

First off, that’s not a very confident mindset. People will notice that you’re afraid of the workplace if you have that kind of perspective. So let’s try to look at things from another perspective. One of collaboration.

For one, instead of using that quick to respond with definite answers, let’s try to answer questions with questions. Obviously we don’t want to make it obvious. But let’s try to dig deeper for something that will be a better solution instead of something that’s a quick fix. The more you know about a certain subject, the more thorough you can be about about your solution.

A way you can do that, for example, is enter any meeting that you have with 4 questions that you want to get answered:

What are the goals (short and long term)?

Who is the audience?

What is the capabilities of your group and/or department?

How do you measure success?

As you become a person who helps think things out (as opposed to going to the know it all quick fix), people start coming to you for help.

Another way that you can add value to people is being what’s know as The Connector (as Malcolm Gladwell calls them) or the Linchpin (as Seth Godin refers to them).

The idea of this particular person is that they’re a main hub of a certain network of people. They’re the ones who can carry out a conversation with someone from one year to next without ever acting like time has passed. Generally speaking, these people know where they met someone and what they were doing at the time.

If this sounds like you or you want to become one, I recommend reading The Tipping Point and/or Linchpin to find out more.

The third way that you can add value, or even if you’re unsure, is to ask yourself these three questions:

Is what I’m doing or the acts that I’m performing different but also includes ideas that other people from the group have thought about? (You don’t want to come off as being too maverick!)

Is this a great contribution? Is this work something I’ve strived for excellence in? (Don’t half ass your work. Remember the Agreement: Always do Your Best)

Do I really care about what I did? Did I see this in perspective of helping other people? (Again, think about the quote at the beginning of this post.)

 

Homework:

The next time you want to influence your peers, family, or audience, think about how you’re going to add value to them. What is something only you can provide to the group? A perspective? Experiences? Make sure you’re providing that information not because you want to manipulate but because you want to truly help. You’d be surprised what will happen as time goes on.

Millennials as Entrepreneurs Part 3 of 10: Business Opportunities Galore!

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Business opportunities are everywhere for us. With the internet opening up the whole world for commerce in the 90’s, many of us have just grown up with it as being there. Personally, I think I just ordered a few items offline before I made the jump. And man, when I did, it was so easy to keep doing.

 

I remember one of the first things I ordered was a movie poster for one of the Ace Ventura movies. It’s still somewhere, rolled up… collecting dust. When I ordered that, I was totally into whatever Jim Carrey was in. Heck, one of my first CD’s I ever bought was the soundtrack to Dumb and Dumber. So when I found out that I could order this poster, I sent in my money order to some random place and 3-4 weeks later I got my order.

 

Many of you will never know that pain. I don’t even think I could put up with it myself anymore.

 

The 21 Jump Street Epiphany

When I finally got to see this movie, it totally rocked me in how it portrays the difference in high school from when I went to what it’s like now.

 

When I went, there were definite cliques, yes. At most schools, jocks weren’t band kids or geeks. However, they were the popular ones. It was simple. (At my high school, they did intermingle a bit – but I write that up to class size and my class being a Gen X and Y hybrid.)

 

In a particular scene in the movie, however, it shows just how much that is changed. Ha, I felt Jenko’s pain. I mean, I recognized him as cool, but the kids didn’t. The kids in fact thought of him as an out of place dinosaur.

 

I realized it was a whole new world. It’s no longer cool to not be a geek about something. Even jocks are geeks about sports. Look at Andrew Luck! There are so many types of people in the Millennial culture. Because of just that, there are plenty so many business opportunities.

 

 

Mike Rowe and the Blue Collar Revival

 

If you think that all business opportunities have to be online, that’s because we’re in a digital age. However, one of the shows that I loved watching as I was going through college was Dirty Jobs starring Mike Rowe as the host. As I was watching the show, it occurred to me that a large portion of the people he shadowed were business owners.

 

Yes, they were all dirty jobs, but as the theme song says, someone has to do it.

 

Since the show, Mike has started a foundation called Mike Rowe Works where the main focus is to educate people in the need of trade workers. He continuously states that college shouldn’t be the destination for everyone. And to be honest, I don’t think it needs to be with all the types of people that are out there.

 

Currently, as it is, college is a one size fits all model. Sure, you have different majors, but everyone that goes through it is going to come out being ready for a white collar job. (It also takes creativity out of most students… but that’s for another post.)

 

If you’re passion and interests lie in the real world and/or you’re a little more of a tech immigrant than most Millennials, consider listening to Mike.

 

Tech is Our Friend

Obviously, most businesses right now are being started online. A good reason for this is because it gives you unlimited potential for customers. Another is that there is lower overhead compared to that of a Real Life Business.

 

There are many ways to do an online business. You can take advantage of companies that already exist and have a virtual store with eBay and Amazon. You can build your own website from scratch and sell virtual products. You can also make SaaS Products for individuals. Or heck, you can just run a site that points to places where people can buy things and get a finder’s fee (affiliate marketing).

