The voice of trustworthiness—modeling character and competence

A leader’s character can make or break an organization. A person with integrity and one who is trusted by his peers and employees will be seen as a good leader.

Trustworthiness is an important factor in any relationship—personal and professional. It is the glue that holds together a family and an organization.

Personal trustworthiness

Trustworthiness comes from character and competence. There are three aspects of character that build trustworthiness:

• Integrity: you incorporate principles and natural laws when dealing with people. You are honest and you keep promises made to yourself and to others.
• Maturity: you can deal with difficult issues with compassion.
•  Abundance mentality: you see life as full of opportunities. You don’t compare yourself with others and you are sincerely happy for other people’s success.

Each individual is born with the potential to be great. What you do with this potential is up to you. You must remember that the more you use and expand your present talents, the more capacity you are given, and the greater your ability becomes.

All great achievers have expanded their four innate human intelligences and capacities into:

1.  Vision (mental)Seeing with your mind what is possible in yourself, in people, projects, causes, endeavors, and enterprises.
2.  Discipline (physical)Commitment—bringing vision into reality.
3.  Passion (emotional)It is the fire or the drive that sustains the discipline to achieve the vision.

Effectiveness is the tool for survival in today’s fast-paced environment. However, in order to truly become excellent and succeed in the new Knowledge Worker Age, you must build on and move beyond effectiveness and into greatness. You must find your own voice and inspire others to find their own voices as well. Finding your voice requires a shift in thinking. To succeed in your journey towards greatness, you need a new mindset, a new skill-set and a new habit.

How Are You Managing Your Time?

Procrastination is NOT a time management problem. However, if you're procrastinating, chances are you're managing your time very poorly. Why? It's because you haven't established what's important in your life - your purpose and meaning.

The figure below is Stephen Covey's now quite famous "Time Management Matrix." His "7 habits" book has sold over 15 million copies. I'll bet this is familiar to you.

Of course, academics are typically suspicious of anyone who can simplify things and make a lot of money with their ideas. ☺ It's the academic criticism of the "self-help" genre. That said, Stephen Covey says a lot of important things. He gained me as a fan by revealing his existentialist roots with his reference back to Victor Frankl at the outset of his book. I think his overall focus is clear and right on the mark.

Given how popular his work is, I won't summarize it at length. I'll just begin by noting that his focus on the time-management matrix is part of Habit #3 - Put first things first. In sum, he argues that we need to spend our time and effort with the type of tasks listed in the second quadrant (Important and Not Urgent), as these are truly important to us and are not done, ineffectively, at the last minute.

Most importantly, this habit, as with many "step-like" programs, will only be successful if you first achieve the earlier habits. In this case, both Habit #1 - Be Proactive, and Habit #2 - Begin with the end in mind, must be established.

Habit 1 and Habit 2 build a base of agency and purpose, respectively. First, by acknowledging our responsibility in life to make and own our choices, Habit #1 establishes us as responsible, active agents in the world. With this established, Habit #2 provides the focus for this agentic action. With Habit 2, we answer the question, "What is my purpose?" We establish a mission statement, a vision for our lives.

Habits 1 and 2 establish our active agency in the world and the vision that will guide our goal setting. Once this is done, the Time-Management Matrix is a "no brainer" as they say. With my purpose clearly in mind and my deep commitment to self as an active agent in the world, I know that I must choose to be proactive with the type of activities listed in Quadrant #2.

That is, if you have done the hard work of the first two habits that Covey presents. In essence, Covey operates from an existentialist perspective by acknowledging the primacy of our existence. This entails our conscious awareness of our agency and our need to create purpose in our lives through our choices. To the extent that we do this, we will authentically engage in life in a way that simplifies.

It's easy to know when we haven't established Habits 1 & 2. If you look at the matrix and lament the fact that you're always caught up in the activities in the other Quadrants, particularly 3 and 4, you haven't developed your own vision of what's important. And, you're probably not taking responsibility for your choices. You're blaming others when you continue to say yes to "urgent" issues which, often as not, are not even that important.

Everyone in the time-management consulting business will tell you the same thing - "learn to say no." It is very difficult to say no until you have established your own sense of agency and purpose.

 Procrastination is NOT about time management. Procrastinating less is not about schedules or time-management matrices. At its heart, it's about conscious awareness of existence as expressed in our agency, choice and purpose.

Do you want to procrastinate less? Spend time working on the first two habits. The rest will flow from this very authentic base of being in the world.

