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Articles and advice from the professional women speakers, authors and trainers represented by Voxy Lady Women's Speaker Bureau
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VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
‘Inspiration
from the
Female
Voice’
Kirsty Spraggon – Writes about The emotional
intelligence of sales
i
Also in this Issue
10 Tips on How to Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
The Problem with Will Power
Time and Energy – How do we Juggle the Urgency of it?
Women Driving Heavy Trucks in Coal Mines as a Career
Need a Flat Tummy – Pronto?
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
Welcome to the Christmas Issue of Voxy Lady Magazine
The magazine has been produced to share with you some great advice by the speakers, mentors, coaches and
entrepreneurs who are represented by Voxy Lady. We will aim to deliver to you quality articles and advice each
month. This month we feature speakers Kirsty Spraggon, Lisa McInnes-Smith, Jill Chivers, Susie Burrell and Mandy
Holloway. Also I talk to Lisa Bates who shares her story on her rather unusual career driving 200 tonne trucks in coal
mines
To sign up for our newsletter just visit the Voxy Lady website. Our newsletter will give up to date information on our
new woman speakers as well as showcases and events and will always include a copy of our online magazine link.
This year I learnt a lot from many of the speakers represented by Voxy Lady, I would particularly like to congratulate
Sally Anderson on her book “Freefall” which I read on a flight recently from New York. Freefall is one of those books
that really touched me. Sally is represented by Voxy Lady and you can check out her profile on the website.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and may 2012 bring you much joy and success.
Deb Carr, Managing Director
Voxy Lady Women’s Speaker Bureau
For information on Voxy Lady contact Deb Carr
www.voxylady.com.au
Level 7, 36 Carrington St, Sydney 2000 Australia
Phone: 02 8214 6344
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
10 Quick Tips on How to Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way By Lisa McInnes-Smith
1. Be courageous. Leadership takes courage. Sometimes the most important
communication you receive is the encouragement you give to yourself.
2. Encourage others. People who feel affirmed and encouraged are more likely to
give you their best efforts. Remember that ‘put-downs perpetuate poor play’.
3. Be fun to be around. Take your responsibilities seriously but don’t take yourself
so seriously! Be quick to laugh and turn a tense moment into an opportunity to
smile. Participate at every opportunity. It makes you relatable.
4. Take risks and be willing to learn alongside your colleagues. No one improves
without making mistakes. Learn to make new mistakes.
5. Focus. Put your energy and effort into one thing at a time for rapid progress.
6. Choose to shift. Select one area and honestly evaluate where you’re at and where
you would like to be.
7. Watch your words. Every word you are speaking is either building up or tearing
down someone or something. Say the words you’d like to hear.
8. Use your words like boomerangs. Remember that what you throw out is going to
come back at you.
9. Encourage, compliment, smile and respect others.
10. Put your pin in! There is power and confidence in having positive posture.
Lisa McInnes Smith is Queen of the corporate stage and a master of audience participation. Along her incredible journey, Lisa
has presented to more than one million adults across twenty-two countries and authored seven best selling books.
Lisa is also the first person outside of the USA to ever be inducted into the international Speaker Hall of Fame - the highest
designation possible in the speaking world. This international recognition from clients and peers alike is due to her extraordinary
gift to communicate, connect and transform.
Visit us at
www.voxylady.com.au
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
The Problem with Will Power by Jill Chivers
Anyone who has ever tried to break a bad habit or
develop a new one has stumbled across this thing
called willpower. It certainly comes up quite a lot in
the “addiction” literature. And the general wisdom
seems to be – willpower is a limited and exhaustible
resource. Meaning: we mere mortals don’t have a
great deal of it and what we do have runs out pretty
darn quick?
Well, see, I struggle with that a bit. I have tonnes of
willpower. How else could I have gotten through a
masters degree by correspondence over a period of 6
years? How else have I built three businesses from
scratch? How else have I managed not to become 200
pounds, despite my love of carbohydrates? Sure
seemed like I was using willpower to achieve those
things.
But here’s what I’ve learned. Just because we have
willpower in one area of our lives doesn’t mean we
have it in all areas. And finishing a degree, succeeding
in business, and keeping my weight at a manageable
level are all areas that I have willpower in. But that
don’t mean I got it everywhere.
