When someone asks you how you genuinely feel about yourself, what thoughts first come to your mind? Do you instinctively think about your shortcomings and failures, or do you think about your worth and potential? Your view of yourself affects your development. When you focus on your potential, you foster vision and motivation for growth. When you expect positive outcomes, you will be more inclined to work for and get them. If you motivate employees and create an environment where they want to succeed, they will be more likely to do so. If you have positive expectations, they will strive to live up to them. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and help them become what they’re capable of being.”

When you see life positively, you will be in a stronger position to ward off the negative influences that constantly bombard you. You will be able to set your goals and sustain your efforts to achieve them. Take an inventory of your internal attitudes. Listen closely to your dialogue with yourself. You will become increasingly aware of the many negative thoughts that you may entertain on a daily basis.

Be conscious of your thoughts and make a commitment to change those negative thoughts into positive commitments. Just as you exercise your body to make it healthy, exercise your mind with positive thoughts that begin with “I can” and “I will.” You have no doubt encountered people who move forward through life with vigor and enthusiasm. They seem to possess an indefinable quality that propels them over and around obstacles. They don’t get discouraged, and they don’t indulge in self-doubt or self-pity. That quality is a positive view of life. You can almost hear them saying aloud to themselves, “I can” and “I will,” and as a result they do!

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has been the first choice among business partners for creating successful business consultants and coaches. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

The next critical step is to develop the success attitudes needed to help you realize your vision. Your attitudes play a critical role in your success. Your belief in yourself and your ability to achieve the results you desire will influence the way you deal with others. A negative attitude about yourself and your worth or about the worth of others will be like an anchor holding you back from success. A positive attitude becomes an internal motor that will drive you to accomplishment. Positive attitudes are synonymous with high self-esteem, and both are developed as a result of values and beliefs that recognize the worth of self and others. People who feel good about themselves produce better results.

Behavioral scientists have long realized that our behavior is linked closely with our attitudes and that if we want to improve behavior and outcomes, we have to improve the way we think. If you are to implement new ideas, new plans, and visions for excellence, you have to change attitudes and improve thinking. New thinking won’t work with old attitudes, and new results won’t work with old thinking.

The way you think, your attitudes, are a result of the events you have experienced thus far in your life and how you feel about those events and their outcomes. Your perceptions of yourself, of others, of your worth, and the worth of others are also a result of your past experiences.

The key to developing stronger success attitudes is twofold. First, recognize that your attitudes have been developed over time, and they can be changed or developed to be more conducive to your success and desired outcomes. You are 100% in control of developing your attitudes of success. Second, realize that any meaningful and lasting change must occur over a period of time and evolve from conscious, daily input of positive and growth-oriented ideas. Success attitudes result from repetitive and positive input over a period of time. Develop constant reminders, which will help you keep your vision and your strengths in clear focus. These reminders have the capability of exciting you when obstacles seem insurmountable, as well as helping you feel good about yourself when moments of self-doubt creep into your thinking.

One of the most common forms of successful attitude reinforcement is the regular use of affirmations. An affirmation is telling yourself in times of doubt that which you know to be true other times. More specifically, an affirmation is a positive statement, which describes the person that you want to become. The power of affirmations can best be understood when we realize that our mind doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. Affirmations help you utilize this phenomenon to your advantage. By continuously imaging yourself succeeding or winning, your positive belief system is reinforced and you can become anything you choose!

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

As the overall goals are carried through every department, business unit, or division of an organization’s structure, they provide the cornerstone to the organizational structure. Organizational goals give you and your team something you can sink your teeth into, provide guidelines for achievement and recognition, and promote pride in the organization. A primary part of your job as a team leader is to communicate the organizational goals and their connectivity to the goals of your team or department.

The primary reason most organizations exist is to be profitable or to generate enough funds to implement their mission as in a not-for-profit organization. Goals provide the direction around which every part of an organization, as well as the various activities of the individuals within the organization, must be organized. When the physical, mental, and emotional efforts of all contributors are channeled toward organizational goals, the organization’s success increases dramatically.

