TeamBlitz Fun: Are You Showing the Signs of Success?

Here’s a quick personality test for success. Click the image to see it bigger. Which column do you identify with most? Which traits in the right column do you need to work on overcoming?

Tell us about it in the comments below. 

What Ambit Consultants Can Learn From the World’s Fastest Man

Here’s a lesson from the world’s fastest man who made his third Olympic appearance in London 2012. Let’s start this lesson by watching this video clip:

Mr. Bolt can run really fast – 100 meters in 9.58 seconds.  That’s pretty fast, but it takes more than sheer talent to get there, which is the focus of today’s post. Let me tell you the story of Mr. Bolt before the 2008 Olympics.

The Road to Glory is Paved with Defeats

In 2004, he made the Jamaican Olympic Team and went to Athens where he never made it past the first round of his only event – the 200 meter dash.

According to an article in Esquire Magazine, his coach says he was injured and had problems with scoliosis. Coach Glen Mills says he changed up his training in three ways:

1. He cut down on the high intensity workouts and focused on building strength and flexibility.
2. He focused on building his core muscles to make up for a weak and curved spine.
3. He honed his technique in the 200-meter race.

Not an Overnight Success

At first, the training schedule didn’t do magic. In fact, in the two years after Mills began working with Bolt, he never placed first in a race.

The Training Equation Pays Off

However, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Holt became the fastest man who ever lived in 200,000 years. He can run nearly 28 miles per hour at his top speed.

Here’s another thing you should know about Mr. Bolt.

He doesn’t take his running “seriously enough” to most people. In the Esquire article, the writer recounts his dancing celebration after he won Olympic gold in 2008. The head of the Olympic committee said it was disrespectful and “showboating.”

Many others in the athletic world say he’s like Mozart – “prodigiously gifted…and something of a clown.”

Pocketing the Objections

Bolt defends his lighthearted take on the sport. He says he used to care about what others thought of him and then he had an epiphany that changed his game.

He says, “I figured out that as long as you’re not doing good, they’re going to criticize you, and if you’re doing good, they going to love you.”

When he let go of the perception others had of him, he says he started enjoying the sport. That’s when he became the fastest man in the world – ever.

So, what can Ambit Consultants learn from the lightning fast man?

1. The right training can help you overcome almost any barrier.
2. Working on core skills and technique will change your game in the long term.
3. You have to work hard and have faith in your efforts to become great.
4. Caring what others think of you will hold you back.
5. Success comes when you let go and have fun.

Tell us what you think. Can the lessons from the world’s fastest man help your business?

How Effective Are Your Communication Skills?

Have you ever heard of communication described as words, music and dance? In other words, how effective are your communication skills based on the words you use (words), the tone in which you use them (music), and the body language you display at the same time (dance)? This simple explanation shows why face-to-face communication is the most powerful communication form because all three vital components are on display simultaneously.

It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It

When communicating with an prospect, you may not always have the benefit of holding a face-to-face conversation. However, even on the telephone, the music in your voice or the tone you use will come across loud and clear. Likewise, you will pick up the tone of your prospect.

Now let’s put this into context when you are discussing your Ambit Energy opportunity or handling questions and objections about the MLM industry.

Communication Qualities

Another term for communication skills is communication qualities. These communication qualities are the subtle and not-so-subtle nuances of how you present yourself, Ambit Energy and the network marketing industry to your prospects. It’s how everything comes together when a person actually talks to another person.

One communication quality is a friendly facial expression. So, when you’re sitting down with a prospect, you want to make sure you have a friendly facial expression. When you’re talking on the phone, you want a friendly verbal expression. Why?  Because any time that a prospect has an objection, whether it is expressed or unexpressed, the only chance that they will open up and share with you is if you have a friendly facial or verbal expression.

Faking It Doesn’t Work

You have to get this right – especially when you’re sitting down talking to a prospect. And never fake it. Unless you are genuinely interested in helping your prospects, no matter how hard you try it won’t work. Either the tone you use will betray a faked friendly expression or a faked tone will be spotted immediately by your facial expression.

