The Evolution Of Man by G.I. Gurdjieff
September 28, 2009
The Evolution Of Man by G.I. Gurdjieff
“In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible.
The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness. And ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ cannot evolve unconsciously.
The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘WILL’ cannot evolve involuntarily.
The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing and ‘DOING’ cannot be the result of things which ‘HAPPEN’.”
What Is Noetic Science And How Can You Change The World With It by Manoj Sharma
September 23, 2009
What Is Noetic Science And How Can You Change The World With It by Manoj Sharma
The word “Noetic” has its history in the word “nous” from ancient Greek. Its closest English meaning refers to “KNOWING“, an intuition from the deep realms of human consciousness, the origins of which seem resigned to be forever shrouded in mystery.
Noetic Science while considered a “new” science actually has a history that predates modern scientific research and goes all the way back to the Wisdom Of The Ages known to the Ancients from both the East and the West. Modern Noetic Science is concerned with the effects in the physical realm of human consciousness, intention, thoughts and beliefs. Today Noetic Science has become a multidisciplinary approach to improving the condition of humanity and with it, our global political, economic and social society as a whole.
I personally like to look at the value of Noetic Sciences in 3 distinct, overlapping spheres.
The first and innermost sphere being that of the growth in “KNOWING” of the individual – an intrapersonal transformation of the individual’s consciousness and awareness of the principle, “I Create MY World” allowing for a new level of Individual Success across all chosen fields of endeavour.
The second and intermediate sphere being that of the growth in “KNOWING” in the communities that the individual is part of – an interpersonal transformation of the individual’s relationship’s consciousness and awareness of the principle, “I Impact MY World” allowing for a new level of Collective Power with others within their micro communities.
The third and outermost sphere being that of the growth in “KNOWING” in THE world the individual inhabits – a collective transformation of THE world’s consciousness and awareness of the principle, “I Change THE World” allowing for a new level of Collective Consciousness and Human Mastery to take place around the world.
We Are Creators from The Lost Symbol
September 23, 2009
WE ARE CREATORS from The Lost Symbol
“We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of ‘the created.’ We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. But once we realize we are truly created in the Creator’s image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential.”
List Of Book Reviews Of Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol
September 16, 2009
For those who can’t wait, here is a List Of Book Reviews Of Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/09/15/dan-browns-the-lost-symbol-review-roundup/
http://bestsellers.about.com/od/suspensethrillers/gr/lost_symbol_brown.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402699.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainmentheadlines/ci_13330393?nclick_check=1
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bal-lost-symbol-review-0915,0,3946290.story
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2009/09/13/first-review-of-the-lost-symbol/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/09/danbrownthelostsymbol.html
And this is where you can buy a copy now
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Lost-Symbol/Dan-Brown/e/9780385504225
http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Symbol-Dan-Brown/dp/0385504225
Do drop us your own reviews as well.
Using Technology To Transform An Organization
September 15, 2009
Speech date: 18 October 1999
Venue: NATO Seminar on Technology at Old Dominian University, Norfolk, Virginia
Title: Chief Executive Officer, BP p.l.c
It’s a privilege and a pleasure to be here, though I feel it’s somewhat presumptuous for a business man to be talking to you about transforming an organization. Given the success of NATO over the last 50 years, and in particular your achievements of the last decade in the face of dramatic change, I suspect we have more to learn than to offer.
So it is a privilege to be here, and I approach this discussion with a degree of humility. Now the title of this session, ‘Using technology to transform an organization’, suggests a degree of foresight and planning which certainly doesn’t match our recent experience.
Technology has dramatically reshaped our business, but it has done so in ways we didn’t always expect. Progress has continually surprised us, and we’ve found ourselves responding, trying to understand and adapt to change just as often as we’ve searched for and applied some particular advance in a systematic way.
Technical progress certainly hasn’t made the world more predictable. Change has affected many dimensions of the business. Those changes have interacted with one another and produced the organization we have today.
I want to describe some of the things that have happened and then spend just a few moments looking ahead, because change hasn’t come to an end. The organization we have today probably bears only a passing resemblance to the entity that will exist in five or ten years’ time.
