Effective – Elliott Connection, LLC

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on when others have let go.” ~~ William Feather

I launched my monthly blog crusade in August 2013. This month’s focus, The Power of Follow-Up, is an apt topic to cap off my year’s trek, before starting all over again in August 2014. So many of the previous topics prepare you for following up in the most effective and winning way.

There are tools ad infinitum available for setting up a follow-up system, from paper to hi-tech, but the bottom line is there is no better tool than YOU. It’s all about building relationships of understanding and trust. That makes the process of following up easy and comfortable. As I have iterated numerous times before, everybody likes to do business with people they like.

We so often give up because we see no value in keeping in touch with someone who is not ready to do business with us today. Who can foresee what tomorrow may bring?

Thomas Edison said it well: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Advice […]

The Power of Listening

Coincidentally, “listening” has been the sermon theme for the past couple of weeks at my church. I’ll leave it to your resourcefulness to determine why listening
has a spiritual significance…

Anyone who has heard me speak or is reading my blogs knows one of my favorite bits of advice is to “be interested, not interesting!” Being able to listen well is a conduit to being able to communicate effectively.

A Strong Leader or Sales Professional is a Good Listener

There are lots of books on the power of listening, but I discovered a blog entitled Leadership & the Power of Listening by Mike Myatt, CEO of N2Growth. “The best leaders are proactive, strategic, and intuitive listeners. They recognize knowledge and wisdom are not gained by talking, but by listening.” They have the uncanny ability to read between the lines and understand what is not said.

The first rule in communication is to seek understanding before seeking to be understood. Communication is not a one-way street. Broadcasting your message ad nauseum will not result in a meaningful conversation, and could very well turn out to be a train wreck in the making. Good leaders must remember that […]