If you are still wondering why a “facial expression” is regarded as a communication quality, just think the look you gave someone the last time you were mad at them. How’s that for communicating?

Monitor Assertiveness

Another communication quality is the amount of assertiveness you use. When you are communicating you can come off as too strong, too soft, or just right.

Assertiveness is the amount of force that a person uses to make their opinion known. If you use too much, then you cause the prospect to back away. And volume of your voice doesn’t matter. You can come off as assertive even if you speak quietly.

When you’re dealing with network marketing objections, you have to use the right amount of assertiveness. What’s the right amount? The right amount depends on the level of assertiveness used by the questioner.

Next Steps: Get more tips on how to to stay in control of every conversation with your prospects by listening to our Ambit Pro Inviter Calls at www.AmbitPro.EnergizeYourChoice.com. 

5 Easy Ways To Increase Your Confidence And Credibility

Read this Brilliant Question:

A problem I face is: A feeling that prospects do not perceive me as credible or believable.Perhaps it’s only my “reading” of their thoughts, but it’s the feeling I get from their reaction or response.

Maybe that question relates to you. I’m going to answer this in two parts.

1. Doubting yourself
2. How to increase your credibility

Doubting Yourself

Throughout my life I have had many feelings similar to this one. Looking back, I’m not sure if the person I was talking with really gave that “feeling” to me or if I was the one who gave it to myself because I didn’t feel like I had enough credibility to be talking to this person. Think about that for a few seconds…or a few minutes!

How can someone reach inside your head and make you feel [anything]?

I don’t think there’s a “no credibility” switch inside your head or mine that a person can reach in and flip.

What I’m trying to do is help you to see that this question mostly has to do with how you view yourself. Or how you allow others to influence the way you view yourself.

If you think about it, no one can MAKE you feel mad or angry or guilty or not credible – YOU are the only one who can accomplish that; even if someone says it to you.

Let’s suppose you’re a female and someone says to you, “You are a guy.” You would just look at them strangely and continue what you’re doing. You KNOW you’re not a guy. But if someone says something to you that you have already thought of – then you’re more likely to “allow” them to influence the way you see yourself. Like, “You’ve put on some weight.” But in reality, the two comments don’t have to affect you differently.

Is It in Your Thoughts?

Here’s the way it worked for my mentor and how he solved it. He used to have this thought that because he didn’t get a college degree, he wasn’t credible and that no one would listen to him (Have you ever had that thought?). That wasn’t true – it was just in his thoughts. At a social gathering, he would meet someone and they would ask, “Where did you go to school?” He would reply, “Hixson High School.” They would then say, “No, what college?” He would reply, “I didn’t go to college.” To that they would say, “Oh.”

He would walk away feeling like he had no credibility with them. And, perhaps he didn’t. But the real damage was when he didn’t talk to people simply because he thought he didn’t have the right to talk to someone because he didn’t go to college! That’s enormous damage.

Working It Out in Your Head

Here’s how he worked it out in his head – Now, what’s the “truth?” Is there anyone who has ever been successful in life that didn’t go to college? YES!

People go to college so they can be more knowledgeable on a subject so they can get better results. So, it’s results that matter. But he used to think [incorrectly] that college equaled better results. Perhaps if he was trying to be successful as a doctor it would matter, but in network marketing it did not.

So, he just dumped the idea that he needed a college degree to be successful because just having that thought would actually STOP HIM FROM BEING SUCCESSFUL!

Talk about irony!

How to Increase Your Credibility

He knew the ONLY way he was going to gain the respect of others (college graduates or not) was to get results. So number one, he had to not stop himself no matter what anyone said to him or what he said to himself. He had to just keep on until he got results.

Here’s what he did and what you should do if you want to increase your credibility:

• Talk with people – no one can be successful without this step.
• Use the 10 Communication Qualities & Inviting Formula – you will immediately increase your credibility ENORMOUSLY by increasing your communication skills
• Help people and allow others to help you.
• When someone helps you, give back something of equal or greater value. When you help someone, allow them to help you back.
• Be trustworthy.
• Do what you say you will do.
• Increase your knowledge. 
• The more knowledge you have in the area you are advising or suggesting about, the more influence you will have. So know network marketing. Know our service. Know our company, Ambit Energy.
• Increase your results (doing the above will accomplish this). 
• The more results you’ve gotten in the area you are discussing or attempting to attract another into, the more influence you will have. This is not a requirement obviously because everyone in Ambit Energy starts with zero results.