I’ll tell you this. I did NOT succeed with my own year
without clothes shopping by using willpower. No way!
Willpower, I’ve learned, is something to be relied
upon only in areas of my life that I’m already strong
in. And I knew that I wasn’t strong when it came to
my shopping habits when I started my own “year”. In
fact, I knew I was weak. I know it’s unpopular these
days to use words like weak – we prefer to use terms
like development area and area for improvement. But
it was a weakness. In December 2009, I knew I had a
weakness – shopping. And I knew that willpower was
not going to be the thing that kept me on the straight
and narrow and allow me to succeed.
Relying on willpower to keep you from shopping is
setting yourself up to fail. So, it begs the question:
what do you do, and use, instead?
Here’s my top five willpower-free techniques, custom
built for over and compulsive shoppers:
1. Stay out of the stores. This idea is the simplest of
the 5 strategies and could be categorised as Simple
Avoidance. Nothing wrong with avoidance, and lots
right with it. Why? Because avoidance works. You
can’t fall in love with a gorgeous shaped jacket that’s
50% off if you never see it, can you? We don’t buy
things we don’t see, so instead of relying on
willpower when you are standing in front of
something gorgeous that you just love – avoid that
scenario altogether. Walk on by. Don’t go in. The
simplest solutions are often the best and you can’t
get any simpler, or more effective than this.
Remember that staying out of the stores extends to
those virtual stores as well. Un-bookmark your
favourite online stores, and unsubscribe from those
online catalogues.
2. Chunk it down. This non-willpower strategy is that
you don’t bite off too huge a piece and attempt to
chew it all at once. In our year-long program, I often
suggest to members that they chunk down their
challenges into one-month challenges, or even 7-day
challenges. You can almost anything for 7 days, even
things you think are just too hard to do. Our brains
are amazingly receptive to these chunked-down
suggestions – our unconscious mind (which is often
the engine driving the train) are a bit like 5 year olds:
they’ll believe anything we tell them. So, if you tell
your brain that “it’s just for 7 days”, it’ll go with it.
Then when you get to the end of those 7-days, you
recommit to that same, chunked-down, bite-size
challenge. See how much easier that is to do?
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
5. Keep going. Perfection is neither expected nor
possible, and often we are hardest on ourselves. If
you are slaying your own shopping dragon, then don’t
set yourself up to fail by expecting perfection. There’s
no such thing as the perfect journey anyway, so stop
looking for it. If you have a set back then try this:
pause, learn what you can from the experience,
recommit to your goals, draw a line under it (close the
file), and move on. There’s no sense sifting through
the ashes once you’ve taken the learning’s out. The
goal is progress, not perfection. So, all you need to do
is keep moving in the direction of your goal. For
today, that is all that is required, and all that is
possible.
What these techniques add up to setting yourself a
structure that acts as a foundation for success. Put
the framework in place first, and then rely on that
framework as you journey on. A strong foundation
will hold up a lot better under pressure than
willpower.
Jill is on a crusade. She completed her own Year Without
Clothes Shopping and now helps other women break the bind
that unconscious shopping has on them. Her 12 month online
Shop Your Wardrobe Course encourages women to stop
spending their lives and inspires them to live their lives instead.
To book Jill for your next conference or find out how she can
help you contact [email protected] or phone Deb Carr on
8214 6341
3. Take action – just do it and don’t think about it.
There’s no way to get around this non-willpower
strategy: sometimes you just have to do it. Just
unsubscribe from that online catalogue – don’t
agonise over it. Just walk past that store – don’t look
in the window. Just put it back on the shelf and walk
out – don’t negotiate with yourself. What I’ve found
important about this technique is not engaging in any
dialogue about it – hence “just do it”. If you engage in
discussion, then you’re calling on willpower, and
these are the non-willpower approaches, remember?
This strategy is based on action where there is no
discussion – you just do the thing. Keep walking, put it
down, unsubscribe.
4. Prepare in advance. I’m a big believer in
preparation. A stitch in time saves nine, and all that.