Goals provide the organization with a tracking system and a means of recording its achievements. Too often, organizational goals are achieved but lost to memory by the reporting period. Recognizing achievements is a confidence builder. Past achievements can be a predictor of your future success.

Goals assist an organization in all decision-making processes. When an organization has defined exactly where it is headed, many decisions fall into place. All energies can be focused on discovering ways to get there, rather than deciding where to go. When goals are identified and action steps determined—it is much easier for all parts of an organization to align. Each part of the organization can weigh its own effort in terms of its contribution to the overall goals of the entire organization rather than to its own unique function. Goals help the members of an organization build unity of purpose. Therefore, communications improve and differences of opinion are shared more rationally because the team effort is directed at achieving common goals.

Well thought out organizational goals often become the basis of an organization’s public image. Publicly shared goals that convey confidence and success can help increase market share, customer loyalty, and earning potential. Customers are more likely to purchase from an organization whose image is that of an organization capable of describing its achievements to a vast audience—your employees and customer base.

Clearly defined goals will also help an organization anticipate, compensate for, and reduce the impact that outside forces have upon its operations. Goals help set into motion plans of action, which take into consideration a wide spectrum of possible obstacles to be encountered. By such systematic strategic planning, obstacles are either overcome or their efforts are greatly reduced.

A team with well-defined goals provides a framework within which your team members can set appropriate and meaningful personal goals. For success in today’s business environment, it is important that employees’ personal goals are aligned with the team’s and the organization’s goals. There is always a much stronger commitment to organizational goals when personal goals and needs are being fulfilled.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

In any discussions of leadership, it is inevitable that we find ourselves thinking in terms of formal leadership. We tend to think of leadership in terms of rank or position. However, formal leadership is the outgrowth of your ability to master the art of self-leadership; it is indeed, the ability to establish a specific direction for your own life, and to proceed in that direction with the self-confidence that comes only to one who knows where he or she is going. Becoming a leader means becoming you. It is that simple and that difficult. It begins with figuring out who you are and what gives your life value and meaning. It means focusing on doing the right things and understanding who you are, who you want to become, what skills you want to develop, and what you want to accomplish beyond where you are today. When you identify your goals and values on a personal level, they are genuine and authentic. When you identify leadership on a personal level, you develop the authenticity required to become a leader of an organization. According to Winston Churchill, “The key to leadership is sincerity. Before he can inspire with emotion, he must be swayed by it himself. Before he can move their tears, his own must flow. To convince them, he must himself believe.” Leadership of others begins with leadership of self. Until you identify leadership on a personal level, you can never truly become an effective leader of an organization.

Realizing the vision involves a shared commitment and responsibility throughout the organization. This encompasses an ability to influence others to become committed to new directions and the ability to lead people to higher levels of performance. This is perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing today’s leaders. As we continue to shift our emphasis away from the traditional role of managing and controlling, we need to improve our understanding of human behavior and how to bring out the best in people.

For many leaders, this means change. Regardless of external circumstances, rank, or previous experience you can improve your leadership skills. Leadership qualities stem from internal attitudes and learned skills, not outside situations. Effective leadership consists of more than just an intellectual understanding of leadership characteristics. The characteristics and skills must be incorporated into your style. They must be consistent with your beliefs and values, and part of your actions and decisions. Leaders inspire others, improve outcomes, bring out the best in people, make mistakes, and continuously learn and improve. Your success as a leader depends on your ability to influence behavior and align your resources in the direction that will ensure continued success.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses achieve sustainable results through leadership development and executive coaching. For information on creating a leadership succession plan visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

A very influential mentor of mine used to say time and time again. “There is no A for effort in business.” I grew up like many with the belief that trying my best was good enough. However, I have learned in 25 years of business that there is a strong connection between these two quotes. “There is no A for effort” really means it is all about the results you achieve and it is not about the attempt and to Yoda’s point, trying is merely an attempt.

In order to accomplish results and excel at what you do, you must have the skills but more importantly you need to believe you can do it. Trying is a self-limiting belief. After Luke attempted and failed, Yoda used his “force” to save the plane. Luke watched in amazement and when Yoda was finished, Luke said to Yoda, “I don’t believe it.” and Yoda’s response was, “That is why you fail.”

