In a sellers’ market, salespeople could quote almost any price to sellers and rely on a rising market to achieve their overquoted prices.

I won’t go into the ethics of this practice, but suffice to say that this type of salesperson is going to find life very difficult as the market shifts, and I don’t feel sorry for them one little bit.

As the market transitions from a sellers’ market to a stable market and then into a buyers’ market, the time may quickly come in your area when it becomes necessary for you to give price more focus in your listing presentations.

To make sales in stable markets, and especially in buyers’ markets, salespeople must “price right”, and this requires skill.

Here are some strategies you might consider so that your listings are priced to sell:

Accurate Estimated Selling RangeSalespeople are notorious for avoiding the issue of price. They use no price strategies such as Expression of Interest or auction, but these are less effective when buyers are calling the shots.

Sellers must hear an honest estimate of the likely selling price range for their properties in this current market. This must be done diplomatically, but it must be done.For many years I have said, “To tell the truth in real estate and still win the business, you must be an outstanding presenter‘.

Your competitors may lie, but you should not. Ever.

EvidenceEvidence is now more important in a shifting market. Comparable sales that are three months old may no longer be relevant.

Do your research and give evidence that helps sellers understand where their property sits in the current market.

Accurate and specific price feedbackSalespeople don’t like delivering bad news, and with the wrong attitude passing on buyer feedback to sellers can be regarded this way. Instead of looking at delivering price feedback as bad news, change your thinking – you are helping your clients achieve their goals.

Buyers will not give you their opinions of price unless you ask them. When you ask buyers what they feel your listing is worth, and then pass that feedback to your sellers, you are doing your sellers a great service.

Since most sellers are expecting more for their properties than they are worth, sellers must be coached to help them see where their property sits in the market. This must be done honestly and without pressure.

Accurate feedback from specific buyers helps sellers to move from overpriced to market price.

Emotional Centrepoint Why do your clients want to sell? Do they have a strong reason for putting their property on the market? If they don’t, why take them on?

Working with people who aren’t serious about selling, who don’t have a strong emotional centrepoint for selling, are not only a waste of your time and your company’s money, but they also wear you down. In buyers’ markets, you will face enough negativity without inflicting it on yourself by taking on the wrong people. Leave those sellers who aren’t serious for your desperate competitors.

A Time For SkillWhen the market shifts, it becomes a time for skill. There are many real estate salespeople who are what I call “market victims’. When the market is booming, those salespeople do well. When it isn’t, they don’t.

Skilled salespeople do well in every market. They know that when the market changes, some of their selling techniques must also change.

They know they must price their listings to sell.

Gary Pittard

Strategic solutions to smooth your project management path!

There are a number of common project management challenges that trip organizations up all the time, and they make life really tough for project managers. By knowing about these challenges in advance, and arming yourself with strategic solutions, you can quickly combat them and keep your projects from stalling out.

Challenge one: unclear direction

This one comes up all the time – an organization has an idea and wants to execute a project, but their senior executive team is unclear on what exactly everyone is supposed to do.

Not only does unclear direction start projects on the wrong foot, but it inevitably trickles down to the people executing the project, resulting in costly assumptions and a ton of rework.

What’s the solution to combat this?

The executive team needs to get crystal clear on what they want to happen on the project from the very start. When you as project manager get your marching orders, you need to step up, ask for clear direction from your sponsor and executive team, and spend time fully flushing out the project’s scope.

Not only will that keep you and your project team from wasting time and energy as the project unfolds, but it will also save the organization a ton of money as well.

A few other common project management challenges

There are some other challenges that commonly show up on projects and I explain them in my latest YouTube video. Here’s a sneak peak at what I cover:

How disengaged stakeholders create big problems (I have solutions!)

Preventing scope creep from paralyzing your projects

How unclear expectations and a lack of accountability lead to unmet deadlines (I spell out steps to avoid this!)

Knowing what to watch for, and having strategic solutions at the ready will go a long way towards smoothing your project management path. Join me over in YouTube to learn more.

I dive into strategies and solutions for every stage of the project management cycle in my SLAY Project Management online course. It also gives you every template you need to manage a project, along with detailed video instructions on how to use them to make your all your projects a success.