10 Essential Selling Principles Most Salespeople Get Wrong

1.       Assuming the problem that the prospect communicates is the real problem. It’s normal and natural to assume this; however, it’s important to look deeper into each scenario. Like a physician, we must ask ourselves “is this the prospect’s real problem or is it just a symptom?” Before diagnosing and offering how we can address their challenges, we have to ask more questions to make sure we’ll be getting at the root of their problem, and bringing value to the prospect by supporting their true goals. (Sandler Rule #38)

 2.    Thinking that your sales “presentation” will seal the deal. You should always be helping the prospect discover the best reasons to buy from you – not telling them why they should. The prospect should know that they’ll be buying from you long before you present your final pitch or proposal.  (Sandler Rule #15)

 3.    Talking too much. One of the oldest Sandler philosophies is the 70/30 rule. So often and especially in the beginning of a relationship, salespeople think they need to be doing all the talking, when they should be listening and asking questions. Keep in mind, if a prospect wanted a rundown of your products or services, he or she could just visit your website. The sales process is a conversation, and an honest and open one at that. (Sandler Rule #14)

 4.    Believing that you can sell anybody anything.  People don’t buy simply on your say-so. A prospect must go through a period of self-discovery before making the decision that your product or service is the right solution. Resistance is pre-programmed and people don’t like to be told what to do (or buy). A better approach than “selling by telling” is to ask key questions or relate third-party stories that allow the prospect to discover the benefits and advantages of your product or services.  When you ask questions that lead to a discovery, the prospect then “owns” the discovery and the resistance disappears. After all, people don’t tend to argue with their own data. (Sandler Rule #27)

 5.    Over-educating the prospect when you should be selling. The initial goal in selling is to find out why, and under what circumstances, the prospect will buy from you. Asking questions is first, and sharing your materials and specifics comes next. Sell today, educate tomorrow. (Sandler Rule #21)

 6.    Failing to remember that salespeople are decision makers, too. Every step of the way through the sales cycle, a salesperson must make critical decision as to whether to continue investing time in the relationship with the prospect. If you as the salesperson are a poor decision-maker, your lack of clarity and decisive action will be mirrored in your prospect’s behavior. Remember, the shorter your selling cycle, the more leads you close over time. (Sandler Rule #36)

 7.    Reading minds. Always get the facts from your prospect about what they need and why. When your prospect is vague, politely ask for clarity. Veteran sales people are often the culprits of “reading minds” because they think they’ve seen it all. But when they jump to conclusions, they make erroneous assumptions that lead to wasted time at best, lost opportunities at worst.  As the old adage goes, “to assume is to make an ass out of you and me.”  (Sandler Rule #13)

 8.    Working as an “unpaid consultant” in an attempt to close a deal. Sandler advises salespeople to play “Let’s Pretend” when a prospect asks for additional work and information before making a buying decision. Ask your prospect to picture a scenario where you complete the additional groundwork and provide a solution that fits everything the prospect needs – then what happens, will they buy from you? If they can’t envision pulling the trigger even after you’ve done the additional work, or if they’d still need another step in the process, it may be time to walk away or you may ask to move directly to this second step.  When you want to know the future, bring it back to the present. (Sandler Rule #25)

 9.    Being your own worst enemy. Never blame the prospect for stalling the process. Instead, look inward. It’s the job of the salespeople to assure the prospect and address detours. The only way to streamline the process is to continue to refine your own sales approach and technique. (Sandler Rule #44)

 10.  Keeping your fingers crossed that a prospect doesn’t notice a problem. Sandler teaches that the only way to avoid a potential disaster is to address it before it erupts.  Always come clean and be open and transparent if something problematic comes up along the selling cycle. The prospect will respect that you “came clean” and shared it, and together you can problem-solve, building a solidifying team approach to the issue.

Songwriter Contracts

When a person speaks of a “songwriter agreement” or “songwriter contract” they are referring to a contract entered into between a songwriter and a music publisher. Music publishers, as many of you know, act on behalf of songwriters to get their written songs “cut” (i.e., recorded on an album). This is known as “plugging.” Publishers also take care of all the administrative work related to plugging. This can include registering songs with the U.S. Copyright Office, issuing licenses, and accounting for royalties.