Belief is powerful. When you believe you can achieve something no matter how challenging, big or small, you will commit to do what is necessary to make it happen. You will learn what you need to learn. You will commit whatever time is necessary and you will seek out qualified assistance when needed. Because your belief is so strong you will access whatever resources are necessary to make it happen and you will cross the finish line victorious.

An attitude of trying will never propel you to take the extra step because your measuring stick of “I tried” gives you permission to walk away based on what is believed to be a good enough effort. People and businesses often fall short due to this simple but powerful belief. I mentioned earlier that belief is powerful. Therefore whether you believe in mediocrity or results, you will achieve what you believe.

Yoda also told Luke to “unlearn what you have learned.” If you are used to “trying” unlearn your way into a new belief of achievement. Here are some ideas that may help you.

• Use positive affirmations and say them multiple times a day.
• Surround yourself with people who will positively reinforce your plan and push you to excel.
• Align with a coach to hold you accountable to your personal development.
• Find a mentor who has accomplished similar results to what you are looking for and become a sponge.
• Become a voracious learner.
• Surround yourself with positive messages.
• Disconnect from the naysayers in your life. Your success has nothing to do with their ‘I tried and can’t’ attitude so don’t let them hold you back.

Luke finally got it. So, when will you?

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching and youth leadership. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

Arlie Hochschild, author of The Managed Heart: Communication of Human Feeling, defines emotional labor as displaying a set of emotions that differ from the emotions the service provider is currently feeling. Based on this definition, people in service jobs who are acting differently than they are feeling can experience high doses of emotional labor which can cause stress, fatigue, and diminished impulse control.

Service providers deal with a higher level of stress no matter what product or service they provide due to the fact that customer interactions are always fueled with many types of emotions. Stress is a physical reaction that you experience when you cannot cope or have difficulty dealing with a negative or threatening situation. Due to the direct connection between a service provider’s role and stressful situation, learning how to understand, manage, and reduce stress becomes an important skill to master.

In the book Stress Management for Dummies, author Allen Elkin cites:

• 7 out 19 people felt stress at some point on a typical workday.
• People reported that they lost their temper an average of 5 times a month.
• Many people reported that stress contributes to doing things they regret later.
• About 5% of those asked said stress was preventing them from enjoying their lives.

People under stress tend to be more on edge and will erupt more quickly and violently, increasing their number of conflicts with people in general. Extreme stress saps your energy because your body is functioning in emergency mode. Stress tightens your muscles, impacts your breathing and the flow of oxygen to your vital organs, and it can cause sleep to be difficult. High stress can put a strain on many of your bodily functions and can lead to high blood pressure, ulcers, and heart attacks. It can become a vicious cycle. Obviously, reducing stress can have many health benefits as well as making your life more enjoyable and rewarding. It is important to identify what pushes your buttons and produces stress in your life. Identifying your stress producers is the first step in effectively managing and reducing stress.

In order to effectively manage stress, you must build or increase your tolerance for stress. Stress management is your ability to deal effectively with adverse events and stressful situations without falling apart. Having a positive outlook on new experiences and change is also important. Plus the ability to stay calm and maintain control in stressful situations is a large part of building an increased tolerance level. People who excel at stress management tend to face crises and problems head on with a positive attitude rather than surrendering to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and self-doubt.

The first step is to understand where the stress is coming from or what events are activating the stressful feelings you are experiencing. Check out next week’s blog for more on reducing and eliminating stress.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

We can learn a great deal from businesses that fail and apply that knowledge to actions step that propel a business toward success and away from failure. Here are some important elements of a successful business to consider.