Let me begin with a personal story. I started work in the autumn of 1969, straight from university in the UK. As a very young graduate I was posted to Alaska, to the Prudhoe Bay oil field which had just been discovered and which proved to be the largest single oil and gas field in the world outside OPEC. In those days we reckoned we could produce around a third of the oil in place at Prudhoe – eight or nine billion barrels.There was also gas in Prudhoe Bay – a gas cap, in the rocks above the oil. A huge natural gas resource – at least 26 trillion cubic feet – but we saw no prospect of developing that gas commercially.
Prudhoe Bay was due to start producing oil in the mid-1970s and we reckoned the field would stay in production until around 1990, though some people thought even that was optimistic.
What was true of Prudhoe was true of many fields discovered and developed at that time. A relatively small percentage of the oil in place could be produced, and the producing life of the field would be over well before the turn of the century.
I suppose projections like that contributed to the mood of the times – to the view that by the 1990s the world would be desperately short of energy resources: that there would be conflict for whatever remained, and that Europe, Japan and even the USA would become strategically dependent for their oil on the stability of a few desert kingdoms.
Many people came to that conclusion, but the most vocal was the Club of Rome which, 27 years ago next week, said the world would be starved of oil by 1990.
The present
I was in Alaska a few weeks ago.
Prudhoe Bay is still producing around 580,000 barrels a day. On current production plans we should recover not one-third but well over 50% of the oil in place – an extra five billion barrels – and the potential cost savings offered by our combination with ARCO could take that figure even higher.
When the Club of Rome report was written, remaining global reserves of oil were around 700 billion barrels. Since then the world has produced and consumed some 600 billion barrels. Despite all that production, world booked reserves at the end of last year were 1.1 trillion barrels – a 56% increase on the 1972 figure.
Technological advances
That’s only one dimension of the impact of technology. I could couple it with the way in which advances in drilling and production technology have opened up the deep water in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico.
When I joined the industry the maximum water depth for production was around 375 feet. This year production is coming from fields in 5,300 feet of water - and our new discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico will set new records when they come on stream.
Industry restructuring
Without the technical changes that have occurred I don’t think we’d have seen the restructuring of the industry that has begun over the last two years. For 60 or 70 years the structure of the industry was almost static – a group of seven or eight major companies, and a larger set of smaller independents. In the last three years there have been five major transactions and a host of smaller ones. The result is a new industrial geography.
We have been involved in three of those transactions – with Mobil in the European downstream, with Amoco in a worldwide merger and with ARCO, again in a global combination. We couldn’t have contemplated creating the sort of global company we’re now becoming without the technical advances that enable us to manage and control a very wide spread of assets, organized as independent business units operating within single processes and standards.
The limiting factor of the span of control has been lifted by the ability to access and collate data, and the advantage of size has been magnified by technology which allows us to learn – to pass information very quickly and openly from one part of the business to another – without any intervening hierarchy. That is a dramatic change in the economics and the structure of an organization.
Let me give you one example of what I mean by learning.
We drill a lot of holes around the world each year, and we spend a lot of money doing it – around $1.5 billion a year. Clearly that gives us a great deal of experience. If we can share and apply that experience we can save money, not by making any new breakthrough but simply by applying best practice.
For the extended peer group of drillers, the target for this year, which they confidently expect to achieve, is to reduce costs by 5%, which means a saving of $75 million. Technology is changing how we work in other ways as well.
People power
We’ve been able to move from a system of command and control, in which every decision had to be referred back to some central authority, to managed devolution – 120 or so business units working worldwide – with central direction, but with enormous direct responsibility and authority.
As a result of all that, technology is a force for transparency within the company. The old culture of secrecy, of a hierarchy of knowledge and of decisions taken behind closed doors, is evaporating. Information flows too freely to allow knowledge to remain hidden for all but the briefest moments in the most exceptional circumstances.
That means there is almost no proprietary knowledge, and it also means relationships change. It puts a premium on those who share what they know, rather than feeling they can add to their personal power by holding information to themselves.
It puts an even greater premium on those who can gather and integrate knowledge from different sources and, by doing so, find new insights into particular problems and challenges.
Of course, because people know more about what is happening, they want a say in decisions. Companies haven’t become democracies but there is a quasi-democracy at work, which transforms the role of leaders.
Customers
If technology transforms the network of internal links, it also alters the relationships we have with our customers.
