What can a coin reveal about your service mindset? Listen to Ron Kaufman and discover.
As you watch this video by customer service guru Ron Kaufman, reflect on the ‘coin’ that is preventing you from reaching specialness. What will it take to pick up YOUR coin and get rid of it today?
For Leaders at all levels and Sales & customer service Professionals
Interaction Personalities (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva
Helps understand your quality of interactions by understanding the five interaction personalities of yourself and others. This in turn helps improve the way they interact with others, especially when dealing with conflicts. Includes free self assessment to find out your interaction personality.
I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
The following process can help you get good value from this video:
Continue reading “Interaction Personalities – Learning Video”
Today’s learning video – for those selling anything or service anyone … thats everyone
A Better Way to Sell (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva
Helps you generate spectacular results by learning a better way to sell through Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). We All sell ideas, our talents, our brand image, our professional practice & products etc. Find out a better way to sell to generate better results.
I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
The following process can help you get good value from this video:
Today’s learning video – for Leaders at all levels:
Natural Abilities (10 mts) by Ranjan De Silva
Helps understand the four natural abilities and how getting your team members in to their natural ability areas helps you to achieve near optimum performance. Includes free self assessment to find out natural abilities.
I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
You can watch this alone or learn with others in-room or Online.
The following process can help you get good value from this video:
Step 1 – A moderator (an expert from your company) to open the session, explaining the importance of the session.
Step 2 – Show the video,
Step 3 – Have a Q&A session and a discussion
Step 4 – Agree on actions to be taken based on the video
Step 5 – Participants to say how the session was useful.
In addition, we can also arrange online sessions or executive coaching for your current and future business needs. Please inbox if you would like to discuss options.
Today’s learning video is for Customer Service and Sales Professionals at all levels.
Mindfulness Based Customer Service by Tanzi Usoof
Learn how to provide better customer service by using mindfulness practices. This is a skill which is even more important during times of anxiety when your mind is full. Learn how to empty your mind of the anxiety, worry, clutter etc. so that you can fully focus on the customer with the intention of being of service to the customers.
I hope this could be useful in providing online learning to your team members, family, friends and self during the current down time so that they would be kept positive, motivated and sharp so that all of you would be geared to perform with excellence during the crisis and after.
How to get best value from the video:
Continue reading “Mindfulness Based Customer Service – Learning Video”
NAFLIA 2019 Presentation (Click here to Download Powerpoint)
NAFLIA 2019 Presentation (Click here to download PDF)
Click on the above link for the presentation related to the keynote speech to be given by me at NAFLIA 2019. Conference participants are invited to download the presentation and use it to follow the keynote speech.
This blog is written in service of life-Insurance Advisors in Sri Lanka, specifically the members attending NAFLIA 2019, the National Forum for Life Insurance Advisors scheduled for the 2ndof September. My attempt is to articulate the key messages of the keynote speech that will be delivered by me.
As I was reflecting on the topic for the annual conference, ‘Assuring Tomorrow Dream Today’. The questions that come up are, what is the action we need to take today to assure our dream of tomorrow? How do we know the action we choose to take today will assure our dream tomorrow? I realised this is a very complex question and that there is no standard answer to this as the action to be taken depends of the world each person lives in. What I mean by the ‘world’ is the immediate world of each person starting with him/herself, family, friends, organisations they belong to, organisations and people they interact with etc. The answer is personal.
Continue reading “Living our Dream Purposefully – Purpose of Living – Part 30”
I was at a cocktail party listening to an interesting conversation between two other guests who were in the same huddle as me.
Person A: What do you do?
Person B: I sell financial services.
Person A: What do you really want to do?
Person B: I want to be banker.
I asked A why he asked that question, and B why he responded that way. A said, “isn’t selling a profession that is not respected?” B said “yes”, it is so difficult to sell because customers look at him with suspicion. In my three decades of being in business and playing the roles of seller, buyer, leader, trainer, consultant and coach of sales professionals, I have encountered this attitude towards sales on many occasions.
However, my personal attitude towards sales is the opposite. As I reflect on the questions – how is it that people have developed this attitude towards sales, and what would be the best way to help people to look differently at sales? – the notion of purposefulness continues to come to my mind. Perhaps if I can find out if ‘sales’ is a purposeful profession, then it might help me to engage with people who have diverse viewpoints regarding this question.
