In addition to needing these eight qualities to succeed in business, there are six additional abilities that can help you achieve even greater success and results:
1. Effective Communication
First, is the ability to communicate effectively with others. You must be able to interact with other people on their level, so they understand you and the points you are trying to get across to them.
Remember that everyone is different. Each of us have different communication and behavior styles, and you need to be versatile enough to relate to each person according to their individual style. Be careful that you speak language that they are familiar with and can relate to, and that you don’t overuse “buzz words,” or industry jargon.
2. Stay On Target
This is the ability for you to quickly make midstream corrections. Each one of us is human, and are subject to the frailties that accompany this mortal life. From time to time, we all make mistakes or errors in judgment.
Making the mistake or the error is not the problem – the first time. It’s when we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, without learning from them, or that we fail to quickly recover and make the necessary corrections to avoid total calamity, that we run into problems.
3. Develop Foresight
The ability to spot and analyze trends. To be able to look at the past as well as what is happening today, and predict what might happen in the future, can have a significant impact on your business success. Another word for this skill is “foresight.”
Without foresight, or the ability to look ahead and predict with reasonable accuracy what may happen in the near future, a company could lose its competitive position and find itself in serious trouble.
As a business owner, you should give serious thought to keeping up on industry changes, new laws, tax laws, buying trends, and other factors that could affect your customers either positively or negatively. Then take whatever steps are necessary to prepare yourself to address those changes, as well as posture yourself in the minds of your customers as the expert they’ve come to know and depend on.
4. Demonstrate Leadership
The fourth ability or skill to develop for outstanding success is that of leadership. Leadership is the ability to take charge and move others to action.
When you are working with a prospect, client or customer, and have identified and analyzed their needs, it is up to you to prepare and recommend a good, workable plan or proposal that will help satisfy those needs; a plan that’s right for their situation and that fits their budget.
It’s not up to the customer to tell you what they want. You are the professional. They have come to you for help and advice. You’ve got a lot more experience, knowledge and understanding of your products and services and what they can do for them than they do. It is up to you to take charge and assume responsibility for the satisfaction and solving of their problems, needs and wants.
And if you approach it with the right mix of professionalism, knowledge and confidence you’ll be amazed at how many people will take your advice and follow your leadership.
5. Persuasive Selling Skills
The ability to sell well. It’s surprising how little most people in business know about professional selling. Selling is one of the most important skills you as a professional business person can possess.
Many of your prospects and your existing customers know just enough about what your products or services can do for them to be dangerous. They have talked to other people, read a few articles in some magazines, may even have seen a program or two on television, checked things out on the Internet, and they think they know exactly what they need. In some cases, they may be close.
But in other cases, they’re far from the mark. You owe it to your customers to be as effective a salesperson as you can be. By doing that, you’ll end up giving them better solutions and better value, saving them both time and money, and helping them have greater piece of mind knowing they have the products or services that are best for them.
They will also feel good about their choice of a place of business, knowing that they have just dealt with real professionals who really care about them.
You will be a beneficiary of that effort, too. You will you feel good about yourself and the job you have just done for your customer, and that will cause you to be more effective and professional in your next interview or sale. Not only that, but your customer, being satisfied with the results you have produced for them, will be more inclined to tell others of their experience.
Believe me, people respond to the personal experiences of people they respect. And they’ll respond to you, because a real professional and caring person or business is hard to find, these days.
6. Action
The sixth ability to develop is that of action. All the things we’ve discussed will do you, nor anyone else (your customers, for instance) any good if you don’t take action and do something about them.
Remember, action is the key. It’s not what you know, it’s not what you talk about, it’s what you do. True success in business, or in life, is an ongoing process. As Joel Weldon has said…
“The Road to Success is Always Under Construction.”
Some people say that knowledge is power. But it isn’t. Knowledge is not power unless it’s applied. You now have the knowledge – now it’s up to you to put that knowledge into action.