What’s great about this strategy is you prepare before
willpower even comes into the equation. You sidestep
the need for willpower by setting yourself up to
succeed in advance. How? By anticipating where you
might be tripped up, and putting in place a plan about
how you’ll deal with it when that moment arrives.
Don’t wait to be tripped up – you’re not in a
resourceful state then, and so whatever action you
take may not be the best for you. If you know that
shopping after work is your downfall – “I’ve had a
stressful day, I’ll just pop in HERE for a little look-see”
– then plan around that: schedule something else for
immediately after work. If it’s receiving a catalogue in
the mail that triggers you – cancel the subscription. If
what trips you up is having a coffee with a girlfriend
on Saturday at your favourite shopping place where
you can oh-so-easily just stroll into the stores, change
where you meet. Think ahead, be honest about your
trigger and trip-up points. Prepare for them. Don’t fall
into the same hole, especially not when you know
where it is.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
Time and Energy – How do we Juggle the
Urgency of it? Mandy Holloway
Leaders everywhere are busy dealing with the urgent matters and situations other people demand of them – everyone wants things done yesterday. Along with these demands leaders are inundated with a surge of information – email, social media, research papers, television, newspapers, radio or even conversations. Increasing stakeholder expectations bear down on these same leaders from all parts of their lives – family, community and business. The bottom line – leaders face constant, often opposing and always ever increasing tension – should they focus on the long term or the short term; internal stakeholder needs or external stakeholder needs; the engagement and retention of people working in the business or the return to shareholders? It feels like we are always juggling. In this paper we explore a very real and critical juggling act faced by all leaders – time and energy – where do I find the time and how do I create the energy to do all the “stuff” I need to do? In our leadership program we refer to two well renowned frameworks and challenge people to explore both the time and the energy they bring to everything they do and face in all the roles they undertake in life so they can be the kind of leader they really want to be in each of these roles. We refer to the age old time management matrix used in Dr Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that is both simple, yet remains highly relevant given the current 24/7 world we live in. I was one of 1,500 people who got up close with him at his one-day conference in Sydney in early 2009. He spent substantial time talking about where leaders are spending their time. He referred us back to this well-researched matrix, disclosing that most business people express their frustration at not being able to move out of Quadrant 1.
He went on to disclose that most business leaders
spend 67 per cent of their time in Quadrants 1 and 3;
attending to the urgent matters. Their frustration is
then compounded when they realise that at the end
of a project or intense period of effort to meet a
deadline for a client/customer/project they move
straight out of Quadrant 1 and into Quadrant 4
allowing themselves time to play with trivia in order
to re-charge their batteries. They do this instead of
moving into Quadrant 2 to replenish their energy and
plan for the future.
The other well renowned framework we refer to
comes from the HBR article entitled “Manage your
energy not your time “and brings a focus on energy
expenditure and energy recovery. It depicts four main
wellsprings of energy in human beings:
The Human Spirit: brings the energy of meaning
and purpose
The Mind: brings focus to your energy
The Emotions: creates the quality of your
energy
The Body: brings physical energy.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
The essence of this framework is that time is a finite
resource while energy is a whole different matter! It
challenges business people to think about how we do
not take time away to re-charge and replenish our
energy reserves – instead we just keep expending it
and wonder why we burn out.
What a fascinating juggling act we have created as
business leaders; and for many it is steeped in
tradition, beliefs, fears, habits and values.
Putting energy in as opposed to giving up time
I have just finished reading a book called Chasing
Daylight - written by Eugene O'Kelly just before he
died in September 2005. At the age of 53 he was
diagnosed with inoperable and incurable brain cancer
and given 3 months to live.
When diagnosed he was in his prime - CEO of KPMG,
father to two beautiful daughters and married to a
loving wife. The lessons he shares about living
consciously are amazing and he challenges each of us
to consider putting energy in rather than giving up
time. He puts what I have been talking about in our
programs so eloquently that I want to share it.
He refers to how he needed a new way of thinking
about and looking at the world and at his own
suddenly shockingly abbreviated stay in it. He also
refers to the challenges he had been facing in the firm
to change the culture and bring about a better work
life balance. Sound familiar......many leaders within so
many organizations and firms are still pursuing the
same ambition of creating such change.