Adriana Girdler, PMP | Creator of Slay Project Management

Thanks For Sharing!

FeudFightBattleConflictHostilityContentionRivalryBrawlAntagonismWarBitternessGrudge

It seems that some or many people who follow me on social media think that I am in a blood feud with James Womack and the Lean Enterprise Institute. That is a mistaken impression. While I do not know Dr. Womack personally, I have briefly met him a three or four times over the last 25 years and I found him to be a very nice person. He, like many others, has done some fine work. I have nothing against him or anyone else.

But I do closely scrutinize his work and the work of other people prominent in Lean world because they are so influential. In doing so, I merely point out facts — omissions, misunderstandings, inconsistencies, and mistakes — often accompanied by sharp but accurate words. This is part of my learning, and so it is part of your learning too. That should be your impression.

My critiques and commentary add to the dialog and gives people an opportunity to think and improve what they do and how they do it.

My driving interest is to make progress, and those with a similar motivation will use other methods that are likely more placid. That’s good! Different approaches to learning resonate with different people. The point is to welcome the different approaches that I and others employ, and understand they share the same overall objectives.

Open-minded people see what I do as useful. They often recognize the absurdity and find humor in what I point out, and see it as wonderful in the sense of not accepting the status quo for either classical management or Lean management.

Closed-minded people consistently personalize their inability to refute my work. They avoid the facts that I present, and so the next best thing for them to do is to turn it into personal animosity.

But I hold no grudges. I recommend to others the work of those who dislike me. On a few occasions, I said to those who have come to dislike me: “You have done a lot of good work. I will always recommend your work. Will you recommend my work?” Their answer is, no answer. They would not commit, but it is clear to me given the context of the conversations that they will likely never recommend my work to others.

In addition, some view me as being “radical.” It is true that I pull no punches and I express myself freely, holding nothing back. While perhaps unusual, this is not radical. Nor are my efforts to promote progressive management, both TPS and Lean (yes, even “Fake Lean” can do you some good), which are firmly fixed in the (near) global norm of capitalism. I would simply like to add a “respect for human” and a “respect for planet” touch to capitalism.

So, while the impression that people have can be perplexing to me, it does not influence what I do. What does influence what I do are the facts.

The
Elliott Wave Theory is a technical analysis technique to identify market cycles
and predict future trends. This ETF trading theory states that price movements
in the financial markets are primarily driven by investor psychology, with
prices moving through five stages: impulse (greed), correction (fear), consolidation
(hope), impulse (denial) and finally, correction (acceptance). By identifying
these stages, traders can better anticipate where the market is going and
fine-tune their investment strategies accordingly.

ETF trading
with the Elliot Wave Theory

In
terms of ETF trading, the Elliott Wave Theory provides an effective way of
understanding how different markets interact with each other when making
decisions on whether to buy or sell. For example, when analysing two ETFs, such
as those tracking stocks vs bonds, traders can use the Elliott Wave Theory to
determine which ETF will be more likely to outperform. It can help traders time
their entries and exit into and out of positions.

The
Elliott Wave Theory also helps traders identify potential support and resistance
levels in price movements. By understanding where these levels are located,
traders can adjust their risk management strategies accordingly to avoid taking
excessive losses on trades. For example, if a trader trades an ETF in an
uptrend for some time, they may set a stop-loss slightly below the previous
support level (where prices reversed following a pullback). It allows the
trader to exit the position before suffering significant losses should the
market turn against them.

In
addition to providing an effective way of monitoring prices in the exchange traded funds market, the Elliott
Wave Theory can also be used to identify potential financial trading opportunities.
By identifying patterns in price movements, traders can anticipate when a
market is likely to move and position themselves accordingly.

For
instance, if a trader sees an impulse wave (a series of higher highs and higher
lows) forming in an ETF’s price chart, they may decide to enter a long
position, which could indicate that the asset is trending upwards. Similarly,
if a trader notices a corrective wave, a series of lower lows and lower highs
forming in the same chart, they may choose to open a short position, as this
could indicate that the asset is about to turn bearish.

