Sell as Yourself: Making Authenticity a Practice This blog originally apeard on LinkedIn Key takeaways from my LinkedIn Live conversation with Lex Moschakis. What is authenticity? Let’s start by putting some shape around what authenticity actually means. After doing a lot of reading and research into this concept, authenticity is a sense of resonance when your outer expression is aligned with your inner sense of values and your sense of self. Think about it this way… In life, we make a lot of compromises. There are external compromises, like letting your friend or spous ..read more

A Model of Excellence Transforming Sales Managers into Skills Coaches One of my first jobs at Habits at Work was to grow and manage Andrew Sykes professional speaking business. The sum of my experience in professional speaking was a semester of Speech in college. If I’m being very honest, I did not know that Professional Speaking was a profession, let alone a massive industry. Andrew started asking me for feedback on his talks and performance the first day I joined the team. You know the phrase, “It’s all Greek to me”? I remember thinking during those first few months, “It all looks good ..read more

Prioritizing Sellers’ Health, Happiness and Security to Maximize Productivity At Habits at Work, we believe there are 12 High-impact Habits that make sellers great at their job. However, there is something significant about the 11th Habit, the habit of self care, which is often missed and this can result in high burnout rates.   Sellers who are working extra hours and taking on more projects are not always the employees who perform the best. In fact, this poor habit can lead sellers to make more mistakes, miss client meetings, and have a higher turnover rate. The first steps in creat ..read more

Origin Stories and the Aspen Trees One of my favorite childhood memories was playing “Leaf Stem Fight” with my younger brother under the aspen trees.  I grew up in a small city in the north part of China and in my neighborhood, aspen trees stand on both sides of the streets. On the way back home from school, my brother and I would search for leaves with the thickest and toughest stems. After we each selected the strongest we could find, we crossed our stems together and pulled as hard as we could. The one whose stem did not break won the game. Though the walk should have only taken ..read more

A customer decides THAT they want to buy from YOU before they decide WHAT they want to buy from YOUR COMPANY Within 3 days, I lost a deal that was in contract, 90% of my pipeline disappeared and a significant amount of work was halted – The United States was preparing to respond to a global pandemic and one of the worst economic crises in the last decade. But, to paraphrase Gandhi, The following Monday, I received an email from a friend and former customer who had since moved to another organization. She asked if we were open to joining her and her team in a meeting to discuss the work we ..read more

3 Lessons to Master the Art of Listening Empathically Think of someone you consider to be a really good listener. How do you FEEL about this person? We LOVE good listeners because they give us the chance to talk about what we love more than anything in the world: ourselves. We find them interesting and magnetic because they pay attention to us. Most of us consider ourselves to be pretty good listeners. But when was the last time you deliberately practiced your listening skills? And have you ever sought out feedback on your listening performance?  Listening is just like any other skil ..read more

Asking Customers for Feedback My friend and colleague, Craig Wortmann, CEO of Sales Engine and Founder of the Kellogg Sales Institute, often speaks about the power and importance of balancing boldness and humility in sales, customer success and leadership. If there was ever an act that requires the utmost boldness and humility, it’s asking customers (internal or external) for feedback.  It’s a delicate art and not for the faint of heart. When done with empathy, authenticity and a genuine desire to serve others, its power to build deep and lasting relationships and to make space f ..read more

Habits Alive! Bringing Storytelling to Life As someone who started my professional career as an actuary, who uses mathematics and data to measure and manage risks, I had to learn the power of storytelling through experience. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that while facts and figures might be compelling (especially when they agree with your existing views), they don’t easily change minds. But stories do!  This realization that stories have the power to change minds wasn’t like switching on a lightbulb. Rather, I’ve spent the last decade learning what makes a good storyteller ..read more

A customer decides THAT they want to buy from YOU before they decide WHAT they want to buy from YOUR COMPANY This article originally appeared on LinkedIn I love to laugh. I love funny people. If I had a checklist for my “perfect partner” (which I don’t, obviously ?) funny would be number 2, just below rich, famous, tall-dark-handsome, intelligent, kind and fiercely loyal! What?! A girl’s gotta have standards! In fact, the Father of Laughter, the late Dr. Robert Provine of the University of Maryland confirmed that most women feel that same way. He unearthed that women are laughter appreciat ..read more

The Butterfly Story This article originally appeared on LinkedIn My sister’s wedding day was the best day of my life. Almost two years ago, on one of those perfect summer nights in Chicago, I waited patiently at Cindy’s Rooftop Bar, a swanky cocktail bar known for its spectacular views of the city, for my newly engaged sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law with a group of our closest friends to celebrate their proposal.  I was ecstatic. They are the perfect couple. Equally as kind, smart, and adventurous as they are beautiful. My sister, Angelique, and I are best friends. We’ve spent o ..read more