Answering the above question requires understanding what is a purposeful profession. While I have attempted to answer this question in the earlier blog posts regarding purposefulness, there is no definite answer due to the complexity of this question. I believe that a purposeful profession needs to be of service to the flourishing of life and supported by noble values. Let’s examine these two aspects in relation to the sales profession. Continue reading “Is Selling a Purposeful Profession – Purpose of Living – Part 29”
Organisations consist of people who are varied. People come from varied cultures, mindsets, beliefs, philosophies, and background. This diversity creates varied dynamics of interactions. Therefore it is unlikely that there are two similar organisations on this planet. Therefore there is no standard formula or right answer or wrong answers. Therefore the best I can do is to provide the clay for you to create a pot that can hold the value you can add to organisations that suits your reality and your aspirations using your creativity and your knowledge.
Why do you need to add value to organisations? I had learnt somewhere in my journey of life that the more you give the more you get. This concept became true to me as I tested it. The more I gave to others the more I received. The more time and I focus I gave my studies the better results I received. The more value I gave my existing clients the more new clients I received. The more knowledge I gave , especially free of any fees, the more knowledge I gained.
Continue reading “How Marketers can Add Value to the Organisation”
Remember the last time you were engrossed in a conversation? Conversation where real issues were discussed! Conversations that were authentic! Conversations that were value adding! Conversations that made time stand still! Conversations that made things happen! Conversations that got continued! These are the conversations that make great teams.
In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How Great is Your Team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first seven aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment Around Critical Goals’, ‘Does your Team have Clearly Agreed way of Working?’ ‘A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team’, ‘Information Flow is Encouraged’, ‘Great Leaders don’t Mince their Words’ and ‘Positive Crisis’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the 8th installment regarding the 8th aspect; ‘Great Conversation’.
Have you ever wondered what makes a movie interesting? It is the crisis in the movie, even when it is a comedy or an animated children’s film there is some crisis and you will realise how boring that movie could be without that crisis. Similarly meetings become interesting when there is a crisis to deal with. A project becomes interesting when there is a crisis to deal with. A team becomes interesting when there is crisis between team members.
In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How great is your team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first six aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team Alignment around Critical Goals’, ‘Does Your Team have Clearly Agreed Way of Working?’, ‘A Great Decision-Making Process for a Great Team’, ‘Information Flow is Encouraged’, and ‘Great Leaders don’t Mince their Words’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the seventh instalment regarding the 7th aspect; ‘Positive Crisis’.
We love to hear good news! When bad news comes our way some times we tend to get upset, our body language and tonality shows that we are not pleased with the information and some resort to further unproductive behavior of shooting the messenger! Shooting the messenger can be in many forms. Some would question the messenger and ask them to justify the information. Some others may ridicule them as being negative or incompetent. Some others may even resort to retribution in the form of impacting their rewards and recognition negatively. However great teams have great leaders who behave positively and encourage information flow! In my blog post on the 7th of May 2014 titled ‘How Great is Your Team?’ I promised to go into details of the 11 different aspects that make a great team. The first four aspects regarding ‘Burning Platforms’, ‘Team alignment around critical goals’, ‘Does your team have clearly agreed way of working?’ and ‘A great decision-making process for a great team’ have already been posted in this blog. Here is the fifth installment regarding the 5th aspect; ‘Information flow is encouraged’. Great information flow requires the following mind-set, thinking and behaviours; Continue reading “Great Information Flow to Make Your Team Fly!”
Leadership is about developing team members to carryout the important responsibilities in the organization. This is essential if we are to grow and take on higher-level responsibilities. Developing team members requires time. Therefore leadership is inefficient in the short run. However it is a great investment of our time and energy to reap near medium term to long-term results, as having a developed team will help produce more value and great results.
Given below are 10 common areas where this inefficiency can happen.
‘Mastery of Self’, first introduced in Sri Lanka in the mid-nineties has inspired thousands of Sri Lankans to make ‘Lemonade’ out of the ‘Lemon’ in them. They are known as NLPers rather than HELPers as they HELP the world with the tools of Neuro Linguistic Programming [NLP] they mastered during this 4-day experience. Continue reading “THE HEART AND SOUL OF REAL COMMUNICATION”
The month of April 2013 epitomized the caption! Yes there were many including myself who were ready for the teacher. It was a great month of personal growth.