Other ETF
trading strategies used by experienced traders

One
ETF trading strategy employed by experienced traders is the use of fundamental
analysis. By looking at an ETF’s underlying assets and their corresponding
fundamentals, traders can assess how well each security performs and make more
informed decisions when choosing which ETFs to invest in. For example, a trader
may look at an ETF tracking technology stocks and assess whether it is going up
due to higher earnings from the sector’s companies or simply due to
speculation. This type of analysis helps traders identify strong ETFs with the
potential for profitable returns over time.

Another
popular ETF strategy used by experienced traders is momentum trading. Taking
advantage of short-term price movements enables traders to capture profits from
market volatility while reducing exposure to long-term risks. To implement this
strategy, traders must identify significant price swings to enter positions
when prices trend in one direction and exit when momentum reverses.

Many
experienced traders also employ a variety of trend-following strategies when
trading ETFs. It usually involves technical and fundamental analysis and risk
management techniques like stop losses and trailing stops. By using these
strategies, traders can enter long positions when there are indications that
prices are likely to continue rising or short positions if there are signs that
the values are about to drop. It allows them to take advantage of potentially
profitable market trends without too much risk.

The bottom
line

The
Elliott Wave Theory provides traders a powerful tool for fine-tuning their ETF
trading strategies and maximising potential profits. By understanding how
different markets interact and identifying potential support and resistance
levels, traders can identify low-risk entry and exit points into positions and
potential trading opportunities. It allows them to make better-informed decisions.
With its ability to guide investors towards higher returns in the long run, the
Elliott Wave Theory is an invaluable tool for those looking to take their ETF
trading to the next level.

At ConantLeadership’s recent BLUEPRINT Leadership Summit—a biannual, virtual meeting of the top minds in leadership—Jane Hyun (the premiere global expert in cultural fluency and celebrated author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, FLEX, and her new book, Leadership Toolkit for Asians) spoke with Doug Conant (Founder of ConantLeadership, former CEO of Campbell Soup Company, and bestselling author of The Blueprint and TouchPoints). Together, they talked about how to embrace cross-cultural effectiveness, understand cultural fluency, and authentically lead a multicultural workforce.

Enjoy the following tips and takeaways from their conversation in the recap below. You can also watch the recording of their discussion (skip to roughly minute 5 to skip intros and housekeeping).

Not Everyone Looks Through the Same Lens

Jane Hyun, a global leadership strategist and trusted coach to multinational companies, wasn’t always the expert in cross-cultural effectiveness that we know today. Her unique life experiences shaped the cultural awareness and agility she now exudes and champions.

One formative experience occurred shortly after Hyun moved from South Korea to the United States as a child. She had what she describes as a “disorienting moment” when witnessing a classmate voice his disagreement with the teacher. She recalls being surprised when the teacher not only responded with kindness, but with affirmation that everyone should “have their own thought” about what was being taught in the classroom. This open-armed embrace of differing opinions was jarring at the time. Given Hyun’s cultural background, she had viewed her classmate’s interjection as disrespectful and perhaps even punishable.

Hyun had many subsequent moments of culture shock as she learned to adapt across different life stages in the U.S. When she eventually entered Wall Street as an adult, she again had to navigate a difficult cultural shift—working in a male-dominated space: “As an outsider trying to figure out the unwritten rules,” she realized that being able to work, communicate, and thrive in a cross-cultural environment was a widely underdeveloped skill, ripe territory for exploration. And as her career progressed into the coaching space it became clearer: Cultural fluency “is something that we can teach, right? This is something we can help people develop.”

Fast forward to today and Hyun is a skilled “interpreter” for leaders who want to effectively manage people across differences. Trusted among the Fortune 500, she defines cultural fluency as “engaging, working, and communicating effectively with people who are different from you,” and the skill extends to “looking at the visible differences as well as the invisible differences,” and being able to navigate those too.

Building cultural fluency is a skill that Doug Conant, a champion of inclusion and people-first leadership, classifies as “arguably the most important trend in organization development.” He acknowledges that today’s global, matrixed organizational landscape is marked by cultural differences that expand beyond ethnicity to include gender, generation, geography, and so much more: “Not everybody is looking through the same lens you are.” An excellent reminder for us all.