His experience in wanting to change the culture of the
firm and wanting to deal with his much reduced life
span lead him to explore this concept with greater
richness and depth than ever before.
Eugene explains that commitment in the business
world had come to be equated with time (something
of which he had so little now) - it is measured by the
hours you are prepared to work and ultimately by
how much time you take away from your family. He
claimed that if you gave away huge amounts of your
time then it followed that you had exhibited
commitment. If you did not give so much time then it
also followed that your level of commitment was
judged as inadequate and you might be labelled as
lacking in loyalty and drive.
His deeper explorations lead him to realise that
commitment was not about time, it was not about
reliability and it was not about predictability. He
concluded that commitment was about depth, it was
about effort and it was especially about passion.
He concluded so eloquently that commitment is best
measured not by the time one is willing to give up
but more accurately by the energy you are prepared
to put in - by how present you are prepared to be.
He talks about the ‘Perfect Moments’ he missed in his
working and personal life because he was too busy
focussing on time – where he needed to spend it and
what he was doing next with it. He forgot to be
present and he forgot to be conscious of what was
happening around him and for him.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
I know we experienced something similar in our
family with the recent death of our family dog – I
shared this in a BLOG entitled “don’t take things for
granted “because his passing taught us all not to take
things for granted. His excitement when we got
home, his warm snugly coat, his beautiful brown eyes,
his love of walking and playing. It got me to thinking
about how this relates to our business life and what
we take for granted each day:
• Customer relationships
• High performing team members
• Our boss will take care of our careers
• Colleagues’ support
• People understand our intent
And I am sure you can add things to create your
highly personal list – like my husband knows I love
him and my children know I am so proud of them
every day!
And my challenge to business people and to myself
has always been why does it take something so bad to
happen – like being told you have 3 months to live -
for change to be initiated? Why do we have to wait
for such an imperative before we are prepared to be
courageous and stop accepting the status quo?
Eugene acknowledged at the end of his book that had
he chosen to role model better work life balance
himself as opposed to bringing in a consultant to tell
them what to do to change the culture then maybe
he could have initiated far more change throughout
the business. What a powerful insight for courageous
leaders to learn from and leverage from – what are
you doing as a leader in your business to juggle time
and energy – so you are not taking too much time
away from those you love and that you are putting
energy into those things and people who are critically
important to you and your life’s purpose.
Mandy Holloway draws on personal experience, in-depth
business understanding, real business application and passion to
inspire others to be Courageous Leaders. This passion translates
into the commitment to model courage both personally and
professionally inviting others to develop confidence and
conviction to do the same.
Mandy’s continuing personal leadership journey from emerging
leader to partner at KPMG and for the last 9 years inspiring
courageous business leaders, while juggling the roles of wife and
mother, means she shares many stories and experiences with
her readers to bring leadership alive with the reality of what
people are facing every day.
"'Come to the edge,' He said. They said, 'We are afraid.'
'Come to the edge,' He said. They came. He pushed them...and they flew."
Guillaume Apollinaire
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
Talk About Breaking Through The Glass Ceiling –
How About Breaking Through The Coal Mines? By Deb Carr Recently I met an interesting woman when I was
travelling on the XPT train to Taree by the name of
Lisa Bates. We both were slightly frustrated as this
train had broken down and in my case a 5 hour trip
turned into nearly 10! However, I always try and see
the bright side, and if this had not happened maybe
Lisa Bates and I would not have started to have our
conversation.
Lisa had just flown in from a midnight flight from NZ
and the poor woman was now stuck on the XPT with
me! Being the inquisitive person I am, coming from a
recruitment background, I asked Lisa what she did for
a living. “I drive the big 200 tonne trucks” she replied.
WOW, I usually meet the high flying corporate
women earning the six figure plus salaries and here
was a woman who was really doing something in a
male dominated arena.
I asked Lisa how she got into a career driving those
monsters. “I was working KFC in a place called Huntly,
NZ, and my brother worked in the mines driving the
trucks. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ and I
thought it was a good idea, so I applied”, she said.
This is when I asked Lisa if she would mind me
interviewing her for the Voxy Lady Magazine. With
Lisa’s agreement I have transcribed our conversation.
