Streetart

I found these Wall designs in Leuven, Belgium on a building close by the station...

Light festival Ghent - Belgium

Phone Boot/Aquarium 

Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople

I came to an interesting article via via on the blog of 'Harvard Business Review'. It's about 7 key personalities that top salespeople have and that makes them different from lower performing salespeople:

1. Modesty 
• Selling Style Impact: Team Orientation
2. Conscientiousness
• Selling Style Impact: Account Control
3. Achievement Orientation
• Selling Style Impact: Political Orientation
4. Curiosity
• Selling Style Impact: Inquisitiveness   
5. Lack of Gregariousness
• Selling Style Impact: Dominance
6. Lack of Discouragement
• Selling Style Impact: Competitiveness
7. Lack of Self-Consciousness
• Selling Style Impact: Aggressiveness

I don't like to copy to much, so if you're interested you can read the whole article here.

SPIN selling technique by Neil Rackham

Last Wednesday 25 January I went to a workshop of Sales Cubes organized by Software in Brussels at Tour & Taxis. The workshop was about Consultative Selling and how to use it. It's a special technique that is based on SPIN selling.

SPIN selling is a technique that is developed by Neil Rackham and is based on scientific research about psychology and what persuades people. It's a way of asking questions to find out the problems and implied & explicit needs of a customer.

• Situation Questions
• Problem Questions -----> Implied Needs
• Implication Questions
• Need Payoff Questions ----> Explicit Needs
• Benefits

Situation questions

Asking questions about background facts of the customer's situation.

Purpose: based on this information the seller can identify the potential problems the buyer might have.

Problem questions

Asking questions about problems and dissatisfaction's that the customer is currently experiencing.

Purpose: to focus the discussion on the problems and the needs of the customers that you as a seller can address.

Implication questions

Asking questions about the consequences of the problems

Purpose: these questions enable the seller to measure the amount of pain the current problems are causing the buyer.

Need payoff questions

Asking questions about the added value to the customer when solving these problems.

Purpose: these questions will enable the seller to measure the amount of benefits his or her product will have for the customer.

When having asked these questions, you can use the FAB sales model to sell your product.

Feature --> Advantage --> Benefits (for the customer)

More information on these subjects you can find by clicking on the links.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Lately I've been trying to read more books, I started last year with buying 3 books, and actually it's a little embarrassing but I'm now around page 50 of the last one. Hum explanations -I don't read that often in it, only when I'm on the train- doesn't matter ;)

Anyway the first book is from the same author of 'The Black Swan', is 'Fooled by Randomness' and is about the hidden role of chance in life and in the markets and statistics (not so easy to understand sometimes because of his use of difficult words). The second book is 'Toekomstmakers' (translation: future thinking) and its about the art of thinking ahead, by making scenario's of what could happen in the future and how your company could play on it. 

'The Black Swan' that I'm reading now is about the impact of the highly improbable. In other words the black swan is an extreme event, it's not because you only saw white swans in your life that their can not be a black swan. It goes about the problem of induction. At first I didn't really understand it, but Nassim really explains it very good. Induction is a way of reasoning, in which one makes a decision to generalize a particularly situation or happening. And that is what 'The Black Swan' goes about, generalize situations, happenings, idea's and so on, but it's not because you never saw it, or it never happened that it can not happen.... he looks again at  statistics. Statistics gave you a probability that something can happen. It doesn't exclude it can not happen. For example if you go to the doctor for an examination if you would have cancer or not, if the test is negative, it doesn't mean that you don't have cancer, it just means that their is a probability that you don't have cancer. The doctor didn't find anything, but it doesn't mean that is 100 % sure that you don't have cancer.

While reading 'The Black Swan' I have the feeling I can reflect this to the previous book about future thinking. 'The Black Swan' handles about unexpected events in live, and that if you know that their could be unexpected events in live, in the market or wherever, you can 'plan' to it...you can make scenario's to handle these unexpected and extraordinary events in live, in that way you have an action plan or a strategy if these 'black swans' happen.

A more clearer description:

"A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11" ~ Amazone

To conclude: reading from time to time an interesting book, broadens my mind, perspective and view on the world. It also gives me idea's for the future, on personal or professional level. 

Some links:

• More on 'The Black Swan' theory
• Review of 'The Black Swan'
• More on Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Nassim Nicholas Talebs Website

Train'ing'

Every week I take a couple times the train. As I live in Leuven but work in Brussels and Ghent it's like a second home :) it all started when I was 17, when my mother decided to move to Antwerp with the family and I still went to school in Ghent. Back in those days I 'trained' only 4 times a week to my school because I had and have those wonderfull friends who offer me a place to sleep. Today the amount of trains is raised to 6 or 8 times a week... In the beginning I hated it, but now I kinda like it. You always have some time to think things over, do some homework, take a little nap, call some friends, catch up some office work, get up to date with the world (by reading the newspaper-in Belgium we have this free paper called 'the metro' which is always available at the station or you can find one on the train), listen to some music, watch a movie, talk to a stranger, eat your breakfast or lunch, write an article, think and plan your future or just stare out the window and think of nothing or your loved one ... Like you see there is a lott of things to do with your time while training.
Thank you for existing trains! Even if they strike sometimes or come to late Or you don't have place to sit, I can say I like my time on the train and thank them for transporting me every day of the week to the places I wanna go.

Drive

Last month, actually November 2011, I went in Bangkok, Thailand to the movie 'Drive' from Nicolas Winding Refn. The story goes as followed:

'A young man,  Ryan Gosling starring as 'the Driver', is an excellent Hollywood stunt performer and works as a mechanic in a garage. He's a man of few words and lives next to 'Irene' a married lady who's husband is in jail, and her sun (every movie has a number 1 lady which in this case is Carrey Mulligan). 

His boss, Bryan Cransto, sets up a deal with the local mob, who's supporting both with some cash for a race. When the husband comes home from jail, he ends up beaten by the local mob, because he owns them money for protection in jail. Our 'Driver' has a dark side, he figures as 'run-a-way-driver' for robberies, and comes up with the idea to help the husband. This ends badly (I'm not going to say everything, you better watch it yourself).' (Check Trailer)

Their are a couple of reasons why I like the movie so much:

1. First of all its a dark/romantic/action/thriller movie
2. Second the song 'Under your spell from Desire' and 'A real hero from College ft Electric Youth'
3. Third the double meaning of the Golden Scorpion on the back of our Drivers jacket:
   Ryan Gosling has this amazing kitchy white jacket with a golden scorpion on the back, I believe  this has a double meaning in the movie: (1) A Golden Scorpion is a rare and special, you don't find them so much so in other words our Driver is a unique person, (2) they live in sollitairy, just like our Driver, (3) they are very dangerous, and when they feel threatened, they attack dangerously and deadly (in my opion not wiki's)

More information on about 'Drive' on  IMDb.