• Develop a plan. You can get where you are going much faster if you have a road map. Developing a plan for your business that includes a vision, objectives, and critical success factors creates a road map. Evaluating potential problems and challenges before they happen often eliminates crisis. Reviewing financial, equipment, and employee needs creates preparation. Developing a marketing, advertising, and customer growth plan ensures focusing on the right activities. Develop a plan and revisit it frequently.
• Execution is key. Developing a plan is the first step to executing your plan. Daily action steps are what make it come to fruition. Do you and your team members know what they need to do, focus on, and accomplish in order to make the business goals a reality? Frequent and consistent communication with your team will help ensure that everyone is working towards the right outcomes.
• Know your customers. Who are your customers and why do they buy from you? What makes your product or service different or better? Creating and growing a loyal customer base is the key to business sustainability. If asked, customers will tell you exactly what they need. Ask frequently and listen intently. As the world changes so do customers requirements of your product or service.
• Evaluate competition. Who is your competition and how do you compare? Competitive research is well worth the time and effort. Know what your business is up against. Understand competitor’s products and services and how potential customers compare those products or services to your company. This knowledge is vital as it allows you to make well-informed advertising and marketing decisions.
• Be able to adapt. Business environments and customers change. The ability to adapt to the ever-changing face of business is just as important as planning. Your plan provides the road map but every once in awhile there will be obstacles located in the middle of the road and a course correction will be necessary. Being able to adapt quickly will allow the course correction to be as seamless as possible.
• Maintain focus. Know where you going and what you want to achieve at all times. Distractions can mean death to a business. It becomes very easy to lose sight of the big picture when a distraction presents itself. Again, count on your plan to provide the road map and make goal-oriented decisions. Distractions have a bad habit to allowing us to race down blind alleys and take our eyes off of the real objectives.

Creating a successful and sustainable business is not always easy; however, the rewards often out weigh the challenges. Put yourself in a position to win at business by giving yourself all the advantages listed above and the results you desire will follow!

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

In addition to defined goals there are several other criteria that foster success in sales:

• Sell with questions not answers – Potential customers for your product or service really don’t care what you have to say. Your sales pitch or sales script is really the last thing they want to hear. What potential customers really want are their questions answered. Their questions are indicative of what is really important to them. When you understand what is important to them, you create or uncover their personal buying motive. Spend more time asking questions about what they want or need. Use your product or service knowledge to answer their questions concisely while moving directly into the next question. Remember that it is really about them … not about your knowledge. Help a potential customer make a buying decision through the questions you have asked rather than trying to sell by guessing at which features and benefits you think may be important to them.
• People buy based on emotions – Another powerful reason to sell with questions is because it helps you uncover personal buying motives. Buying motives are typically emotional as rarely do people make buying decisions based on logic. Someone could decide to buy a car but they purchase a Volvo specifically for the safety of their family. Safety is an emotional reason. Most men and women resist the need to go to a new barber or hair stylist. Getting your hair trimmed or styled is a very practical exercise. However for many people the resistance to change is based on the fact that, “no one can do my hair exactly the way Joanne does it.” That response represents a personal and emotional attachment.
• Build relationships not orders – Success in sales is about relationships. Orders are nice but the benefit is short term at best. Creating relationships built around a management philosophy of creating loyal customers means you get to take orders from that customer for life because they keep coming back. And, they keep coming back because of the relationship they have with you and your company. If you promote the sales philosophy of taking orders you are promoting the idea of shopping around, looking for the better price, or the biggest discount. Promoting loyalty mean your customer all ready knows the service or product is great and they truly appreciate the way they are treated and served as a customers. A strong relationship is critical to the long-term success of sales organization.
• Think – Sales is a profession that can never be mastered. There is always something to learn, a new technique to be mastered, and a more thorough way to understand the emotional buying motives of your potential client. Therefore you must always be thinking, learning, and honing your skills. If you truly believe that you have mastered your sales profession then I am here to tell you, you are your biggest obstacle to your sales success. Personal growth and development as a sales professional is key to generating the income you desire.
• Spend your time wisely – Time is money, so allocate your time as if your were actually allocating real dollar bills. Money truly is what you are throwing away every time you don’t manage your time wisely.

2011 is going to be a great year because it is time we take control of our success and economic destiny. Success in sales is exciting but requires dedication and work. How can you take some of the tips above and apply them to your success in sales? Start today—2011 is right around the corner.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses accelerate results through sales development and sales coaching. For information go to www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

Now is the perfect time of the year to stop and evaluate what you have accomplished, and what accomplishments 2011 will bring. People who experience high levels of achievement and success have clearly defined personal and professional goals with specific action steps and benchmarks. As goals are achieved, confidence and knowledge heightens and expands; therefore, even higher goals become realistic. While there is no guarantee that you will achieve your goals within the given time frames, establishing them helps to ensure you will. The more passionate you are about achieving your goals, the less you will worry about possible problems, details, and day-to-day challenges. Having clearly defined goals allows you to have a sense of control over your action, your life, and your organization.