The month started with 60 souls from various organizations and walks of life taking part in the Mastery of Self playshop that was conducted in Sri Lanka. This was the first 2 days and all of them left feeling more valuable than ever before, more empowered than ever before and more purposeful than ever before. They come back for the final 2 days on the 6 & 7 of May.
Then I travelled to Vietnam where I conduct the same session for another 60 souls from Fashion Garments a company of the Hirdramani Group in Sri Lanka. The impact created was the same and I go to Vietnam again to do the final 2 days of the training on the 11 & 12 of May 2013.
From Vietnam I travelled to Dubai to conduct a 2 day training on advanced negotiation skills and a 1 day training in work life balance. While the numbers were around 16 participants in each session, the impact created for them was tremendous.
After having helped unlock potential of so many souls in the first half of the month, the second half was about me going back to school. Yes I was a participant with 15 other senior executives from the health care industry who took part in a 2 week long intensive leadership development session for health care CEO’s held by the Samson Global Leadership Academy of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Continue reading “The teacher will arrive when the student is ready”
If I tell you that you can fly, would you agree with me? This is the first question I asked the audience at the Sales Master Class at The Radisson Blu Water Garden In Dhaka Bangladesh on the 20th of October, when I started presenting at the day event, ‘Unlocking Sales Potential’. There were some instant ‘yes’ answers and a few others said ‘no’. The point made by this question was to get the audience thinking about the unlimited potential we are blessed with. With the realization that we can fly in an air craft and aircrafts been made by people using god given brains and resources opened up the minds in the room to the possibilities yet untapped.
Continue reading “Unlocking Sales Potential – Exploring the resources available in inner-space”
Yes this is an interesting dilemma!
It is a generally known perception that selling is a dishonest job as sales people only try to sell a product to a customer, even if the product is not needed by the customer and at any cost to the customer. Most sales books and sales training introduces sales ‘tactics’ that help sales people to ‘sell’ at any cost.
On the other hand it is a known fact that everyone is a salesman from the little child to the grandfather, from the housewife to the corporate executive, from film star to sportsman and from the politician to the priest. They all sell ideas, they sell their value, they sell all the time.
So does it mean everyone is dishonest? The answer is a clear ‘NO’. In fact my belief is that we don’t sell, we help people to buy. We don’t sell, we provide information for people to make the right decision, we don’t sell, we help others become more successful.
It is with attitude in mind that I decided to title my second book [an improved new edit of the first book]; A better way to sell – Mastery of Sales through Mastery of Self. Click here for more details of the book.
Agora established in 2001 with an ultimate aspiration to be the Wal-Mart of the East is an expanding chain of retail outlets in Bangladesh, run by Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd. Agora now operates 11 outlets, a sourcing and processing centre for commodities and a state of the art distribution centre with 680 employees and 320 suppliers. With an aggressive expansion programme in mind Agora recently migrated to an end to end ERP system powered by SAP and WINCOR NIXDORF.
When Agora started its supermarket [providing food, personal care and household needs] business in 2001, the brand was positioned as the best solution for customers for the purchase of fresh produce [fish, meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy] of high quality at the right price as this was the predominant customer need in the absence of an organized modern trade [supermarket] system. This resulted in Agora investing in cold and chill storage, transport and display facilities. The absence of organized fresh produce supply chain resulted in Agora solely developing fresh produce suppliers. This included training perishable traders who operated in the unorganized wet market on proper sorting, grading, storing &transportation of produce and fundamental disciplines of running a business. We also formed partnerships with farmer associations toward this objective.
As Agora expand, the company realized the need to further build the capacity of small and medium fresh produce suppliers and develop robust supply chains and trading relationships. As Agora was looking for solutions for this important need, a meeting between Ms Parveen Huda of BIF [Business Innovation Facility] and Mr Niaz Rahim of Agora led to the signing of an MOU designed to address Agora’s needs while developing their SME suppliers ensuring the ‘inclusive’ aspect. The project was funded by DFID, BIF and AGORA and the capacity building expertise was received from one of the world’s leading business consultancies Accenture and PUM from Netherlands.
