At the core of every company is a promise to improve its clients’ lifestyles in some way. Oftentimes, this promise is articulated in a mission statement or story. It is practiced through corporate values and behaviors. It is delivered through the employee and client experiences.
In the Microsoft Partner community, this promise is understood to fall somewhere along the lines of improving efficiency and effectiveness for individuals and enterprises by providing the best technology. Or, in the exact words of Microsoft, “to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.”
Assuming that Partners are already wired up with the latest, greatest software programs (created by Microsoft of course), how else can you come to realize your full potential as sales-driven businesspeople aspiring to grow client rosters and revenues?
The reality is that you could come up with hundreds of products and services you have bought into to help improve your job performance. Let’s see if we can come up with five of them for a quick hit list right now.
- The chair you’re sitting on – Did it promise to supply more comfort than other chairs, thereby improving your ability to sit longer at your desk and finish more work?
- The sticky notes placed on top of your papers – Did they promise to help you stay organized, thereby improving your ability to remember what work was the top priority?
- The local business newspaper in your inbox – Did it promise to keep you in the know of your network, thereby improving your ability to keep your work strategy relevant?
- The high quality suit you’re wearing – Did it promise to portray your professionalism with style, thereby improving your ability to make good impressions while at work?
- The energy drink you’re consuming – Did it promise to recharge your body, thereby improving your ability to boost your work output?
Notice that each one of the promises involved the term “work” because practically everything we do and everything around us before the workday and during the workday is part of a self-created process we routinely go through to perform better at work. Even if it’s watching TV or going to the gym after work to unwind, you’re often doing it to de-stress and refresh before the next day begins and it’s time to get back to work.
At entreQuest, we love all of these activities and accessories. In fact, our team has invested in hundreds of them combined. However we are all well aware that there is a shortcut. We could bypass all of our purchases and programs and get straight to the heart of what drives human progress and organizational optimization.
There is really only one tool that actually has the power to bring in better results. It cannot be bought, it cannot be consumed, it cannot be checked off. On the flip side, it can be utilized whenever and it can be developed continually. It can help you reach your full potential and its full potential is all dependent on you.
It has been the number one weapon in our arsenal here at entreQuest when we gear up to accomplish our corporate goals since the day we opened up our doors. It is the first principle we have been consulting our clients on and training their sales team with for over ten years. It is how our network of partners has been surviving the economic recession and how our community will continue to thrive in the future fiscal years to come.
It is MINDSET.
Mindset sits at the foundation of the Access to Achievement – or the module that entreQuest conceived to explain what drives professionals to reach their sales goals. We use it with our clients in the context of both individual employees and organizations as a whole.
Shaped like a large triangle, at the base sits MINDSET, which takes into account an individual’s beliefs and values as well as a company’s mission and story. It is the “why” we do what we do and the “why” our business exists. Mindset is the foundation of all business activity to generate sales, build better relationships, foster good morale, and enhance the greater community. It is the platform on which sits the next layer of the Access to Achievement triangle – PROCESS.
For an individual, process involves the tasks we must do to generate revenue. It is the “how” we are going to accomplish what we originally set out to do. Many of the items we listed in the original hit list including writing reminders on sticky notes, reading through the local business news, and gulping down energy drinks, in addition to making cold calls or following-up with contacts or doing anything extra that will enhance the employee and client experiences, would be placed in the process section.
Finally, sitting at the top of the triangle is RESULTS. These make up the “what” we define as measurements of our personal goals and our company’s success. Results are the product of processes and they are only attainable and sustainable if the entire vision and strategy are determined by mindset, inspired by mindset, and maintained by mindset. Without this all too important foundation, processes and results will not last the long term even if they prove lucrative in the early stages. The right mindset is how team members and companies effectively and efficiently grow. It is how everyone can reach their full potential.
Imperatively speaking, Microsoft Partners must make up their mindset to accomplish their goals. It takes focus, commitment, and effort. It involves keeping your word, investing your passion, and learning from your mistakes. It requires delivering excellence and demonstrating exceptionalism.
To control your mindset, you must first understand what it is made of and entreQuest defines this combination as “your recipe for success.” There are three ingredients: patterns of your physical movement, patterns of your speech, and patterns of your thoughts. After all, there is a way that you move when you nail a presentation, right? There is a way that you speak when you’re on during a meeting, isn’t there? And there is a way that you think when nothing can stop you towards hitting your goal, oh you better believe it!
Successful businesspeople have noted the differences in their movements, their speech, and their thoughts when they achieved results versus when they lost out on opportunities. They then made a conscious decision to maintain their movements, speech, and thoughts in a positive light so that their recipe for success continually cooks up a mindset that conquers challenges, defies failure, secures satisfaction, and revs up revenue. You can have this too. entreQuest teaches its client company teams and seminar trainees to check-in with their mindset as much as they can throughout the workday with a simple six-letter phases: “I move. I say. I think.” Just like a chef has to respect the fact that a master meal can only result from the proper ingredients, so you must remember that a master mindset only brings results with the right recipe for success.
From here, we suggest you go back to your work goals and review them. You had confidence when you created them so know that you can access the achievement. It is only a matter of determination and planning accordingly. In addition to being present at all times to your movement, speech, and thoughts in order to maintain them at the levels required for your special recipe for success, there are other areas you can apply the master mindset. For instance, where can you make adjustments in your routine to take the extra step with your clients? How can you hone your explanation of your offering to gain more prospects’ trust? What are the risks you are not taking or the tasks you are not completing and what is preventing you? Make up your mindset now to reach your full potential!
Of course the other things come into play too. Comfortable chairs, sticky notes, local news, business suits, and energy drinks all have their place in assisting us through the challenges of the daily grind. Microsoft Partners’ products and services obviously add incredible value when it comes to improving business operations so we would never suggest any professional works off mindset alone. It must be said, however, that if everything on your desk and in your schedule suddenly vanished, a sales-driven professional can still succeed as long as he or she is sourced with a winning mindset.
Mindset is the force behind the saying “always find a way.” Mindset is the push behind “there’s always room to grow.” Mindset is even the champion over an excuse like “it’s always something.”
From us at entreQuest to you at every Microsoft Partner around the world, it’s always MINDSET that will access businesspeople to their achievement. No matter what kind of improvement you need to make in your work, trust us that mindset is the all time greatest hit of the hit list.