Debbie: Where are you working now?
Lisa: I’m in the Mudgee Coal Mines, driving the 143
tonne, in NZ I drove the 200 tonne. I’m going into the
200 tonne soon
Debbie: Are you one of the boys?
Lisa: Yes, they treat us like one of their own, they
never treat us differently.
Debbie: What sort of hours do you work?
Lisa: 12.5 hour day shifts and 10.5 hour night shifts.
We work on a 7 week roster, we work 15 days per
month, so half a year.
Debbie: What’s a typical day for you then?
Lisa: 6.30 a.m. start the day with a meeting, then at
6.45 we go to the trucks and take the coal to the
stockpile for the 12.5 hours.
Debbie: How many gears has the truck?
Lisa: 6 gears and it’s an automatic
Debbie: Have you ever had a scary moment driving
these big machines?
Lisa: Yes, in New Zealand once my truck flipped, I
didn’t get hurt nor did the truck get damaged but I
was terrified, I thought the truck would flip back
Debbie: So do you make good money?
Lisa: I do, over six figures plus bonus
Debbie: So how long do you think you will drive these
trucks for?
Lisa: The rest of my life
Debbie: What’s the youngest woman driver in your
company?
Lisa: 22
Debbie: Would you recommend a career driving big
trucks for women?
Lisa: Oh hell yeah! Especially for females - if you want
a go at it just do it!
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
The emotional intelligence of sales by Kirsty
Spraggon
Closing the sale & traditional selling techniques are a
thing of the past. The way to success in the future is
through understanding how to connect and ‘open
relationships’ for life through using your emotional
intelligence.
Starting out in sales some 17 years ago, I realise now
that the content on which we were training our sales
forces back then has changed very little.
Most sessions still revolve around typical traditional
selling techniques such as:
• How to qualify the buyer
• Have an agenda
• Scripts & Dialogues
• Handling Objections
• 25 No’s gets you a yes
• and of course How to close the sale
Now none of this has much to do with genuine
human connection and relationship building.
It astounds me that research on Emotional
Intelligence has been around for over a decade and
yet in my 17 years in sales I never once attended a
session on this.
In Daniel Goleman’s book ‘emotional intelligence’ he
quotes statistics that show us the IQ is responsible for
determining about 20% of our chances for success.
The other 80% is determined by our social and
interpersonal skills & our emotional intelligence. This
is things like our ability to problem solve, get along
with people, to understand others and build empathy
& rapport.
There is no greater skill in life than to be able to build
great relationships for life and business.
IQ determines 20% of our chances for success the
other 80% is determined by our social skills,
interpersonal skills & emotional intelligence and it is
so valuable in sales. So where do we learn how to
build relationship?
There was no course on my high school curriculum for relationship building. I was lucky enough to have parents who were great role models in this regard. My father was also in real estate and when I was
about 16, I remember going out with him for a days
‘work experience’. I thought this was going to be a
drag, admin, paperwork, computers...but I was in
shock. We spent the whole day having coffees, we
went from house, to house throughout my whole
neighbourhood. It seems he knew everybody.
However when I started in sales it’s like it’s almost
trained out of you and everything that came naturally
to me seemed to be the opposite to the training. I
forcing myself to try and remember every word of a
script. I would right down religiously WORD FOR
WORD every close and script I could. I couldn’t seem
to remember them and nothing felt right. I just
couldn’t say them.
I remember being in a training session where we were
told to stop wasting so much time on what he called
‘Nescafe appointments’ where people weren’t
qualified to buy now so why were we wasting our
time on coffee’s, however when I looked at my
current client list I noticed something. Out of the 10
clients I had at that moment 8 of them I had meet at a
Nescafe appointment’ 9-18 months prior and that
was the first time I thought ‘maybe this guy’s got it
wrong and I’m onto something’. It seemed my way
was working.
At times I began to wonder was I just getting lucky?
but when I made it into the top one percent of
individuals in RE/MAX’s global network of 121,000
sales people worldwide I realised I didn’t just get
lucky and I was able to breakdown the process of how
I did what I did and replicated the success again. I
believe the key was ‘opening relationships’.
