Author, Business Keynote Speaker | Dean Lindsay

Posts Tagged ‘motivational keynote speaker’

Funny Business Leadership Speaker, Sales Training

Dean Lindsay, Author of The Progress Challenge, on Progress vs Change

Follow him at: www.Twitter.com/DeanLindsay

Endorsements for The Progress Challenge : Working and Winning in a World of Change

“Finally a meaningful book with a workable process for progress.”
– Gerhard Gschwandtner
Founder and Publisher
Selling Power Magazine

“The Progress Challenge is a much needed kick in the pants for all of us. Dean Lindsay’s witty words and questions will wake up your sleeping intentions and challenge you to move forward with purpose in your life. What an enlightening book!”
– Ken Blanchard,
coauthor of The One Minute Manager®
and Leading at a Higher Level
 
“The Progress Challenge is an excellent guide to both personal and professional success.  The book helps the reader understand that change is inevitable, yet progress is a choice.  In Lindsay’s words…”be progress”.
– Jim Keyes
CEO, Blockbuster

“If you desire to become a better leader, I recommend you add Dean Lindsay’s The Progress Challenge to your leadership toolkit.  I especially liked the insight into the life and work of Viktor Frankl as well as Dean’s use of humor throughout the book – a valuable and enjoyable read.  The Progress Challenge is an honorable challenge that anyone aiming to make a positive difference should take.”
– Ramon F. Baez
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Kimberly-Clark Corporation

“The Progress Challenge is a fun to read book crammed full of thought-provoking, practical and motivating take-aways.  With the 6 P’s of Progress, Dean gives us all the incredible opportunity to be purposeful in creating progress, not just change, in our lives and work.”
– Julie Weber
Senior Director, People
Southwest Airlines Co.

Be Progress.

Funny business leadership speaker video, Dean Lindsay

We are in tough times, no doubt about it.  As sales professionals we must be the ones to keep our heads.  Selling in a down economy is impossible without Creating Personal Curb Appeal.  Most people connect the term “curb appeal” to checking out a house or building from the street.  How does it look from the street?  Is it attractive to the eye from the outside?

Personal curb appeal involves much more than how we look on the outside.  Sure, we need to look sharp when selling in a down economy (or in any economy for that matter), but real personal curb appeal originates from within.  Before we ever start connecting with customers and prospects, we must feel it is inevitable that we can help people.  We must feel it is inevitable that we will continue to progress even in tough economic times.  It simply will happen.  It is happening.  We will help other people reach their goals.  We will reach your goals.  We are progressing and we help others progress. 

People pick up on that feeling.  It’s a buzz, an aura.  It surrounds us.  It’s appealing.  It draws the right people to us.  Andra Grava, an extremely successful and well-connected business owner and entrepreneur in my network, told me about a really interesting business organization called Success North Dallas.  One of their few criteria for membership is that you must be a success in your own eyes.

Be a success in your own eyes.  That’s what I’m talking about. 

We have to feel successful.  Not Cocky or Uppity, just good about ourselves.  This creates personal curb appeal.  We can’t go to a sales presentation looking for success.  We have to take success with us to the sales presentation.  Success breeds success.  Success attracts success. 

It is so important to feel successful.  To believe we are progressing.  To feel like a winner.  Feeling successful makes us attractive to be around.  We ooze confidence.  We create an aura of inevitability.  We must believe we can help.  That we will help in these tough times.  It is inevitable.  Selling in a down economy is about building trust with customers.  We have to have that trust in ourselves first. 

With all the bummer economic news surrounding us, sometimes we are going to have to act more positive and confident than we feel.  If we do, we will soon start to feel more positive and confident.  By modifying the negative perceptions about our opportunities, we will more easily build greater trust and rapport with others. 

Finally, I know this is almost impossible to pull off, but TRY to compete only with yourself and do not compare yourself with others.  Your overriding goal is to be the best you can be.  And, Don’t let anyone (including yourself) say you can’t do it. 

As a young student, Martin Luther King, Jr., was told by a teacher that he would never be able to speak with enough passion to motivate people into taking action.

Thomas Edison was told by educators that he was too stupid to comprehend anything.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he had “no good ideas.”

Beethoven’s music instructor once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.”

A magazine editor once informed Emily Dickinson that he could not publish her poems because they failed to rhyme.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team at the start of his sophomore year.  

Selling in a down economy is not easy, but it offers a solid opportunity to be progress.

More on Selling in a down economy and tough times in future posts.

Be Progress.