“Take a risk and get to know at least one person outside of your immediate cultural community.”

Start with Curiosity and Kindness—Then Don’t Forget to Take Action

In business and in life, the stakes are too high to gloss over cultural differences. It’s not that any singular group must ‘go along to get along.’ Instead, leaders need to actively work through cultural variations in a way that, according to Conant, aims to “respect the people in the room.” Without respect and cross-cultural affirmation, leaders are much less likely to drive high-performance results and build functioning teams.

Hyun has witnessed firsthand the chaos that abounds when cultural fluency isn’t prioritized. For example, she once worked with a consumer products company with locations scattered across the globe: Research and development in Asia, manufacturing in Germany, sales and marketing in North America. Projects shifted from one region to the next with no regard for the cultural differences at play, and as a result, miscommunication and missed deadlines became the norm. She recalls: “There was chaos, there were delays, and there was a lot of upset people who wanted to know what was going on.”

For leaders in similar situations, things will only begin to change when they acknowledge cultural differences with curiosity, kindness, and an inclusive action plan to move forward. Otherwise, Hyun points out the grim alternative: “If we don’t understand the impact of culture in business, in society, in our schools . . . we’re going to have problems that stay unresolved.” And the resulting chaos will spread exponentially.

Still, bridging cultural gaps and effectively leading a multicultural workforce can feel daunting if leaders aren’t sure where or how to start. Conant asks Hyun two pertinent questions to help leaders take initiative:

How would one discover or diagnose how culturally fluent they are?
And what are the key barriers to building cultural fluency in leadership?

Hyun recommends an objective assessment of the situation as the first imperative in a three-pronged approach of:

Observation
Inquiry
Feedback and iteration

She says an external analysis is a crucial initial step because when you’re leading people who are culturally different from you, “you may not always be able to rely on your own assessment of the situation.” It’s best to engage another party—whether it’s an outside coach, a manager within the company, someone who has experience with that particular cultural group, or an assessment like the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), which provides a “snapshot of how you navigate and think about difference.”

This is where Hyun shines. Her new book, Leadership Toolkit for Asians, is filled with self-assessments, checklists, quizzes, and inspiring stories of culturally relevant leadership. While it’s written specifically to help Asian leaders be influential in a way that feels culturally authentic, leaders from any background can gain insight from Hyun’s important work—including her first book, Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, which Conant regards as “seminal” and beneficial to anyone who is learning to operate “in a dominant culture that’s unfamiliar.”

Hyun also cautions leaders not to get stuck in the reflection stage. Acknowledgement of differences is a good first step, but can actually be a barrier to cultural fluency if leaders stop there: “If you just overthink things and stay curious, but you never act and take yourselves out of your cultural comfort zone, then you’re not building that cultural fluency at all.”

Conant agrees and urges leaders not to get too overwhelmed by the complexity of it all. Quoting from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, he adds that leaders must “confront the brutal facts” and then focus on “navigating through the feedback in order to be productive.” Push past the inclination to merely fix issues in the short term or autopilot through cultural differences. Instead, ask questions, invite open conversation, and cultivate psychological safety for the people you lead. Otherwise, Conant says, “you’ll never get the candor you need to really get at what the issues are.”

“You will learn things that you never would have learned from far away.”

Be Adaptive and Authentic at the Same Time

Hyun says that leaders at any stage in their career must learn how to be “adaptive and authentic at the same time.” In practice, this could look like reevaluating which corporate jargon or acronyms are used and understanding whether they make sense in the context of different cultures or even different departments. It could also look like setting up conflict resolution protocols before working on cross-functional, multicultural teams.

Misunderstandings due to language barriers are another issue that Hyun says can be “a complete blind spot.” She illustrates this with the Korean language, which uses honorific speech in some cases, and informal speech in others, to show respect and maintain a social hierarchy. Simply telling a person in this culture to use informal language isn’t going to work because, “we need to be aware that language is not only in the words themselves, but how it’s spoken and how they address you,” she clarifies. Be cognizant of power dynamics in languages because, “it could be the difference between respect and disrespect.”