I’m often asked whether one way is easier than the
other. In the short-term it may appear that just
closing a sale with someone who has an immediate
need is more effective than investing extra time and
energy in building rapport and opening a relationship.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
You may even feel that you would be better off
financially just prospecting for those clients ready to
use or buy your service or product today compared
with nurturing relationships and dealing with those
people who don’t have an immediate need.
However, did you realise that you could be missing
out on 90% of your potential market?
This is because you would be limiting yourself to
dealing only with the very small percentage of the
market ready and willing to work with you today.
Yet industry research strongly suggests that
depending on your particular sales industry there is
usually a 9-18 month incubation period from the first
point of contact until the time when a new client
actually purchases your product or service. 9-18
months. That means you would be missing out on a
lot of business by only working with the ‘right here,
right now’ prospects. Not only would you be making
things a lot harder for yourself in the long run, but
you would also be doing yourself out of all the extra
repeat and referral business that would otherwise
come your way effortlessly through clients feeling so
well taken care of and appreciated.
If you choose to focus on closing sales you’ll be
forever on the ‘one-off treadmill’: even years down
the track you won’t be able to slow down or relax
because you will have to be out there day after day
working really hard to chase down the next piece of
business.
Whereas, if you open relationships and invest the
extra time building meaningful foundations from the
outset you will find your business grows and takes on
a life of its own in no time. Just like seeds scattered in
the wind taking root and blossoming, referrals and
repeat business will just start flowing in.
In the tough times this way of being in business takes
on particular significance because you have a whole
army of business ambassadors out there for you,
advocating your service above any other because you
go out of your way to look after them so well, even
when there is no deal being made at the time.
Contrast this to if your business is run on the hand-to-
mouth principle of closing a sale.
This approach makes you totally dependent on new
clients and extremely vulnerable to market forces
outside of your control. If economic conditions
change or a new competitor enters the market you
may well suddenly see your customer pool shrink or
even disappear.
The only sure way to ride out economic ups and
downs is to have planned ahead and built a stable
database of loyal, repeat and referral clients because
at the end of the day even if there are fewer
customers out there, there are always some
customers. It’s your job to make sure that you are
the person of choice in such times of increased
pressure and competition.
It is so important to prioritise meeting people as an
activity. A prospecting activity. I think many of us
undervalue this, I know I did. Society teaches us it has
to be hard to make money and we should expect to
work our fingers to the bone – not true.
I remember feeling guilty at one point that I was so
successful with such minimal effort. I used to believe
that success had to be hard.
I have learned to consider my coffee meetings and
networking events as me being ‘hard at work’ and
include this in my weekly schedule as prospecting
time. You don’t have to be an extrovert to network,
you just need to find the people you like being with
and attract more of them into your personal and
professional life. What kind of business do you want?
Because of this I love my work and my days are filled
with catch-ups, networking events, coffee meetings,
taking a genuine interest in people’s lives and
chatting away having a wonderful time and they call
this work?
Now I realise that you can make the journey to
success as difficult or as much fun as you choose it to
be.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
I have learned that it really pays to ask yourself this:
CLOSED= trapped in a cycle of forever chasing new
business without being able to take any time off to
actually enjoy your success
or
OPEN = repeat and referral-based business spreading
like wildfire by word of mouth and business actually
coming to find you - in good times and bad
Now to build relationships we must meet people. I
dislike the word ‘network’ it sounds sound so
strategic but I believe it is nothing more than focused
socialising - and I love to socialise.
Networking isn’t something we do once a week it is
something we create. A ‘network’ by definition is ‘an
interconnected system’ it’s about more than just
dollars...yes we need sales but we also need a
community to draw on for advise, wisdom &
emotional support, to teach us, to share experience
with, to collaborate and leverage from. Creating a
pseudo family around yourself.
I call this my family tree. Unlike our real family that
we don’t get to choose this one you get to create. So
who is on your tree? Who are your roots? Your
support networks, the people you go out on a limb for
& vice versa. Are you watering your tree by giving and
nourishing it by taking time to nurture your
relationships and understand their world. Is your tree
more of a shrub or possibly dying rather than
flourishing. What can you do to water and fertilise it
this week?
