You all know Dr. Phil. He talks of self-esteem and how important that is in leading a life of well- being and happiness. We all know the price we pay for a poor self image—lack of assertiveness, no dreams, unworthy goals, self-sabotage, little energy.

I am not a social psychologist, an Organizational Theory specialist, or a corporate counselor. And I have only had experience in consulting with over 100 companies and a few thousand people in the last 19 years.

But my belief is that a Company does have a self-esteem. And it impacts EVERYTHING EVERY PERSON does in the company.

Clues
The following are clues that lead one to believe there is a Corporate Esteem problem:

• Energy low inside your company (the physical part). Think about Starbucks vs. your company. Any difference?
• Do you have to sell your product OR are people attracted and compelled to buy it? The more you have to beg to sell, the less corporate esteem you have.
• Attract low vibrating people or high vibrating people. Do your people “humm” throughout the day or merely sputter around?
• Discounting price. You should NEVER discount price. If you do, you have an esteem problem.
• Can’t follow a process. Create a sales process that is in the prospect’s best interest. If you can’t follow it, look inside — not at the customer.
• Don’t have a comprehensive business plan (real and authentic). No vision…no well thought out strategy for getting to the vision.
• Have no cause beyond bottom line. It’s all about money. One sure way to zapp people’s energy for motivation–and that is to make EVERYTHING about money and profit.

The Solution-Some Suggestions
These are five things you can do immediately to improve the CE of your company.

• Connect with the cause (these are the root issues of why you’re in business…the human cause…why did the company start? What did the founder want to accomplish by starting the business? What is the soul of your business? Why do people come to work everyday? How much extra capital do you invest in a cause outside of stakeholder wealth?

• Understand your value.  What is your company value in the products you sell and the services you provide? How does your value impact the people of your client company? How are your clients’ lives better because they have you in them? Don’t have meetings on successful implementations of systems…have meetings on successful results your clients realized as a result of your value. Usually the only time we do that is when we’re creating a company brochure.

• Find customer “pain.” Understand how your value solves problems and make an all-out assault on problems your clients (prospects) have.  Be relentless about understanding the pain, the impact of the pain on the people in their company. Be indignant about ‘denominating the pain’ into $ prior to proposing. Pay no attention to competition. They are irrelevant if you do well here.  If you say you are a “hawk for pain” then do you see the drive to find problems in your client business?

• Have conviction in your process. This speaks specifically to sales people. Does your sales process really have the best interest of the prospect in mind? Do you just jump to RFP’s or do you take the time to really understand the problem, the economics of the problem and the solutions process? You will find this conviction when you do steps 1-3.

• Stop Discounting. You might think discounting helps you get the business. It might, but it also wreaks more damage than it fixes. When you discount and you get the deal, then you have just confirmed that your value isn’t what you said it was. Many times, the prospect sees your value at a higher level than you do.

• Have honest dialogue with people. We live in a corporate America where there is a never-ending supply of babble…blah blah blah. Everyone loves to hear themselves talk and justify, and rationalize and make excuses. Most of it is not lies and deceit, but it’s far from truth. One sure way to live in continuous web of lack is to never talk the truth. If it’s good and the truth, talk about it. If you’re the best in the world at something, tell people. But don’t dress up the pig and pretend it’s something that it isn’t. Your employees and team are on to that. Everyone sees the truth, but if you aren’t talking about it, shame. If your competition is better at something, tell your customer that. If you lose deals because of that, then why haven’t you changed it?

These are some sales rants I had the other day. We’ll get back to the Lost Journal later this week.