The 2012 Olympics that just concluded was one of the greatest manifestations of possibility that I had experienced.
My family and I were in the UK just before and during the opening ceremony that made us fortunate enough to feel the energy in the country this great spectacle was taking place. We were not able to witness any sporting events at venues at circumstances required us to return end of July, but we were fortunate to be able to witness this great spectacle on TV and the internet.
The first possibility that was manifested was the participation of almost all the countries of the world, 204 in total and every country having both male and female sportsman. All sports had a women’s version as well resulting in some teams such as USA having more women Olympians. What a great equalizer.
It was amazing to see conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia who do not permit women to drive, having women participating. I was fortunate to switch on the TV to see the women’s 800 m heat where Saudi Arabia’s Sarah Attar was running. Although she came last, she got the biggest applause to show that this was a victory for humanity.
World records were many manifesting that there is no end to improving human performance and endurance. Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight, Carmelita Jeter of the USA 4x100m relay team establishing a new world record at 40.82 destroying the 27-year old record and Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Yohan Blake, Usain Bolt of Jamaican 4×100 relay team establishing a new world record at 36.84 will remain in our memories for ever. These amazing human beings showed that we can be individuals stars and teams at the same time.
Continue reading “Olympics 2012 – ‘Imagine’ the great manifestation of possibility”
Leaving the Agora team was one of the toughest things I had to do. The words, tears, flowers and gifts from the teams in various outlets, office, warehouse and distribution centre was simply heart-warming. I never realized I had made such an impact in the hearts and minds of over 700 team members over the 3 years I led them as their CEO.
After being in Team and Leadership Excellence consulting for 10 years, subsequent to 16 years in corporate life for 16 years as Director for Keells Foods and Keells Super, I took on a new interesting challenge as the CEO of the Agora Supermarket Chain [owned by the highly diversified Rahimafrooz Group] in Bangladesh in July 2009.
This was a 3 year assignment to prepare the company for Rapid expansion. I took over this assignment for 3 reasons; Firstly because Agora was close to my heart as I helped start it as a consultant in 2001 and hence I considered Agora my own baby and I wanted it to be successful. Secondly because I wanted to validate the guidance I give so many companies around the world as a consultant, by being in the hot seat for a while. And thirdly because I respect the Rahimafrooz Group and the family that owns it for running a company driven by ‘Values’ using ‘world-class’ management methods.
My dream was to make Agora a world-class company, the pride of Bangladesh and I write this blog with a mix of emotions that include happiness, sadness, fear, pride and hope.
Firstly I am extremely happy that we together created a company with a positive work culture that was built on the ‘Ultimate Aspiration’, ‘Values’, ‘Agora Aponjon Promise’ [Aponjon is the Bangla word for ‘dear one’ or ‘near one’ and this is the promise we deliver to our ‘guests’ or ‘Aponjon’], quality policy, good leadership, supportive team work and passionate team members. We also made the company profitable building on this culture and taking measures to improve the brand image, value to our guests, business knowledge, planning and execution. We also invested in a brand new state of the art distribution centre, new outlets and a new ERP system [SAP and WINCOR NIXDOEF]. All this helped the company to become profitable for the first time in my first year in office and become a leading revenue and profit contributor of the Rahimafrooz Group [the group that owns Agora an many other companies] providing better benefits and promotional opportunities to Agora’s team members.
LMD, Sri Lanka’s leading business magazine should be congratulated for launching the ‘Sri Lankans Overseas’ blog to provide a forum for Sri Lankan’s living overseas to contribute to the nation building effort. Link to the blog: http://lmd.lk/?p=11555
Sri Lanka’s post-war renaissance is in need of the shot-in-the-arm from Sri Lankans living overseas. I would like to summarize the key points made in the various comments made so far;
May I suggest an idea that was picked up from NASA Astronaut Ron Garan, who is working on building an open source network named; Unity Node, to connect the 20 million plus social businesses in the world. Ron Garan’s story is amazing and I had the privilege of listening to him at the Social business day in Bangladesh recently; please read; http://ranjandesilva.com/2012/06/29/anything-is-possible-creating-a-world-without-poverty-with-inspiration-from-outer-space-and-inner-space/ if you would like to read this amazing story.