One hundred years ago consumer choice was dictated by the logistics of production. Every car was black. Now technology has given the mass of consumers much better information, and the culture of the times – the expression of individuality through the choices you make – has meant no serious company can get away with simply producing what it has always produced and expecting those products to be accepted unquestioningly.
We have to be sensitive and responsive to customer needs and expectations.
That is true for many companies but nowhere is it more true than in the energy business. People want energy because there can’t be any development or progress without it. Energy means mobility and growth. It means freedom, liberty and the chance to improve living standards.
But they want a clean environment as well.
Environmental issues
At the moment consumers and government seem to be living in denial, refusing to accept their own responsibility for the increasing costs to the quality of life imposed when we all demand more and instead deflecting responsibility on to the oil and gas sector with increasing criticism and punitive measures.
There are no easy answers to the problems of global warming, traffic congestion, air quality and waste disposal, which are all becoming more important every day. No one wants to limit growth, and therefore there is a retreat into a culture of blame, which attacks oil companies but does nothing to improve the reality of the situation.
That effort must begin with an acceptance that there appears to be a trade-off between improving living standards and pollution, that such a trade-off is unacceptable, and that the challenge for all of us – consumers, governments and companies together – is to find answers that transcend that trade-off.
I think we can. Let’s take the issue of climate change. I disagree with those in the industry who say the only answer is to question the science on issues such as climate change and global warming, to deny responsibility and try to ignore the reality.
Of course, the science is provisional. Of course, there are many things we do not know. But it is an undeniable truth that people link energy to pollution, that they fear for the environmental future for themselves and their children, and that they believe companies should raise their heads and their aspirations.
We did some polling. We found that, when asked whether they associate energy with progress or with pollution, almost 40% of people say the first association is with pollution. But it is worth noting that 80% believe business has the ability – and the responsibility – to find answers.
People believe that is true for all business, but they think it is particularly true for big companies. That seems to be one of the reasons why they support, rather than oppose, the mergers and acquisitions which are taking place. They believe bigger companies are better able to meet their needs, and we can’t afford to disappoint them.
We can transcend the false trade-off between higher living standards and a clean environment not by halting but by driving it forward.
Eighteen months ago we set out our own target: to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 10% by 2010. Not because we can solve the problem alone – no one can do that – but because our staff and our customers were both telling us we couldn’t live in denial and they believed one of the functions of a great company was to find answers, rather than shrugging its shoulders and claiming nothing could be done.
We decided we wanted to show what was possible. I believe we can and will make that 10% reduction. We’ll do it through technology.
Finding answers
Let me give you some examples.
A couple of weeks ago we opened a new marine vapour recovery facility at Hound Point in Scotland, which happens to be a couple of miles from the home of NATO’s new secretary general, George Robertson. That facility will capture all the emissions which were previously sent into the atmosphere when tankers transferred their cargoes to the refinery system.
At Prudhoe Bay in Alaska we’ve developed a technique to inject carbon dioxide back into the deep rock formations of the reservoir. That will reduce emissions by 35 million tonnes each year.
Those are just two examples, but there are hundreds of other cases where applied technology is helping us to provide energy at a reasonable cost to people who need it. Let me give you another example of that process in action. People want to drive their cars, but they don’t like the consequences for air quality. Too many cities in the USA and around the world saw air quality fall below the acceptable standard this summer.
We’ve launched a programme to deliver that new choice of fuels here and in Europe, and we’ll have those products available in 40 cities around the world within the next 12 months. So technology is allowing us to meet rising consumer expectations and to carry on doing our business, but in a better way – a way that contributes to progress.
It is extending the frontier of what we can do, in places such as Alaska, and it is changing the way we are organized, making us a more transparent organization, and changing the way in which different individuals and units work with, and learn from, each other.
Now I’ve talked about what is already being done, and I’ve talked about BP because that’s all I’m really qualified to talk about.
But of course we’re not alone in this.
Access to and application of technology is very competitive. Change is disruptive and the speed of the revolution we’re going through means there is no certainty. Reaction time becomes a critical competitive factor. We have to be able to turn on a dime – and then to turn again. We have to be willing to throw away processes and systems that have worked very well, and adopt something new.