Developing personal goals that you are committed to as well as a solid plan for your organization will help to minimize setbacks. However, there will always be setbacks so expect them. Look forward to them and use them as springboards to higher levels of success. In adversity, there is opportunity. Successful people are those who have learned to face adversity with anticipation because they know that they are the greatest opportunities for learning. If you want to succeed, you must develop a positive attitude about failure. You only fail when you stop trying. In fact, failure can be your most important learning opportunity. Those that succeed are those who do the things that failures don’t like to do. Failure provides you with a chance to grow, learn, and to become better.

Creating focused and purposeful goals takes time and careful thought. It is not an exercise to be done quickly or taken lightly. It is only when you seriously evaluate what you want to accomplish, do, and become that you begin to see the future you want. Once the vision is in place it becomes much easier to create a goal and actionable plan. Start by asking yourself some seemingly easy, but often tough questions about your future.

• In 2011, what do you want to achieve for your business and for you personally?
• Where do you envision yourself personally in 1, 2, and 5 years?
• What qualities and skills do you need to develop in order to achieve your goals?
• What do you want your career or your business to provide you?
• Where do you see yourself in the next 20 years?

We are embarking on a new year full of opportunities and potential accomplishments, and they are not far beyond your reach. Define what you want and where you want to go. Develop specific goals to make that vision of your future a reality, and then create the specific action steps that will become your road map for success in 2011. There may be bumps in the road, wrong turns, or total course corrections but stayed focused. Your success is not a matter of chance!

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit http://www.resourceassociatescorp.com/ or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

You have feelings about how you think things should be, how you think people should act, and how you think situations should be handled. You’ve thought this way for some time. It’s now the way you think. These thought patterns set off a chain reaction that determines the outcome of all that you do. An attitude prompts a tendency to characteristically react to people, situations, or things in a certain way. It works something like this: what you think about a situation will cause you to adopt a certain attitude toward it; that attitude will then prompt you to behave or act in a certain way; how you behave will then determine what kind of results you get. Thus, attitudes and results are directly related; they exemplify the natural laws of cause and effect.

Attitudes are formed in almost the same way as other habits. The big difference, however, lies in two steps of the formation process. While habits are formed by testing some type of external response, such as tying a tie, or adding cream and sugar to your coffee, many of our attitudes are developed through the formation of internal emotions, opinions, and beliefs long before we are able to understand their effect. We judge a habit as being good or bad by seeing the external results that it yields. However, we tend to evaluate our attitudes according to the internal satisfaction that our emotions, beliefs, and opinions give us, rather than the behavior that follows.

The impact that this has on our daily relationships is enormous. If you believe that the people who look to you for leadership are basically lazy, not highly motivated, and without much potential, chances are that they will prove you right. However, if you believe in the inherent worth of all human beings, their right to dignity, respect, and fair treatment, you probably generate a great deal of trust and a high level of motivation. If you are leading and managing people who have developed negative attitudes and low self images, you will have to help them develop their attitudes and beliefs if you hope to help them improve performance. While you cannot make anyone change their attitude—you can help them to change.

All new experiences carry with them some degree of anxiety, doubt, or fear. Changing attitudes is no different. You may find yourself and others resisting change at first, and that is quite natural. Understanding of that resistance will help you overcome it. Consequently, it is helpful to understand there is a proven process for change.

Conceptually, to change your attitudes you must be willing to sit down and take an inside look at yourself. We are products of everything we have inherited and were exposed to. We are a product of family, friends, disasters, triumphs, role models, leaders, experiences, and much more. We have all the means within us to free ourselves from the constraints of negative conditioning. Attitude change is a result of internal understanding, acceptance, and action!

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in helping businesses and individuals achieve high levels of excellence and success. Learn how at www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.