Tag: Sales

Inputs and outputs

Posted on by philipdodson

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We often focus all our energies on our daily outputs, on what we are ‘shipping’ and productivity.

The ‘factories’ of the world are besotted with output whether that is widgets, content, ideas, or hot air.

The missing focus is on input.

What goes in, is typically what will come out!

What inputs do our employees get? What inputs are we taking in?

What influences are we, our teams, and the business exposed to? What is shaping our culture? What are we learning? How are developing our skills to improve our creations?

Instead of looking at how to output more, maybe it would be better to first look at what is being inputted, and perhaps more importantly, how do we improve the quality of the inputs to match what we desire to output?

Trying too hard

Posted on by philipdodson

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Sometimes in life, we try too hard to make something happen.

We get so fixed on achieving a particular outcome and in doing so, we end up trying to control things that we can’t.

The only thing that we have control of is ourselves. We control our thoughts, our beliefs, our actions, everything to do with us.

Beyond that, everything else is controlled by others. Others that we can inspire or influence, but ultimately they will decide, not us.

None of us like to be controlled by others, or feel that others are trying to manipulate us. We do however respond to something inspiring, something that reaches out to our values, that matches our feelings.

When we listen to a person who is talking genuinely about something, with passion, and that person is not selling something, but instead sharing their thoughts, their story and without an agenda, then that is when we feel we have chosen, we have the freedom.

So in business, it is more important to communicate your message and then make it easy for people to buy, rather than trying to control others through manipulation. Essentially marketing rather than selling. Sharing rather than coercing. Giving instead of taking.

The harder we try, the more we have to control and the more we control, the more we erode the freedom of others and push them away.