Martin Limbeck, Chris Fleming, Dr. Hein Hansen
On February 2 2013, I had the extreme pleasure to attend a special event on a special topic – MOTIVATION! This topic currently seems to follow me everywhere I go… even to Bamberg, my university town in Northern Bavaria, Germany.
The event featured three top speakers:
- Martin Limbeck, one of Europe’s most acclaimed sales coaches.
- Dr. Hein Hansen (Michael Ehlers) who drew funny but deep conclusions from the art of selling fish.
- Chris Fleming, head coach of the Brose Baskets and winner of three consecutive German Basketball Leagues and Cups.
Here are some content flashes from this motivational day in Bamberg:
- Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet.
- “Trying” is the permission to fail.
- Authority comes from author.
- We all are salespersons.
- Success (in sales) = Self-confidence + Self-worth
- The hurdle in my head is contagious.
- You win and lose between your ears.
- Positive thinking = positive results.
- We program ourselves.
- Some people get up in the morning because of their full bladder.
- Our clients sense whether we need the sale or we want it.
- Too many people suffer from the fear of losing something.
- In sales, if you never hear that you are too pushy, you still have room for improvement.
- The presence of a board member in a sales meeting is not a problem, but a great opportunity: quicker decisions, higher budgets, signing on the spot.
- It’s not me who wants something from the client. The client wants something from me. He just doesn’t know it yet.
- A taxi driver asked me once: “Where can I take you?” I replied, “It doesn’t matter; everyone needs me.”
- I do cold calls every day. My goal: Every day two new clients!
- Social media is a substitutional satisfaction.
- Know your sales vocabulary!
- With audio books I get 500 hours of training a year.
- The German salesperson is the laziest being I know.
- How do you cope with a “No”?
- You must learn to deal with a “No”.
- What do you do for others?
- Sales people are always on time!
- Success = Fun + Passion
- If people pick up the phone, they have time.
- There are only two major construction sites in your life: the wrong job and the wrong relationship at home.
- Too often we hold on things in life.
- Sales = Work + Discipline + Goals
- The opposite of success is average.
- If you don’t love the product or service you’re selling, look for others – NOW!
- Hope is the procrastination of disappointment.
- Demotivated employees cost the German industry 124 bn € per year. (Source unknown)
- “Capital can be acquired. Factories can be built. Humans must be won over.” – Hand Christoph von Rohr
- S(Co) = f(G, I)
- Success in communication equals the function of goals and identification.
- If our goals don’t match our identification with these goals, then we suffer from a cognitive dissonance, which results in frustration.
- For sales people negotiation skills are vital.
- A key influencer of negotiation skills is the level of stress stability.
- But – the opposite of stress stability is empathy.
- In sales, empathy is more important than stress stability.
- A great “stress dissolver” is water. Drinking two to three liters of water lets our level of stress decline.
- The key to motivating people: the use of rituals!
- Example: Four rituals of the Fish! Philosophy:
- Play: Have fun and make the customers feel as though they can have fun while they’re there, too.
- Make Their Day: When talking to customers, make eye contact and if doing nothing else, making the customer your main focus. This also includes striking up conversation with people walking by your business place.
- Be Present: Oftentimes while at the workplace, people will be there in body, but not mind, meaning that while they are there physically, their presence of mind isn’t. ‘Be there’ means to be at the workplace in mind and body; to be completely focused on your work and others around you, and how you can help other employees maintain a positive attitude as well.
- Choose Your Attitude: The philosophy says that you choose your attitude when you wake up in the morning, whether to be nice and friendly for the rest of the day, or to be mean and surly for the rest of the day. The philosophy advises to ‘choose’ to be nice and friendly every day, and that good feeling will spread to others.
- Regarding “Be present”: When people pick up their cell phones in a meeting, I throw them out!
- Quality is when the client returns, not the product.
- The rest of your life begins in this second.
The head coach of the leading German basketball team, Brose Baskets, explained their six pillars of motivation and their four elements of teambuilding.
I will publish a special post on Chris Fleming’s great insights.
Thank you
Thanks to the organizers for their fantastic job! That was a high quality event. It doesn’t always have to be Berlin, New York or London. Sometimes you find a pearl of personal and professional growth in a cosy Franconian town like Bamberg.