Everyone has the friend that is known for interrupting.  You know, the one that interrupts you mid-sentence while you’re telling a good story to tell you ALL about them. By doing this, they think that they’re “relating to you”, while in actuality, what they’re really doing is hijacking your punch line and demonstrating that they’re horrible listeners.

As annoying as that type of listener is, a close cousin to the interrupter is the listener that is listening with an agenda.  When you listen with an agenda, you listen waiting for the person talking to walk you into your Segway to your product pitch or what you want to talk about instead of validating what they are talking about. This is a very common attribute displayed by many people in sales.  All too often, prospective customers feel comfortable enough to start down the path of their real problems, and as soon as the sales person hears the “in” they JUMP right into the middle of the story and hijack the conversation over to the land of products and solutions.  When most of the time, the prospect is wanting to be heard, understood and empathized with, solutions and products might fit down the road, but to start, they are simply wanting to be heard. 

I truly believe that salespeople are not filled with malicious intent when this type of scenario plays out. A lot of what guides this type of behavior is product excitement and a true desire to solve problems for people.  But just like the way you handle a first date vs a marriage of ten years, you ease into it and you “court” her BEFORE you ask for her hand in marriage, and get to know the person before you hop into products pitches. 

The Foundation of any relationship is communication, while listening is truly the juice that provides the flow between two people.  I would argue that the best sales people/business development professionals are the ones that know how to listen and then ask great questions keeping the conversation about the prospect.

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Everyone has problems; have you ever had a hard day increasing sales while providing a safe place for people to talk about their problems? Most people haven’t, because if you help create solutions to their problems by listening, you will have a customer for life.

A very practical and simple way to focus on listening is to make the conversation about the prospect. This sounds simple, but how do you do that? Here are a few tips to hone your listening skills:

Make Eye Contact
By focusing your attention on the prospect, it allows for a calmer mind and increases your listening ability, if you find you drift off, bring yourself back by way of eye contact. 

Practice selfless listening
When you find yourself wandering, think positively about the person in front of you and practice empathy, instead of letting your mind wander to how your products will fix their problems, bring your attention the the literal words they are saying and what the meaning is behind their words. 

Create your own meditation habit. 
Part of being a good listener is having a quiet mind and in my experience the best way to learn to quiet your mind is with a regular meditation practice.  Headspace is a great app that guides you through a wonderful ten minute per day meditation.  Fantastic for beginners or anyone really. 

When you are focusing on evolving your leadership as a business development professional, focusing on listening will help your ability to solve problems. 

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Lindsey Rainwater, also known as Lindsey RainH2O, is a sought-after business consultant, leadership coach, writer and presenter to the fitness and wellness industry. For more information about Rainwater, follow her on Twitter@LindseyRainH2O

It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have.Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level. – Gary Vaynerchuk

In the Spring of 2011, an exciting opportunity came to me in the form of a brand new job that allowed me to consult to the fitness industry via group fitness education. What I did not realize at the time was that not only would I love my "job" but the opportunity would also allow me to flourish in new ways I did not even know existed! 

In short order, our organization leadership coached me to begin developing a social presence.  I started to use twitter, LinkedIn and created a community page on Facebook.  I also created this website and began posting industry updates for daily conversations and engagement. Sharing industry magazine articles and writing about my experiences when I went to visit customers became part of my daily routine.  

I quickly begun to create a following, sharing and conversing on each platform about industry trends. In discussing what was current, I was becoming a resource for more than what I was consulting on specifically; I was becoming a resource for the industry at large! I was not only expanding my personal capacity, but was also becoming an asset for my company by representing them well. 

The result has been that I have a full breadth of knowledge to share above and beyond the vertical that is my “job.”  When you put energy into developing your voice, alongside doing good work for your company, you double the asset for business.  Your personal voice can stand alone to say what you are about and what you know, all while you hone a niche in the market to speak to your prospects. This allows you to create more business opportunities for your company while simultaneously creating your voice. 

In today’s business climate, this type of action is no longer optional. Five years ago I started and today I can speak to the benefits of doing so! Today, it’s imperative in order to be relevant to the buyer as well as be an above-and-beyond resource. Having a personal branded website and social presence that articulates who you are and complements the organization you are a part of is a must! Without this platform to establish yourself as a leader, you lose out on potential relationships and prospects.

The Customer Buying Journey involves being educated and engaged with in a way that is consistent and complementary of their long term goals.  This takes time and does not happen overnight; it is all about the relationship. The more of an asset you can be to their process the more long-term relationships you have the chance of creating. 

In my experiences, social authority and engagement is not a popularity contest surrounding twitter followers and likes. Instead, it’s a catalyst for creating leadership trends that deliver results.  I am a part of the team that has delivered on being the number-one distributor of my product in the world.  Those results are not a coincidence; the behavior I am describing is the smartest business decision I have ever been led to make and the mutually beneficial results have a ripple effect that will last for many years to come. 

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Lindsey Rainwater is a consultant and coach to the fitness and wellness industry.  She specializes in business development and leadership. Currently she is working with the Fitmarc Team helping Health Club owners all over the south central region of the united states propel their business forward via group exercise solutions.  For more information about Lindsey, follow her @lindseyrainh2o, all content posted at www.lindseyrainh2o.com 

Talk about trends... Swipe swipe, click, post, click, type type type, swipe, click, swipe moving at the speed of light...