The Bottom Line

If you sense someone isn’t giving you any credibility, move on and do not allow them to weaken your view of yourself. If your prospect needs credibility in order to listen to you, then you can contact them after you’ve gotten results.

A person who is unable to evaluate a business has to judge the business based on their perception of the credibility of the person presenting it. Those who can not evaluate a business based on its merits will work for those who can or miss out on a lot of money....PERIOD!!!

Next Steps: Instantly access our training here on this site, on Facebook, our Conference Calls, local training at the Ambit North Houston Training Center and the Clear Lake Training Center, PowerTrip, Ambit Simulcast, Ambition and to learn how you can be an elite Ambit Consultant.

When to Tell the Truth...

What do I mean by “tell the truth?” The truth is that which is based on something provable.

This Communication Quality is always important, but extremely important as a presenter. As a presenter, you are in a leadership position and people will repeat what you say. So state the truth.

The Truth About Gossip

Also, don’t state things that are not valuable, such as gossip. The best rule of thumb I can give you on keeping gossip out is to talk only about things that will move a person’s goals forward. If it doesn’t do that – don’t talk about it.

Along the lines of stating the truth based on something you can see or witness, many times presenters will substantiate what they say with a newspaper or magazine article and I’ve done it myself, which is how I learned why it can come back and bite you. There are occasions where this is okay, but it’s actually giving undue support to the media as a whole. What you’re saying to your audience by quoting them is, “The media is the authority.” I’ve not found the media to be worthy of this position.

Just imagine what happens when a presenter quotes something favorable from “XYZ” magazine. What we’re saying to the audience is that XYZ is a worthy source of true information. Then later XYZ writes a negative article on network marketing – what are we supposed to say then? Are we to say the media is biased against network marketing because we don’t advertise? But this contradicts what we’ve been demonstrating from the front of the room.

Quote the Source

There is a way to substantiate what you’re presenting without giving the credit to the media. Quote their source. Meaning, if they say that unemployment rates are at 7.2%, don’t quote the magazine. Quote where the magazine got their data.

So, let’s say that Newsweek writes an article about high unemployment. Read the article and in the article it should state something like, “According to the latest unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” There it is – that’s the source. Quote the Bureau of Labor Statistics yourself. Don’t give the power to the media; there’s no reason to.

The power the media has is based on where they get their data from. A journalist or a news anchor doesn’t themselves have any power or authority. Think of a weather reporter; they are dependent on a storm for their power. It’s the same with any other type of reporter.

The Frustrating Truth

Sometimes in Ambit can we get financial results that we can’t say, even if it is the truth! Trust me, I know this is frustrating. 

Something else on “tell the truth” is to be honest in all your dealings with other Consultants. Every single thing you do is showing the people around you whether you can be trusted or not. If you sneak a new downline member into a training meeting that costs $10 or $20, you’re telling that new downline member that you can’t be trusted. They may at the time act like you’re being cool, but they’ll never forget that deep down you’re dishonest.

Always Tell the Truth

But also share things in their best light. Some people get very literal on the subject of “tell the truth” and feel that if they don’t tell their prospect everything that is negative then they are not telling the truth.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I rarely discuss leadership as an abstract subject because I feel leadership is not a “discussion.” It is about BEING down in the trenches doing things and helping people accomplish things. But, something has come up in this discussion on telling the truth that has prompted me to want to share what I feel is the senior most important thing in leadership.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this important Communication Quality called, “Tell the Truth.” What have you seen that you feel needs to be changed? What do Ambit Consultants on TeamBlitz do that is or appears dishonest to others? Please leave your comments below. 

Next Steps: Want to gather more customers and recruit more associates? Discover all 10 Communication Qualities that will make all the difference between earning $200 a month and earning $2,000 a month. Or even $20,000 a month. You’ll find them on our Ambit Pro Inviter calls at www.AmbitPro.EnergizeYourChoice.com.