The future
But other changes are taking place where the glass is more cloudy. To quote just two examples
First, there is the ever-advancing technology of new energy supplies – from fuel cells and hydrogen, for instance, and from photovoltaics – or solar power.
Those technologies are not yet commercial, but progress is dramatic. Though it is impossible to be precise, I’d expect breakthroughs in one or more of those technologies to make alternative energy readily available in my lifetime.
We’ve seen one great shift in the world’s energy mix over the last 50 years, away from coal in favour, first, of oil, and now of gas, in response to the advances in combined cycle technology which have transformed the economics of power generation.
Now, I’m sure we’ll see another.
We can’t predict it, but as an organization we have to be prepared for it. That’s why we’re investing in photovoltaics, or solar power, and in other forms of renewable energy. That is one form of technical progress which could completely transform the business over time.
Another is the development of electronic commerce – the ability to buy and sell all sorts of products, services and information on screen. That activity is still in its infancy but, for a company such as BP, which lives by buying and selling not just products but also our services and skills it has the potential to transform the whole competitive landscape.
That’s just the start, and of course the real opportunity and threat of e-commerce come when the whole nature of the business you’re doing starts to change.
Many people are working in this area but I think it is fair to say no one knows where it will lead. You can only rely on instinct – and my sense is that, as it develops, e-commerce will be a revolutionary force and the world in which we’ve operated and traded will never be the same again.
In conclusion
Technology in all its forms has transformed our organization and looks set to change it again.
Perhaps the strongest lesson we’ve learned over the last decade or so is that, however much we thought we knew about our business, changes in technology mean we can’t rely on that knowledge. We have to learn again, and we have to learn from others – in business and beyond – who are also going through their own processes of transformation.
That’s why it is such a privilege to be here.
Thank you very much.
How Companies Grow Through A Recession
September 11, 2009
How companies grow through a recession
By Kevin Voigt
CNN
DALIAN, China (CNN) — For Peer Schatz’s inspiration as a business leader, he looks to nature.
“The most successful organizations are in biology, with their continuous adaptation toward survival,” said Schatz, chief executive officer of Qiagen, a Swiss firm that develops genetic testing technology. “It’s important for the future to be an organically growing organization.”
While most businesses in the world have struggled through the recession, Qiagen has been steadily growing at 20 percent. Schatz is among more than 200 executives comprising the Global Growth Companies Group of the World Economic Forum. This year’s “Summer Davos” brings together more than 1,300 leaders of business, government and non-profit organizations for capitalism’s greatest meet-and-greet event.
While no company has been spared the difficulties of the downturn, a survey of these emerging companies found they have been able to grow through the recession, said Jeremy Jurgens, senior director of the Global Growth Companies group for the World Economic Forum.
The common denominator of these companies “first and foremost is an entrepreneurial mind-set — these people are taking risks, these are often small companies going against giants, going into new markets and creating new products,” Jurgens said. “Secondly, they have a global mind-set — they may not be taking their business globally, but they are looking at other cultures and other industries and bringing them back home.”
For Schatz and Qiagen — which announced a new H1N1 flu testing product during the Dalian conference — growth has been built on sighting and surfing waves before the rest in the water. “Then the problem becomes, if you can catch one wave, can you catch the next, and the one after that?” Schatz said. “It’s the classic innovator’s dilemma.
Moser Baer founder Deepak Puri has made a career of catching the next wave. He built a diversified Indian company by manufacturing CDs, DVDs and other electronic storage media, and then moved into sales of home videos in the huge India movie market, distributed through kiosks and pushcarts throughout small villages in India. (in India) … watching 200 million people inducted into the middle class,” said Puri, whose company has diversified into consumer electronics goods, energy generation and telecommunications. The company is hoping to catch the next wave by creating photovoltaic technology for better solar cell energy.
Investment in research is key: The company is spending $10 million a year on solar research that may not produce returns for years. “The success of Moser Bear was not built on inexpensive labor but on going into `green field’ projects,” Puri said.
While other companies cuts employees and plants, California-based MBA Polymers has started building a U.K. plant that will double its existing production facilities in California, China and the U.S.
“Everyone else was hanging onto cash for dear life while we started building our largest plant to date,” said Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers — which creates technology that separates plastic waste.