Hyun encourages everyone, regardless of background, to “take a risk and get to know at least one person outside of your immediate cultural community” because “you will learn things that you never would have learned from far away.” Conant, a longtime proponent of humility in leadership, advocates for “studying the world around you through the eyes of someone else that you would like to get to know better” and adds that it’s enjoyable to follow Hyun’s teachings because you get to celebrate a “rainbow of rich, interesting people.”

Hyun offers these inspirational parting words for those who want to take the humble, purposeful path toward cultural fluency: “It only takes one step at a time. You don’t have to do a million things. You just have to figure out one thing you can do differently to stretch your cultural comfort zone.”

__

Enjoyed These Insights?

Jane Hyun’s new book, Leadership Toolkit for Asians, is available wherever books are sold. Also, continue your learning with the article co-authored by Doug Conant and Jane Hyun in Harvard Business Review, “3 Ways to Improve Your Cultural Fluency.” Then, watch the full recording of this interview to get more details, including insights from an audience Q&A. You can also access the complete inventory of previous BLUEPRINT Leadership Summit sessions, including illuminating conversations with Brené Brown, Susan Cain, Indra Nooyi, Amy Edmondson, Bill George, Barbara Humpton, and many more.

About the author: Vanessa Bradford is a freelance content writer and copywriter, and C3PR’s Content Marketing Director.

(Cover photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash)

I think that when people are inspired, they can accomplish incredible things in both life and business. When someone is inspired, they hold the power to inspire many more and that is how leaders are born.

My definition of Inspiring Leadership: the ability to create passion, purpose, and belief that lead to the achievement of astounding results.

There are 7 Facets that make up Inspiring Leadership:

Ignite the Passion

When people are passionate, they will go the extra mile, they will work harder and longer in order to achieve the goal and as Inspiring Leaders we need to ignite that passion. Passion is contagious and the first thing we need to do is to find our own passion and look to transfer that to our teams.

Nurture Belief

People become inspired when they have the belief that they will be successful, and we need to nurture that belief. We all have greatness within us and as leaders, we need to help our teams release their greatness. We need to build their confidence within their own abilities.

When we have belief that we will be successful, it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Show What’s Possible

People have greater belief when they have a plan or an approach which shows them how to be successful. So we need to show them what needs to be done and how to achieve the goals. This then leaves them with the task of just following the plan and knowing that if they do that successfully, then they will be successful.

Provide Purpose

People are much more inspired when they are trying to achieve things which are important; it gives them a sense of purpose, and a stronger desire to be successful.

We need to find the purpose and create the desire within our teams.

Invite Participation 

It’s impossible to force a team to be inspired, so we need to invite them to participate, give them an opportunity to achieve something special, something astounding. I have found as a leader, I always get better results when I ask rather than tell people what they need to do.

When people accept the invitation, they also accept partial accountability for achieving success, and when people accept accountability, the probability of success increases.

Recognise Achievement

We need to create some early wins, some quick successes, and then recognise achievement. The more achievements we recognise, the more inspired the teams will become as they start to see themselves progressing towards the goal. What we recognise gets repeated and we want to encourage our teams to continue achieve success.

Empower Our Teams

The more empowered our teams are, the more ownership they take. The best way to empower our teams is to hold them accountable for outcomes. When you hold the teams accountable for outcomes, you allow them to take control of what needs to be done and if they see that the approach is not achieving the desired results, they can change it.

Inspiring leaders Ignite the passion, Nurture the belief, Show what’s possible, Provide purpose, Invite participation, Recognise achievement and Empower their teams to be successful.

We can all be inspiring leaders, even you, why not be the spark that ignites inspiration, the world is waiting for you to lead the way.

If you want to learn more about creating highly engaged teams or being a better leader click the link to view our course.

By Jeff Kalter

Here’s a statistic you’ve probably heard before: “57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier,” (CEB).

One Statistic Should Not Drive Your Sales Model

Marketing automation platforms, content marketers, and more cite this stat from CEB because it offers a strong rationale for using their marketing platforms and services. After all, marketing automation and content marketing both help in the early phase of the buying cycle (and beyond). They do the hard work of capturing leads, warming them up with email nurturing, and scoring leads. Once a contact accumulates a high lead score, it’s finally time for sales to take action.

