Two key rules for personal and business success: always give your best…and consistently look for the best in others

I have often thought that people are very much like the weather, in the sense that some are warm and nice to be around, while others are cold or stormy and awful to be with…and others seem to specialise in talking about problems almost all of the time, resembling the discomfort of being caught in the rain. And just now and then you might meet someone who is overly and inappropriately ‘hot’, not in the sexual sense as how many women see me, but in the context of being loud and hyperactive.

I mention the weather analogy because you can’t even begin to give your best to anyone, unless you are prepared to be warm with everyone. I have met many business people, of all persuasions, who will project warmth to ‘some people’, such as customers and perhaps the boss…but then they treat staff, colleagues and suppliers in very different, undignified ways. I recall one man I worked with who would turn it on for customers, smiling at them, enjoying a joke here and there, offering to buy them lunch and drinks…and with his own staff he was the complete opposite! I should point out that I am not suggesting that you should be warm with everyone, simply to please them. I am suggesting that you should be warm with everyone because this will not only have a positive effect on them…it will help you to stay in a pleasant and enjoyable state of mind.

Now, if ‘being warm to everyone’ comes as an unwelcome demand, then I would seriously suggest that you consider making sizable, positive changes to your persona. In the same way that a concerned doctor might read you the riot act regarding the need for critical health changes, I am saying with all the best intentions that if you do not adopt the warmth factor then you will either end up as a failure or as a successful misery! After speaking on this topic at a conference, a man cornered me afterwards and said ‘I know what you were getting at John, but I am simply not a people person.’ I asked him if he had any friends, also if he was married and if so did he have any children. The answer was yes on all counts, and so I said ‘I assume that you are warm to those people in your life, and naturally I wouldn’t expect that other people are seen as being as important as your loved ones…but by the same token why would such people be seen and treated as unimportant?’

I don’t believe it is possible for negatively inclined people to launch positive ideas to customers and colleagues. In my experience, the sales people, managers and support staff that create the best business development concepts, are those that feel most disposed to helping those they work with and serve. Additionally, sales people who are held responsible for selling ‘positive solutions’ will only succeed if their own sense of purpose is aimed at helping customers to achieve continuing success.

So ‘getting on’ with people is dependent on having a pleasant persona that applies to everyone, and getting on in business is based on using your pleasant persona to present pleasing solutions, along with the aim to find the most pleasant and positive persona in those you work with and sell to. On the business front, the people we sell to are always in one of three mindsets: negative, indifferent or positive. Not surprisingly, the great majority of customers and prospects are in a negative frame of mind when ‘dealing with’ sales people…for the very simple reason that most of these encounters are less than pleasant and productive. Whenever I begin presentations at conferences I always use humour to break the ice, because if I can stimulate an audience to feel good, then it is better for them and for me. Conversely, Tele-marketers that begin their contact with prospects by saying ‘How are you today?’ put people offside immediately, as do sales people who ‘go on’ about their companies and products. Whenever I ask a person for information I always say ‘I’d like to get your advice please’, and so their best persona surfaces. You get what you look for.

Unhealthy people don’t lecture on fitness, and miseries in business can’t sell pleasing solutions!