MBA Polymers is riding the recycling wave, but Biddle said the business was built through constant cost conscientiousness. “The fundamental drive is to build a business that’s more cost effective than others,” Biddle said. “Efficiency will always save you at the end of the day.”
The Full Original Article is available here http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/09/10/companies.recession/index.html
The 7 Don’t Of Selling Without Selling by Manoj Sharma
September 10, 2009
The 7 Don’t Of Selling Without Selling by Manoj Sharma
Here is the scenario…
“The marketplace is competitive. You need to meet your targets. Time is running out. Desperation is in the air. The buyer has got their guard up. You know you need to differentiate, but the similarities are too obvious to hide. You can feel your ethics moving into the background. You pitch passionately. It does not seem to work. The buyer tells you they are going to buy from someone else. Once again you are left facing that all to familiar sinking feeling and you hate it. You question your approach and wonder what the difference that will make the difference.”
This is a situation that sales people go through everyday. And while some will invest the time to question their approach, very few will find the answers necessary and inculcate a new strategic sales approach that will make a difference.
After years of working with, coaching and learning from the top sales professionals around the world, here is a list of simple don’t you need to avoid so you can start to benefit from the art of selling without selling.
Principle #1 – Don’t Sell Ice To The Eskimos
Make people buy things they need. You can create desire by being compelling, you can seduce people to your point of view and you can even exhibit your undying passion for your product or service. But a true sales professional is one who discovers a need and fulfills it, not sells to a need that does not exist. Find out what your customers truly need and provide it for them. Do this and you will surely create a sales pipeline that keeps rewarding you past the first interaction with them.
Make Sure Your Product Fulfills A Need
Principle #2 – Don’t Make An Elephant Pay By Having It Climb A Wall
Buyer’s remorse is akin to the terrible withdrawal symptoms a drug addict goes through when they can no longer afford their fix. If you have convinced your buyer to buy above what they can afford, it is the same as getting an elephant to climb a wall – its not natural for them and even if they do get up the wall, they are going to come crashing down, and crashing down hard on you. I’ve seen numerous sales professionals close sales, be it in “small money” consumer environments or “million dollar” business environments only for the buyer to come back and demand a recourse or worse still take legal action. Don’t fall into this trap; the euphoria of the sales will not be worth the depression of the sales recovery to follow.
Make Sure You Find Customers Who Can Afford To Buy From You
Principle #3 – Don’t Sell The Steak, Sell The Sizzle
When someone needs a dress and can afford the dress, they will not be buying it because of how good it looks on the mannequin. They are not even going to buy it because of how good it looks on them. They are going to buy it because of how they envision wearing that dress is going to benefit them. Find the point of benefit and sell that. This may be the impact they make while wearing that dress at a party or at work. This is what in the sales profession we call, selling the sizzle. Focus on this and not on selling the steak.
Make Sure Your Customers Are Clear On Their Benefit
Principle #4 – Don’t Just Sell By Emotion Or Logic Alone
There are sales people that sell purely by emotion; Principle #4 is a great example of that. And then there are sales people that sell only by logic. These are practical sellers; they convey the hard facts, are happy to deal with the figures and will work out the return on investment for you. To be a top professional you need to learn how to do both. Check if you selling style has both. And if not incorporate what is missing.
Make Sure You Appeal To Their Heart & Mind
Principle #5 – Don’t Be A Hit & Run Artist
As a sales person you might often find yourself in a hurry to close the deal. And who can fault you, after all you have targets to meet and deadlines to beat. But, rushing is not the hallmark of great sales professionals and is not conducive to selling without selling. To sell without selling you need to take the time to engage people in a dialogue. To clarify, a dialogue is two-way communication, in which both parties take the time to listen in turn while the other speaks. A major key to selling without selling is to build relationships. Please note that relationships are built on a foundation of trust and trust is built by listening and speaking genuinely. Unfortunately, this takes time, which “hit and run” sales people don’t make.
Make Sure You Work Towards A Continuing Relationship
Principle #6 – Don’t Sell The Way Your Competitors Do
The “same-old” can never lead to the “different-new”. We have terminal normality in the marketplace. Organizations are selling similar products, at similar price points, hiring similar people, with similar backgrounds, who think similarly, sell similarly and have similar branding, marketing and sales strategies. Selling without selling requires the customer to feel the difference without you having to sell the difference. Think about that long and hard and see what you can come up with to differentiate yourself.
