Did you ever witness a passionate person in action? Passion tends to automatically reveal someone's true and unique personality. In fact, it's so powerful, we almost need not worry about differentiation at all if only we're passionate about what we do. Passion also brings out the best in us, sometimes "lubricating" weaknesses and shortcomings we may normally be suffering from.

Instead of only circling around "how we get passion", this time I'd like to also emphasize the need for balance in communication:

You see, passion is only the beginning! Not only is it but a fraction of success... passion alone may even be destructive if not balanced well. Just think about it: Passion is mainly geared towards "sending out energy". Balance is about also "receiving energy" or being susceptible to it. In short, both giving and receiving. Therefore, there are two more -- cardinal -- energies that make passion work as it should. The 3 Energies are Passion - Connection - Intuition!

The switch that triggers energy

Passion involves reflection: Did you ever make a private and personal discovery that had such a powerful effect on you that it became physically visible?

Connection involves interaction: Did you ever have a conversation with someone you really connected with? What happened to your level of excitement?

Intuition involves innovation: Did you ever have this "mysterious" experience of collaborating with others in such a way that it almost felt like revelation? How did this affect your feelings and dedication?

Why limit ourselves to only utilizing one of these energies when all three are constantly available AND more powerful when combined in one?!

These three combined are what exceptional communication is all about. If you'd like to learn more about them you can turn to a brief webcast about 3E or to the 3E glossary now available on our pages.

During the summer holidays I put together a quick survey on how we feel about sales people approaching us when selling a product or service. In one week only the survey had 52 respondents, and replies just keep coming in. The data retrieved and the information it provides is interesting, especially if we consider the negative side:

When asked how we feel when a sales person tries to sell us something, here's what we respond statistically:

In addition to this, of all respondents 11,4% explicitly stated they NEVER had a positive experience with ANY sales person trying to sell them something.

This means that when we approach someone about our product or service, 1 out of 10 has a 100% negative history with ALL previous sales people they've ever encountered. At least that's how they perceive it. To make it worse, 46%, i.e. pretty much every other potential customer, feels bad (and of those 1 of 5 "worse than bad") about you contacting them in the first place.

When asked to comment on simple questions about selling activity one overall answer and attitude or dominant "ground rule" clearly comes through: "I know what I need, and I'll go get it when I want it. I strongly dislike people contacting me about something I don't need".

What basic learning can we extract from empirical results such as these?

Actually, quite a few important principles surface more or less instantly. However, three of them I'd like to specifically point out, since they're core to everything else.

Successful (sales) people work on their:

1. POSITIONING - Operational dialog
   • helping others seek them out and come to them for help and problemsolving.
2. RELATIONSHIPS - Opinional dialog
   • helping others feel good about them as a person.
3. TACTICS - Optimal dialog
   • helping people take the lead and feel good about the message.

In sum these three make up what we call the SBP = SPP equation.

Here's a webcast about the 3 dialogs, explaining what this is all about.