Do You Sound Like an Ape When You Talk to Prospects?

The act of putting your foot in your mouth sounds rather silly and its metaphoric meaning is just that – saying something stupid or embarrassing. And that happens for three reasons when you are talking with a prospect:

1. You don’t know your service.
2. You don’t have confidence in your Ambit business.
3. You’re too focused on what you might say or do next to make you look stupid instead of helping your prospect.

Let’s look at some strategies you can use to overcome the common “foot in mouth” syndrome, which is based on fear.

When You Don’t Know Your Service…

You’re wasting your prospect’s time and yours. Picture this example:

You’re at a new restaurant and you can’t decide between two dishes. So, you ask the server for advice, but she hasn’t tried the dish. She responds with a canned response when you ask if it’s spicy or rich or better than the other dish, “It’s one of our most popular items.”

How does that help you? It doesn’t. The server just put her foot in her mouth.

Now, let’s apply this example to your Ambit business. If you don’t use the service and believe in the service, you’re going to sound just like the server when your prospect asks for advice on how the product solves their need or want.

Using your service and knowing them builds your credibility and confidence. If you’re confident in your service knowledge, you’re less likely to put your foot in your mouth.

Fast Fix: Use your service, get FREE Energy, know how it works and understand how they help you meet your prospect’s needs and wants.

When You Don’t Have Confidence in Your Ambit Business…

You typically get flustered and don’t say the right things at the right time when you lack confidence yourself and your business.
The reason you’re often putting your foot in your mouth is that you don’t believe you can do this – that you can help people or get successful with Ambit opportunity.

When you’re studying or practicing scripts, you’re so focused on memorizing the words that you don’t catch the meaning. You’re worried that you won’t remember to say something.

And your prospect can pick up on this – he or she will hear it in your shaking voice and your conversation will sound forced. Know what’s behind that shaking, squeaky voice? Lack of belief.

When you’re blushing, perspiring all over your Success Magazines and too focused on saying the right thing, your prospect is hearing you say, “I don’t believe in what I’m doing.”

The result is you don’t connect with your prospect. You can’t help them because you don’t believe you can do it.

Fast Fix: Find out the root cause of your fear and get past it or you’ll continue to stick your foot in your mouth. If you’re lacking confidence in your service, see my first point. If you’re lacking confidence in talking to prospects, check out our Ambit Pro Inviter calls at www.AmbitPro.EnergizeYourChoice.com . The Inviting Formula is designed to help you stay confident and focused on your prospect.

When You Don’t Focus Your Thoughts on Helping Your Prospect…

You could do something stupid like get caught not listening. Has that ever happened to you?

You know that too long of a pause, the dead pan eyes. Oh no! The prospect just caught you thinking about yourself.

What can you do to avoid this in the future?

1. Start every meeting or phone call with all of your attention on the prospect.
2. Drill on what you will say beforehand and have confidence in your words.
3. Ask questions to help with your listening. Repeat back your understanding of what your prospect is saying as a question. This is a wonderful confidence-building technique.
4. Stop trying so hard! Just have the conversation. Your prospect is a person just like you. You’re having a conversation to see if your business/service can help him or her with a need/want/don’t want (Their WHY). That’s it!
5. Find out what your prospect needs/wants (Their WHY). This will help drive the conversation and following a system like the Inviting Formula can help you stay on track.

I hope these tips help you move past your fears and take your foot out of your mouth when you’re talking to prospects. First Class Ambit Consultants like you are in the business of helping people and if you focus on that instead of how you sound…you’ll go far in this business.

Next Steps: Download a set of  inviting scripts along with a How-To Report that will help you be a more confident recruiter and build your downline faster.

Vitamins For The Mind - SUCCESS Audio Magazine

This Month's SUCCESS Line-up

This Month's Focus: 

  Well Being

Darren Hardy Shares His Secrets to Success in Business and Life

In this powerful FREE interview, Kyle Wilson, long time marketing superstar of such legends as Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar and Denis Waitley, discusses with Darren Hardy, long time friend, colleague and publisher of SUCCESS magazine, the distinctions and ideas they gleaned from thousands of hours spent with some of the best marketing and success thought leaders in the world.