Make Sure You Differentiate Yourself From Your Competition
Principle #7 – Don’t Sell Like A Prophet Or A Priest
A doomsday prophet and an over zealous priest are not great role models for sales people who want to build lasting relationships which will allow them to subsequently sell without selling. Don’t pressure sell, nobody likes it. Don’t artificially create time frames if they truly don’t exist. Don’t create doomsday scenarios or induce fear is there is none. And don’t overstate the truth. These are typical things sales people have been taught that make them sell like bad prophets or priests. Just be genuine and truthful.
Make Sure You Sell Ethically
Eliminate the above “don’t” you will automatically be left with the “dos”. This will go a long way to building a great relationship and ironically will allow you to sell without selling and make a real difference, where other people are desperately attempting to “sell”.
Are You A Needs Based Seller? by Manoj Sharma
September 10, 2009
Are You A Needs Based Seller? by Manoj Sharma
Long gone are the days where one size fits all. The future is a fully customized, needs based selling future and this requires great knowledge, skill and the right attitude. To be a needs based seller, requires you to marry sales professionalism with great personalization so you can go way beyond the spin your competitors are so dependent on.
Needs Based Selling done with great diligence will not just allow you to attract new customers and retain them, but will create champions of your products and services that invite others to buy into your offerings. Your end result? The winning combination of higher profitability for you, your team and your organization and greater fulfillment, happiness and delight for your customers too!
So how do you get started on needs based selling. Well, one critical component is to Know Your Customer’s Needs. Go through the following checklist and see how well you score up against it.
Do you know why your customer is having a conversation with you?
Customers talk to you for 3 reasons, to attract a new status quo, to repel an old status quo and as an opportunity to maintain the present status quo. This is a question of finding out their purpose of engagement and should be one of the first things you ascertain, so you can serve them better.
Do you know their inclinations on cost?
Your customers almost always have a figure in mind, even when they tell you they don’t. If you are above their range, you need to address why you are more expensive than what they are initially willing to pay. If you are below, you also need to explain why you are cheaper than what they expected. If your price is “just right”, there is often no need to explain as you benefit from what I call the Goldilocks Figure. But unlike Murphy’s Law this rarely happens. So be prepared to find out the figure they have in mind and explain the discrepancy to meet their needs.
Do you know the quality they desire?
Contrary to what we’d like to believe, buyers do not always go for the best quality even thought the price might be right. This is why the best organizations customize products according to quality tiers. Ask your buyer about the kind of quality they are looking for – good, average and poor – and meet their needs. While you can certainly invest time in educating them on the value of greater quality, note that at the end of the day the buyer has autonomy of choice.
Do you know their underlying value tone?
This is pretty much always ignored by all but the most sophisticated needs based sellers. Are you aware your buyers need to meet their own value judgment on the products and services they purchase? Here are the judgments all buyers subtly make depending on the product or service…
Will this be good or bad for me/us?
Will this be helpful or harmful for me/us?
Will this make things successful or cause failure for me/us?
Will this enhance or diminish my/our identity?
Will this make me/us more knowledgeable or ignorant?
Will this make me/us more secure or compromise my/our safety?
Will this make me/us happier or will I/we have to deal with unhappiness later?
Will this bring me/us greater freedom or take away my/our time?
Will this deliver me/us peace of mind or create chaos?
What features, functions and use do they really need?
Ask them about the features, functions they need and those that they don’t need. Ask them about how they plan to use it and then find the right fit. You don’t want to pay for things you don’t need and neither do your customers. So keep the selling lean and directly in tandem with their needs. When they realize the high ethics with which you operate they will certainly come back to you and bring you other clients too.
Do you know how they want to pay for their purchase and can you meet it?
Unfortunately sometimes when everything above works out well, the transaction still fails because the preferred payment mode and structure is missing.
Create great flexibility in how your customers purchase (cash, credit, installments, delayed, loans, repurchase, loans, etc) from you and you will give them no reason not to have their needs met as soon as possible.
In conclusion
The above is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being a needs based seller. Counter check the above with what your organization is doing well and not doing as well and then start working on developing the right mind sets, skill sets and business sets in all your sales professionals, so both you and the customers can collectively profit from your efforts.