Kent Blumberg

11 Keys to Better Solution-Selling Skills

As a professional executive and life coach, I am trained in 11 coaching competencies.  In working with clients, I have found most of these competencies to be useful metaphors for the relationship selling process. 

If you sell solutions to customers with whom you hope to build long-term relationships, consider these "11 Keys to Better Solution-Selling Skills" derived from the International Coach Federation Professional Coaching Core Competencies (PDF, 136kb). 

Using Meyers-Briggs concepts to better communicate at work

The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator is widely used in organizations and by individuals.  You have likely encountered it yourself.  If not, you can read summaries on Wikipedia and in this article by Howard Ditkoff.  The sixteen types are described in detail on Typelogic.com.

In this post, I will provide suggestions for improving your communications with folks of a different type. (You may want to know your type before reading further.  If so, here's a free on-line test.)

11 Ideas for Self-care during the holidays, and one blatant commercial plug

For those of us in the US, today ushers in six weeks of stress - the holiday season.  For others, there are plenty of opportunities for stress throughout the year.  Either way, here's a list of ideas to help you take care of yourself and enter 2008 full of vim and vigor and eager to make great things happen.  Thanks to the participants in our teleseminar on Monday for the ideas.

David Maister's upcoming book on strategy and execution

David Maister's upcoming book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, will be well worth the read.  If you are a leader or manager trying to develop and execute strategy, I'd plan on picking this book up as soon as its January 2008 release.

Morning buds

Embracing Failure at Work

Want to understand an organization's culture and leadership with one question?  Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, in their classic book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) propose asking,

"What happens when people fail?"

Free teleclass on self-care through the holidays

Gwen Stone and I will be hosting a free one-hour teleclass on Monday, November 19, at: 3 pm Eastern, 2 pm Central, 1 pm Mountain and noon Pacific time.

The topic is “Extreme Self-Care for the Holidays.”  As a group, we'll brainstorm ideas to help us flourish through the holiday season and enter 2008 rarin' to go.  Bring your ideas and come ready to party!

To join the call, simply dial 1-407-649-8983 at the appointed time.

See you there!

[Photo by mskadu.]

Clarifying Responsibilities

People want and need to know what is expected of them at work.  Without explicit and clear responsibilities, some will feel as if they are carrying the world while others kick back and relax.  The RASCI framework is a great tool for sorting this out on a team, and communicating it clearly.  Download this framework and follow along as I explain how to use it.

Give less rather than more

I listen to podcasts of NPR's "Fresh Air" on my daily walks.  The program on October 30 included an interview with Jerry Seinfeld in which he was asked why he ended his successful television series after nine seasons (when his ratings were still climbing).  Seinfeld responded that making a movie 15 minutes too long can turn it from great to average.  He also opined that the Beatles might not have been considered so great if they had not quit abruptly in 1970.

That "less-is-more" idea applies in leadership and business situations.

Leading Change - Actions are what people "hear"

"I can't hear what you are saying because your actions are so loud."

-- Louis A. Raspino, President and CEO, Pride International Inc., November 2, 2007 speech at Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University, Houston, Texas.

When you are attempting to lead a change in your organization's culture, what you say has little power.  What you DO is everything.  Here are some thoughts about how to make your actions speak loudly in service of the change you are trying to bring about.