A good network should fill in the gaps where you
yourself are perhaps not quite as strong and enhance
and support your business.
Financial benefits aside, there were many valuable
reasons for me being part of a networking group. I
was educated by the various different businesses on
things such as: tax accounting; financial planning;
marketing and so on – areas which were not my
natural strengths so this learning proved invaluable to
me.
I made lifelong friends with people I met through
networking event’s and we all became in effect a
sales team for one another’s businesses, like ‘raving
fans’ spreading word-of-mouth referrals for each
other.
Remember to dip your toe in enough different
organisations to find groups that work best for you.
The idea is to find people you are comfortable with
and enjoy being around. You should also feel
confident enough to recommend them and you want
to build close reciprocal relationships with them.
Just like personal relationships; we need to spend
time together and get to know each other. If we
didn’t spend any time with our friends or we only
spoke to them on email or the phone we wouldn’t get
to know them very well. Clients are no different we
need to invite them into our world and spend time
together outside of business to truly connect
Through using your EQ ‘empathy, understanding &
rapport’ we slowly get to know each other and you
will slowly be rewarded with trust, loyalty and
lifetime relationships.
Kirsty Spraggon - speaker, coach and author, is known for her
expertise in building relationships who assists you to increase
your sales, networks and connections for life & business success.
You can book Kirsty for your next conference through Voxy Lady
Women’s Speaker Bureau.
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
The Fluid Strip Soup Ingredients 2 leeks, white end chopped finely 3 zucchinis, sliced 2 cups salt reduced chicken or vegetable stock 4-5 cups water 2 garlic gloves, finely chopped 1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup low fat milk Olive oil Method 1. Sauté onion and garlic in a small amount of olive oil. Add leek, zucchini and cook until soft. 2. Add water and stock to mix and bring to the boil, then turn heat down and add milk. Once heated through, transfer to a food processor and blend and serve.
Susie Burrell is one of Australia’s leading dietitians with degrees in both nutrition and psychology.
Susie has worked in the area of nutrition for more than 10 years across a range of areas including as a paediatric dietitian at The Children’s Hospital Westmead, and as a sports dietitian to a number of elite level teams including the St George Illawarra Dragons, South African Blue Bulls, Sydney University Rugby and is currently the consultant sports dietitian to the Parramatta Eels. To book Susie contact Debbie Carr [email protected]
Need a flat tummy pronto? By Susie Burrell
Feeling bloated and heavy is an unfortunate side effect of eating out and overindulging on high fat, high salt Christmas canapés but the good news is that there are a few little tricks that can help you to get rid of the bloat quickly and easily should you need to over the next few weeks.
1. Eat the right vegetables - vegetables high in potassium including leeks, onions, celery and garlic help to shift fluid so make up a strip soup (see below) and use this to flush out your system. 2. Get some special tea - try dandelion or licorice
tea which also acts as powerful diuretics. 3. Swap to liquids – protein shakes, vege juices and soups with move through your digestive tract quickly
which will help to keep your tummy flat. 4. Walk – moving as much as possible will help to move food through your digestive tract. 5. Go low salt – check labels and aim for <300mg sodium per serve and avoid all Asian foods including Miso and sushi which are all very high in salt. The healthiest Christmas gifts There is no better way to set yourself and those
closest to you for a year filled with health and fitness than a healthy Christmas gift. Here are some ideas – Golf lessons – great for the more inactive amongst us. Magazine subscription – Men’s Health, Shape, Prevention and Whole Living are all magazines that offer great health advice. PT sessions – a great way to kick start an exercise
program as we move into the New Year. Pedometer – we all need one to be kept mindful of how much we are moving each day
VOXY LADY MAGAZINE December 9,
2011
About Voxy Lady Women’s Speaker Bureau
Our expert women speakers come from all areas of business, politics, finance, women leaders, marketing, sales, communication,
customer service, inspiration, motivation, networking, team building, health, fitness, family, networkers, time management,
business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, indigenous and corporate speakers. In 2011 Voxy Lady was chosen as a finalist in the
2011 Stevie Awards in the category "Women Helping Women".
www.voxylady.com.au