Last night I went to go see one of my favorite bands perform.  My husband and I settled in once arriving in the venue and chatted while we waited for the opener, we had gotten there way early to ensure great seats, we got them!

To my right was a small group of women in their 20's.  Giggling, smiling and chatting away, I thought, so sweet, girls night out!  Three songs into the opener and I noticed none of them were watching the stage, all I could see was 4 brightly glowing screens out of the corner of my eye.  Taking turns showing their screen where instagram meme's or funny pics appeared, they would scroll, stop, show the others, giggle, scroll, stop, show, laugh; meme’s like “I’m as emotionally stable as an Ikea table” are the types that got the most laughs.  This went on for the entire set of the opener.  I thought maybe it was just that group of girls, I started to look around and to my right another girl, being held in the arms of her man, looking down at her phone flipping through instagram while being serenaded by the most beautiful acoustic love songs.  My heart hurt. As the main event took stage, I thought for sure they would put their phones away and focus on the LIVE experiences.  Nope. It got worse. The focus became the sharing of the show, take a photo, snapchat, click, video, insta, click, image, facebook.  She put her phone away, ope, it’s out again, back to check how many "likes".

I might sound psycho, being able to account this so explicitly but the women was elbow to elbow with me and my peripheral vision gave me insights without even trying.  Here we all were, hundreds of us, gathered to see this incredible band, and she is completely fixated on her mobile screen sharing picture and video after video with her virtual network.  I felt sick, as much as I was loving the performance, I could not help but be distracted by her behavior.  After we left, I got in the car and said to my husband, do you think that’s normal for her? Do you think that is an indicator of how a lot of 20 somethings are behaving? I went down the rabbit hole of "what’s the future going to be like if this keeps up"? Will people have the ability to be happy with an experience, without documenting the whole play by play? Is everything better or more exciting when shared? what is UP with the social behavior around this sharing phenomenon? I totally get a few pics, but the play by play across multiple platforms for four hours straight? 

The underlying thought I have this morning is this: If this is in fact a trend, what does it look like ten years from now? 

I am not by any means undermining social media or the nature of how powerful our new social tools are, what I am wanting to highlight is the dramatic power of this repetitive, twitch-like sharing that takes people away from their present circumstance. Will people be capable of a face to face conversation without interrupting for a pic or post? What does this look like long term?

The pendulum swing has already begun, I have recently noticed a rising number of people taking social “breaks,” deleting apps from their phones and increasing their in-person time with people. The whole topic causes me to wonder, will we have “mobile breaks” built into our future? Is the way people are sharing out of hand?

What do you think? Are people missing the forest for the trees when sharing in such a frenzied fashion? Or is this type of behavior the new normal? 

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Lindsey Rainwater is a consultant and coach to the fitness and wellness industry.  She specializes in business development and leadership. Currently she is working with the Fitmarc Team helping Health Club owners all over the south central region of the united states propel their business forward via group exercise solutions.  For more information about Lindsey, follow her @lindseyrainh2o

Social, social social... if you stand still for too long the next trend will swoosh right past you! Is it not the truth? changes are happening at record speed, facebook, twitter, instagram, and now, live broadcast Check out my video below and click the links for more information about how to get broadcasting!

12 Ways to Use Periscope for Business  , Learn more About Periscope

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Lindsey Rainwater is a consultant and coach to the fitness and wellness industry.  She specializes in business development and leadership. Currently she is working with the Fitmarc Team helping Health Club owners all over the south central region of the united states propel their business forward via group exercise solutions.  For more information about Lindsey, follow her @lindseyrainh2o

Do you “Like” it?

 

Did you check in, did you post the picture, tag the picture, stay 30 minutes later to meet up with a friend that just checked in? Does any of this sound familiar? 

Does your smart phone and the world of endless apps play a role in your life? For me, it does! Everything I do has been integrated into that one little device. 

There are so many different ways to be social today!

Never have we been able to be as connected as we are today.  In 5 minutes I can be up to date on my friends lives across the country, see geographically where my friends are around town, and carry on any number of conversations across multiple outlets simultaneously without skipping a beat! What a gift to be so connected.  So, how does this magical device and the social outlets it provides affect your health and fitness?

I recently poled my Facebook friends to get some insight on the subject; I gathered information about how my friends are using fitness apps to improve their personal goals and aspirations in the health category.  As it turns out, a majority of the people in my life, similar to myself, connect themselves socially using their fitness apps and track their progress from their device. 

There are thousands of apps to choose from, a few ranking at the top were Live strong,  myfitnesspal, Run Keeper, and a handful of others.  The majority not only tracked activity but also nutrition.  In most cases these apps are linked to social outlets to provide friends and followers a live picture of their health.  We don’t just go to the gym anymore, we check in when we get there, inviting our social networks the opportunity to applaud us or see our activity.  There is a certain level of transparency that comes with being social online.  You can treat your facebook page as an online Journal, tracking your every move and are able to look back to measure progress.

What a gift that we now have so many ways to feel connected with one another! If you would like more information about social apps linking to health and fitness, check out this link that breaks down a few of the chart topping favorites! And tell me Lindsey Rainwater, how are you socially linking your Health?