In part one of this interview Darren shares insights and lessons learned from personal interviews and conversations with icons such as Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jim Rohn, Maria Shriver and Paul J. Meyer.

Darren talks about the number one thing a company must focus on when given the choice between management, margins, marketing or product.

He also uncovers the secrets of how companies like Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Harley-Davidson create cult like followings and the strategic process of turning customers and into raving fans and then converting those fans into passionate and loyal advocates.

Darren and Kyle both share from their own 20+ years of personal experiences with legends Jim Rohn and Paul J. Meyer.

Listen or download part one today and we’ll send part two in a few days.

Enjoy!

Times are Changing: Age, Sex and Our Future (2 of 2) by Darren Hardy

As we discussed in the first post, gender and generations are changing the landscape of business and the dynamics of the work environment in dramatic fashion.

If you can learn to adapt your culture and your leadership you will thrive as we march forward into the future.

Don’t adapt and it could be curtains for your business and your prosperous future.




So I have two methods to suggest in helping you adapt, develop and thrive.

1. Reverse Mentoring
This is the best way to integrate the trading of skills, perspectives and experience throughout your organization. Have men be mentored by women and boomers mentored by millennials.

Have women teach men many of the communication, social and interpersonal skills that women are more naturally adept at and how a man should best communicate to, work with and help support women in the workplace.

Have millennials teach boomers new technology, web services, social media and how the should best communicate to, work with and help support their younger colleagues in the workplace.

You might be asking, why the one-way street?

Well, first, it’s where the greatest gap and need exists, and secondly, mentoring the other way will happen naturally through the relationship.

Women will learn a lot more about their male counterpart in the workplace and how they, too, can adopt some of the skills more natural or prevalent in males in the workplace, and certainly millennials will pick up important leadership, discipline and mindset insights from their more experienced boomer workmates.

2. Be a Student Leader
This action item is particularly for you—the leader of your organization. I want to suggest you go around asking lots of questions to those outside your gender and your generation.

The best way to find out how they tick is to ask them… and listen… really listen.
Here is a questionnaire document I made for you to go through this process. Download here

Suggestion:
Interview at least 3 people (5 is better) from the opposite gender and 3 (5 is better) people from a generation other than your own (particularly the one you understand the least and might frustrate you the most as a result).

Next Step:
Ask one of those from the opposite gender and different generation to mentor you on the topic. Ask them to be your go-to person to talk through interactions and experiences you are going through with people of their orientation and get feedback and advice from them.

Follow-up:
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear what ‘ahas’ you get when you interview those of different mind and background. You can find me on my blog, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. I can’t wait to read your comments.

Take on these two suggestions and you will become a dynamic and influential leader of men and women… of all ages.
Wow, what power that will give you.

Share your thoughts, ideas and inspirations in the comments below. ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ below too.

Times are Changing: Age, Sex and Our Future (1 of 2) by Darren Hardy

We live in such incredibly dynamic times. These are exciting times to be alive… and challenging.
Most everything we have come to know is being disrupted and changed… seemingly all at once.
And for this conversation I’m not even referring to the technological or globalization changes that have impacted every function and facet of our business life.

I’m talking about the massive change in diversity we are undergoing in our workplace.


Not a diversity of race (although that is certainly another consideration with the impact of globalization), I’m talking about the diversity of gender and generations.

These changes are so significant that they are an ‘Adapt or Die’ threat level to the survival of your business over the next decade or two.

At the same time, if you DO adapt, and quickly, this can become one of your greatest advantages, helping you build a dynamic and thriving organization over the next several years, adding to your experience that these are the most exciting times to be alive.

Sex/Gender
A new milestone in U.S. history has been reached…

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more women working than men.
• Unemployment for men: 9.3% compared to 7.6% for women.
• 78% of the layoffs in recent years were men.
• More married women have unemployed husbands than ever before, a record 21%.
• Stay-at-home dads have doubled in recent years, making 1 out of 5 stay-at-home parents a father.