But is that too late?

In some cases, it may be. By then, the decision maker is well entrenched in the buying cycle – maybe even with a preferred vendor in mind. As the research says, 57 percent of the purchase decision has been made.

This number that is behind many of today’s sales and marketing strategies, however, may not be everything it appears to be. Apparently, the study that delivered this factoid was not as all-encompassing as you might think. While the research was based on responses from 1,500 decision makers, these people represented only 22 large companies.

Your buyer may be entirely different from the average buyers working at this small sample of companies. In fact, according to Forrester, buying behavior varies substantially by industry. For example, their research shows that, in the early part of the buying cycle, the sales rep’s influence is much lower for “mobile devices, apps, platforms, and management software” than it is for “business intelligence and analytics.” For the former, sales is the fifth most influential channel. For the latter, the sales rep is the most influential. Channels include sales representatives, peers, technical Websites, technical analysts, vendor Websites, IT forums, technical publications, and more.

Also, the SiriusDecisions 2017 Buying Study of 868 buyers from 15 different industries provides an insight that puts into question today’s tendency to minimize sales efforts early in the buying cycle. They say, “In the first educational phase of the buying process, where people spend one-third of their time, we found that more than 60 percent of buyers received information from the sales representative of the winning provider.”  

Conclusion? The winning vendors meet with prospects when the starting gates open for the buying cycle!

Zig While Others Zag

What does that mean for you?

If your competition has adopted a strategy of waiting until late in the buying cycle for sales involvement, there may be an opportunity to differentiate your company by doing the opposite.

You’ve probably heard about first mover advantage in the marketplace, where the company that enters a market first is likely to win more market share than its competitors. The same first-mover advantage may apply in your sales cycle. The salesperson who starts working with a buying team first is more likely to succeed than those who wait for the request for proposal (RFP). In fact, a company may put out an RFP just to determine whether their preferred supplier (the one they met first) is offering a reasonable price. It’s just a final check before they move forward. If they are a little higher than you, so be it. As long as they are in the ballpark, they will likely win the business.

So you may be better off having your business development reps enter into the buying cycle early. When they do, they can help the buyer frame the problem and present a solution that highlights your product’s advantages.

However, they have to approach early entry the right way. Here are some tips:

Be Consultative: Your reps should not lead by peddling their wares with brochures and spec sheets. By taking on a more sophisticated role as a consultant – talking about the customer’s needs, goals, and potential solutions – they are more likely to be successful. They must bring insights and education.
Think Big: Also, salespeople should assess the big picture and present integrated solutions rather than sell individual products.

By approaching the sale this way, they help reduce the amount of time decision makers have to spend online figuring out how to solve the problem. They provide a service. In the process, they develop a relationship and become trusted. Meanwhile, they are softly selling the unique benefits of your solution.

Another advantage of early involvement is that reps have time to search out the lay of the land at an account. Who are the decision makers, the influencers, and the users? What are their hot buttons and what role do they play? How might internal politics affect the buying decision? All this intelligence gathering assists in making the final sale rather than relying on reducing the price to gain a foothold in an account.

How to Be the Early Bird Who Gets the Worm

It’s easy to say, “Don’t wait until it’s too late.” However, in the past, it was hard to implement that strategy. You could have gone after a lot of accounts that were not interested in buying.

Today, however, it’s easier. You can adopt an account-based marketing approach, where you decide the ideal accounts you want to add to your roster. Layer on top of that intent-based data that tells you who is in the market. Then go after them. Taking this approach, you’re not just the early bird; you also know where the worms are hiding.

So reconsider your sales-and-marketing model. Is it working for you? If not, make sure you understand your buyer’s journey and how sales consultations fit into it. Then, restructure your model so it works for them and it better achieves your company’s objectives.

Jeff Kalter is CEO of 3D2B, a global business-to-business telemarketing company that bridges the divide between marketing and sales. He leads customer acquisition programs for Fortune 500 companies and is passionate about building strong business relationships through professional phone conversations.