 

Here’s the fun thing about all of those: you don’t need a degree and you can be yourself each and every day. In fact, it’s preferred (unless you’re a complete asshat!). Remember, there’s too many kinds of people out there not to be yourself. It takes too much energy to fake it!

 

There’s So Many Choices!

 

In the comments below, quickly let me know your thoughts on what kind of businesses you might be thinking of starting. Give me up to 10 possibilities. The more you list, the more you can eliminate for sure later! (Believe me, this is really important. You don’t want to be constantly thinking What If when you’re building your business!)
Also don’t forget that they don’t have to strictly be online! If you want to be an independent vet, author or speaker, say so!

 

In next week’s edition of the series, I’ll be diving deeper into Technology and how it has offered a distinct advantage for Millennials.

 

How to Successfully Go Through the Minefield

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Recently, I had the chance to listen to Tom Kunz, past president of Century 21, tell a story about a fellow who had the opportunity to have a private golf lesson with a certain professional golfer. There wasn’t much to the story but there was definitely a key part that I remember that went something like this:

“(The man) was out playing golf with the professional golfer. The Pro was watching him, trying to find out how the guy could improve his swing. In doing so, the Pro asked the guy what club he used the least and asked for it. The Man gave him the club and the Pro continued to swing the club as he would with one of his.

The ball flew and landed where he had aimed. He then turned around to the Man and said “Well, we now know it’s not the equipment!”

What Does It Mean?

There are various things we can pull from this story. For instance we could have realized that people are professionals because they can do things that most others can’t do as well. To become a pro, he probably had to put a lot of time into his craft.

The obvious thing I got from this story was that most of the time… it’s not the equipment. It’s not anyone else’s fault that you haven’t succeeded. You are a product of your own choices. The man probably wasn’t great with that club because he hadn’t used it.

Association is Key

Even those two things stick out there’s probably a more important aspect that is probably more important that might escape all of us at first. We might miss the forest for the trees. How? Well, this story reminded me that is association is important. Luckily, the man in the story had decided that he wanted to have help with his golf swing and found someone that had success at the level that he wanted. It would have taken him a lot more time if he had tried finding out the problem himself. Heck, he probably might not have ever tried using the club and would have focused more on just changing his swing on other clubs that he was better at. Now he knew that if he spent more time honing his time on this new tool, he might have more success in the future. Which was the better path to take? Personally, I don’t know. I’m not a golfer. However, the Pro had more experience and gave the man a pro’s perspective.

Once you figure out where you want to go in life, association with those that have been where you want to go is very important. It’s better to get experience from those who have already gone through the minefield so that you don’t have to find out the answers yourself.

Thoughts?

Personally I have gotten to associate with plenty of people who are where I want to be in the future. But I still would love to get more time in with those are more successful than me in topics like internet marketing, passive income, and success.

What are your thoughts in finding association. Is there anything that is key that you would look for when you are looking for people to help you?

I look forward to reading your responses. Have a wonderful week and congratulations to the Boilermakers football team who once again was able to beat Ohio State! Boiler Up. 🙂

Cheers!

The Teenager Principle: You Just Leveled Up!

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When I became a freshman in high school, I believed I knew everything. As an 8th grader, I, like you, felt like I knew everything there was to know about the world. I felt unstoppable. The older I got, the more unstoppable I felt. Until I moved on to the next school.

When I moved to the next school, (high school and later college) I remember thinking as a freshman that seniors just didn’t “get it” and that they were just off and/or mean for no reason. While I felt like nothing could hurt me, I also tended to feel that I was worthless. Talk about ups and downs!! Things kept happening to me and I just couldn’t understand why. Heck as a sophomore in high school, I remember getting on Yahoo! chat and acting like I was certain seniors. Later in college, I would play it off as if I was somebody that everyone should be familiar with and you were lucky to have me as a friend. But the truth was that I was not acting or comfortable with myself. Society was telling me that I had to be popular and do certain things – but when I did them, it always backfired. What’s funny now though, as I graduated and have had time reflect over the years and met younger and/or less experienced people, I’ve started realizing how brash, judgmental, and naive I must have seemed.

You Just Leveled Up!

There’s a saying that says “If you feel like life is harder, you must have just leveled up.” If you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, it’s simply referring to a a role playing video game in which you get new quests as you level up. The more quests you do, the more experience your character has and the more powers he has. In life, like the game, you must go through quests that take a lot more stamina than you’re used to. However, as you might know from playing those types of games, you get more rewards for sticking with and accomplishing them.

So in a nutshell, the Teenager Principle is simply believing that you’re good at things that you’re really not, but being overly humble about things that you’re good at. When I was told about this principle, things started making sense as to why my confidence was all screwed up. I now know why I felt the world didn’t make sense as a freshman in high school and college. It’s because I had just leveled up. I was taking on a new level of quests. Quests that, while they might seem similar, were at a completely different complexity. A complexity that I would not understand unless I had understood the adventure for what it was and kept moving forward.

Thoughts, questions, comments?