Add all that to this…

• 20.1 million women have bachelor’s degrees vs. 18.7 million men—a discrepancy of 1.4 million (it has been increasing since women passed men in 1996).
• And now, for the first time, women have passed men in gaining advanced college degrees.

All this gives us a very clear view of the future of our business culture. The era of yang-based business is over. It’s important you learn the yin way of doing business if you want to continue to thrive going forward.

Age/Generations
Add that to this interesting challenge…
In prior years, we have had three generations, sometimes four, but today because people are living and working longer…

• We will soon have five generations in the workplace—all at once.
• In four years Millennials (born between 1977 and 1997) will account for half of all the employees in the world, according to Harvard Business Review.
• It’s important to realize these are not all fresh from dorm rooms 20-somethings. By 2015 the oldest of this generation will be around 35, holding roles of significant leadership and executive management.
• Also, while the median age of the working population in the United States is around 36.7, in emerging markets, it is closer to 26 years old, with a larger population of younger workers.

Learning how to recruit, retain, motivate and leverage the diversity of experience, skills and capabilities of both genders and these different generations will be essential for you to stay competitive during these dynamic, very exciting and fast-changing times.

Now that you have this new awareness, in the next post I will give you two methods to help prepare and develop your internal culture and your leadership capability so you can not only adapt to survive, but actually thrive by leveraging these exciting shifts shaping our future.

How have you seen the workforce change? What have you done to adapt to these changes? Share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.

The Franchise Player by Darren Hardy

I was watching a major sporting event recently and the commentator kept referring to one of the athletes as a “franchise player.”

Wanting to know exactly what this description meant, I did what we all do nowadays—I looked it up on Wikipedia.

The Great Wiki said a “franchise player” is an athlete who is not simply the best player on the team, but a player that the team can build its “franchise” (team or business) around for the foreseeable future.

The game I was watching was on the line, the outcome dependent on the performance of this franchise player. If he came through, his team would go into the playoffs, resulting in many more games, with additional coliseums filled with excited fans buying tickets, food and merchandise.

I started to think about the owner of the team. His or her entire annual return, maybe the entire future value of the enterprise, was riding on the shoulders of this one player. One player determined the difference of hundreds of millions of dollars. I thought, if I were the owner of the team, I would hire and pay a few people six-figure salaries just to manage the well-being of this one player. It would be worth it.

Last year I read Tom Rath’s book Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements. Tom explains that true well-being encompasses your professional life (liking what you do every day), social life (having positive relationships and love), finances, physical fitness and health, and community involvement.
Thinking about this franchise player, I started masterminding the different ways the team owner could keep the player’s job fun, challenging and enjoyable (ya, SUCCESS always on the brain!).

Then ways to ensure he was hanging out only with people who were supportive, loving and positively reinforcing. Certainly I would hire the best and most trusted financial advisers. Every aspect of his physical health, nutrition, training and rehabilitation would be managed and monitored by a team of world-class trainers. Then to complete the well-being management, I would be sure he was actively involved with charitable endeavors to make sure he gained a sense of his higher purpose and felt the fulfillment of contribution.

Then I thought, Hey, I’m the owner of my team, I should take care of my franchise players like this as well. My financial future is in their hands. If I take great care of them they will take me all… the… way… to my goals and dreams.

Then I thought one step further: Hey, I AM the franchise player for my team— family, business, life—as well. I should take care of my well-being with this much care, consideration and investment.

It’s the shrewd and prudent thing to do.

That’s what I want to encourage you to do as well. You are the franchise player for your family, business and life. Invest the time, money and thoughtfulness to be sure your well-being is well-managed. The future of your team—family, business, life—depends on your performance.
That is what our current issue of SUCCESS (on newsstands now!) is focused on helping you achieve—greater well-being in all five essential areas of your life.

The game is on the line (every day): Is your well-being in peak-performance condition?
I hope so. (watch my free nutrition and fitness videos here)

What do you do to take care of your franchise players–your key team members and yourself? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Vitamins For The Mind - SUCCESS Magazine

This Month's SUCCESS Line-up

This Month's Focus: 

Making a Comeback