The idea is for someone to create a; Sri Lanka Node to connect all businesses run by Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and overseas so that we can share resources, share information and help each other to make Sri Lanka one of the best places to live and visit; a little miracle that is happening …
When I received an invitation from the Yunus Centre to attend the Social Business Day 2012 at Sarvar Bangladesh, I was excited at the prospect of listening to a man who is one of a kind. I had heard of Prof Muhammad Yunus many years ago and had once met him at the Dhaka Airport Business Class Lounge where we had an interesting conversation about the quality of leadership in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus is a Nobel Lauriat for introducing Micro Credit to the world. After its amazing success in Bangladesh, it has been adopted in many countries around the world including the United States of America.
I was also intrigued to know that NASA astronaut Ron Garan will be the key-note speaker. While getting an opportunity to listen to an astronaut was interesting, I never knew the significance of Ron Garan’s presence, his relationship with Professor Yunus who also invented the concept of Social Business that also spread around the world in the same manner micro credit spread.
It was amazing to discover that Ron Garan took Muhammad Yunus’s book; ‘Creating a World without Poverty’ with him during his 5 1/2 month in space. The book therefore travelled 65,340,224 miles in 2,624 orbits during 164 days in space together with Ron. Ron Also took with him the Bangladesh national flag to honour the motherland of Professor Yunus.
Sri Lanka’s future is in good hands! This is the feeling I had as soon as I walked into the ballroom of Colombo’s Galadari Hotel on the 17th of March 2012. This feeling became stronger as the day went by to see the enthusiasm with which the 270 CIM students participating in the conference absorbed the wisdom dished out by the 4 Chartered Marketers of the Chartered Institute of Marketing [CIM] who had reached the top in organizations and the panel discussion that followed.
Deepal Sooriyaarachchi who spoke first outlined what it takes to be a ‘Future Proof Marketer’. He talked about the importance of knowing your strengths and improvement areas and making sure that marketing is the right profession for you. Then he went on to talk about the importance of knowing your job, profession and the company well so that you can market your products with confidence. Managing your career with the 4 essential steps of learning, mastering, managing and leading was highlighted as one of the essential requirements. Knowing your team was highlighted as essential for success as it is vital to have good team work for success. To top it up it was important to know your market and the world we operate in. While all of these aspects were important, I felt the key message was the need to have a firm set of ‘values’ and live by them remembering that we are human and we need to add value to humanity all the time.
I first attended the Asia Retail Congress in February 2011 where I had the privilege of accompanying the Managing Director of Rahimafrooz Superstores Bangladesh, the operators of the Agora Supermarket Chain to receive the retail excellence award.
I was delighted to be invited to be in the advisory panel of the Asia Retail congress 2012 and to be a speaker as I had lots to share from my experience of making Agora a winning supermarket chain during the last 31 months as the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of Rahimafrooz Superstores.
Yes, marketers are great CEO’s in the making. The level of success is dependent on the understanding of the complexity of the job and the steps that needs to be taken to get to the top.
Marketing is one of the most challenging, interesting and rewarding jobs!
The needs and attitude towards marketing is different from various perspectives; firstly the practitioner, who has taken the brunt of it, tasted the successes or licked their wounds, the practitioner’s boss, the CEO who calls the shots and the marketing consultant who brings a second opinion.
Let me speak from the vantage point of someone who has played all three roles. Firstly practicing marketing as the Marketing Director of Keells Foods & Keels Super and Pizza Hut in Sri Lanka. Secondly, as the Managing Director of my own company and next the Chief Executive Officer of Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd. Bangladesh. Finally, providing, strategy, marketing and leadership consultancy for companies in over 20 countries.
I have been learning a life time and this has really accelerated over the last 14 years as a leadership and team development consultant, coach, catalyst and trainer. While I have resisted blogging all this time to avoid adding to the clutter, I have been inundated with requests for my blog. The requests have sky rocketed after I uploaded the video of one of presentations in Dubai at the ‘Unleashing your DNA’ seminar, where I spoke on the topic; ‘Gearing up for excellence’. There have been almost 500 views of this video in 2 weeks.
My work takes me to many countries and I am blessed to meet people from many cultures, stay in various hotels, see new place and eat in various restaurants. These travels and teachings give me many experiences and insights and I wish to share these with those I am blessed to interact with.