So how about you? Are you going through a period where you seem to be out of your comfort zone all the time? Have you ever noticed this phenomenon? When was the last time you leveled up? I’d love to hear from you. Also, if you’d like me to put you in contact with Mark Boersma, who has helped me discover this principle, feel free to email him at [email protected]!

The DISC Profile: Placing People on the Map

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When I was growing up and even through most of my undergrad years, I always thought that EVERYONE was competitive. I thought everyone played nature’s game. However, when I was taking an OLS class in 2004, I found out about personality temperaments. Specifically, I found out about the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile test. While studying this I came to find out that there were 16 combinations of 8 different traits that a person could have. At the time, I thought it was preposterous to label people – but as I had to study it more, I found out that it explained quite a bit.

Well, over time, I became frustrated with the Myers-Briggs test (which is the same thing as the Jungian 16 test). In one week, I could be one of the 16 different combinations and then in the next week, I’d be another. I could be an introvert one week and the next week, I’d be an extrovert!

Well eventually I ran across a book called Personality Plus. In this book, Florence Littauer explains how there are really four main personality temperaments: the Melancholy, Phlegmatic, Sanguine, and Choleric. She also explains how to tell what you are as well as what others are and how to interact with them.

Later, I found out about the DISC personality assessment and realized that the temperaments described in Florence’s book could have easier names to remember! DISC is short for Dominant, Imaginative, Supportive, and Calculative (or a combination of similar terms).

At any rate, the point of all of this is that once you have an understanding of what these temperaments are, you can understand where people are coming from. In a very basic form, you can understand what drives people. So, without further adue, here’s a brief explanation of the different DISC temperaments (source: Wikipedia):

The assessments classify four aspects of behavior by testing a person’s preferences in word associations (compare with Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). DISC is an acronym for:

  • Dominance – relating to control, power and assertiveness
  • Influence – relating to social situations and communication
  • Steadiness (submission in Marston’s time) – relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness
  • Conscientiousness (or caution, compliance in Marston’s time) – relating to structure and organization

These four dimensions can be grouped in a grid with “D” and “I” sharing the top row and representing extroverted aspects of the personality, and “C” and “S” below representing introverted aspects. “D” and “C” then share the left column and represent task-focused aspects, and “I” and “S” share the right column and represent social aspects. In this matrix, the vertical dimension represents a factor of “Assertive” or“Passive”, while the horizontal dimension represents “Open” vs. “Guarded”.[2]


  • Dominance (Choleric / Driver): People who score high in the intensity of the “D” styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low “D” scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High “D” people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low D scores describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

 

  • Influence (Sanguine / Expressive): People with high “I” scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Those with low “I” scores influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

 

  • Steadiness (Phlegmatic / Amiable): People with high “S” styles scores want a steady pace, security, and do not like sudden change. High “S” individuals are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Low “S” intensity scores are those who like change and variety. People with low “S” scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

 

  • Conscientious (Melancholy / Analytical): People with high “C” styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High “C” people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful. Those with low “C” scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and unconcerned with details.

Who said you couldn’t source Wikipedia? 🙂

At any rate, I would like to note that while the DISC profile or any other personality temperament test can give a basic understanding of who a person is, it cannot possibly give an exact representation of who they are as a person. Why? Well think of a particular place on Earth, say Hawaii. Now it is possible to represent Hawaii by a Latitude and Longitude value but that probably doesn’t do it justice. There are so many ways that a particular place can be described, especially Hawaii, that limiting it to a few key words probably isn’t the best thing to do. The same thing is true with people.

So if you do start using the DISC profile (or any personality assessment) in common situations be careful that even if you get a base description of someone, that it isn’t all you use to evaluate who they are as person. But it definitely is a starting point… and that’s definitely better than nothing or just winging it!

Innovation in Indiana 001: Techpoint Innovation Summit 2010

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In the past year that I’ve been in Indianapolis, one of the groups that I’m glad to be plugging in with is Techpoint. Essentially Techpoint’s goal is to help foster up-and-coming companies from around the state. Also, they act as a podium to bring together speakers from various backgrounds to come and give their two cents on given topics.

On a yearly basis, Techpoint holds two large events that recognize entrepreneurship in Indiana. One, the Mira Awards, features companies from around the state that have done well in their respective field. It is generally sponsored by several schools including Purdue, Indiana, and Ivy Tech as well as several other key names within the state such as Indiana Business Journal, Barnes and Thornburgh, and ExactTarget. While seeing the companies being recognized for their achievements is great, the networking opportunities are awesome. And considering that this is a site dedicated for helping you with your new path(s) in life, if you are in Indiana and specifically Indianapolis, don’t pass up next years Mira Awards!

Secondly, the Innovation Summit is a place where a collection of speakers and business owners can get together and share ideas. In a way, you could think of it as Indiana’s Innovation TED. While I have not attended the Summit, I am looking forward to attending it next week on October 27th. Here’s a video for you to get a glimpse as to why I’m looking forward to it!

Link to the full story via their Blog.

If you’re an Indiana based Entrepreneur/business owner who would like to mix with some of the best minds in the area, I would say it’s in your best interest to make it to a Techpoint meeting in the near future!