There are several types of songwriter agreements. Generally they are
1. Single Song Agreements
2. Exclusive Songwriting Agreements
3. Co-Publishing Agreements and
4. Administration Agreements

Single Song Agreements
Under a Single-Song Agreement, the songwriter transfers copyright ownership of specifically identified song(s) to the publisher. These are “non-exclusive” agreements because there is no term. In other words, these agreements are simply a one-time “sale” where the copyright is transferred from the Songwriter to the Publisher. The songs must already be in existence and are specifically identified in the contract.

Exclusive Songwriter Agreements
The main difference between exclusive songwriter agreements and single song agreements is that in an exclusive songwriter agreement the songwriter is transferring to the publisher copyright ownership of all songs written during the duration of the contract. Further distinguishing these types of agreements from single song agreements is that under an exclusive songwriter agreement the songwriter usually receives an advance that is recoupable from future royalties.

Co-Publishing Agreements
Under a co-publishing agreement, two or more parties (usually the songwriter and their publisher) share ownership of songs. In the typical co-publishing agreement, the songwriter transfers partial copyright ownership to the publisher and retain part ownership either in themselves or in their own publishing company. The songwriter’s independent publisher will have administration duties under this type of contract. The provisions of co-publishing agreements are usually very similar to those of exclusive songwriting agreements.
The main difference is that the songwriter will receive both the songwriter’s share of royalties (usually 50% of net royalties) and a cut of the publisher’s share the royalties (usually 25% of the net royalties).

Administration Agreements
Administration agreements are service contracts between the songwriter (or writer’s publishing company) and a publisher or administrator. These type of agreements are usually, although not always, reserved for established songwriters. In an administrative agreement a songwriter will pay up to 25% of net royalties for the administrative services of a music publisher. The important distinction between this type of agreement and the other types above is that the songwriter does not transfer any copyright ownership to the publisher.

Sales Process

Sales people walk through a process each and every time they present their product to a potential client. However why are some sales people successful and some unsuccessful? The unsuccessful ones typically  don’t follow theSales Cycle. They do not follow the path to sales. They skip a step and try to make up for it on other steps.

Sales Trainers frequently talk about the Sales Cycle, however depending on the product sold or market discussed, they may name the steps something different, but  the steps are basically the same.  The path to the successful out come you are looking for is mere steps away.

So what are the steps of the sales cycle and how do they work?

1. Get Acquainted : get comfortable with each other.

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2. Brief: Look for  favorable circumstances. Is everybody who needs to be there present? Ect.
3. Find the emotional need
4. Fill the emotional need
5. Close

What is the point of making sure all these steps are completed?

Well for example, let’s say you decide on trying to skip the brief step. You go though the process and the potential client tells you. Sounds great but I need to talk to my wife about this.  Because you skipped that step, you theoretically shot yourself in the foot. How can you effectively close the sale when everybody necessary to close the sale are not there? The answer is you can’t.
Moving systematically from one step to the next insures you increase your odds of making the sale. In most sales processes, most sales people spend the majority of time finding prospects to sit down with to sell. Doesn’t it make sense to spend the appropriate amount of time necessary to moving you methodically from one step to the next in the Sales Cycle making sure you cover your bases and growing closer to the sale you worked so hard to set up?

Behind the music: Turning a studio performance into recorded magic

Last week, Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson explained how to get the best from a singer. This week, they turn their attention to conjuring the perfect cut from the instrumentalists

Holly Johnson performing with Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1980. Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns

When the legendary producer Trevor Horn first saw Frankie Goes to Hollywood on the 80s TV show The Tube he was intrigued, though, he says, he did think their performance was very sexist. After hearing them again, doing a live session of Relax on the radio, he was convinced they had something special. "It was quite a different version of the track, but Holly [Johnson] was a good singer. And then we discovered nobody wanted to sign them – mainly because they were pretty hardcore gay. Their pictures were … their bums came through their trousers and there was a guy with a knife instead of a penis."

"Even the guys who weren't gay were pretty hardcore," adds Horn's longtime collaborator Steve Lipson.
Horn, however, wasn't put off by the bands risqué image, and signed them to his new label, ZTT, in 1983. What no one had told him was that the band he signed wasn't the same band that played on the demos he'd heard. The guitar player had left just two weeks before. No problem – Horn put together a session band of his usual collaborators, including Lipson, to record the backing tracks.

"The Frankies were very affable about it," shrugs Horn. "We played them a mix where we'd put an audience track on it, telling them: 'This is you playing at Madison Square Garden.' They laughed and declared: 'We're fucking great!'

"As time went by they started to play. They started to get better, but just as they got to a place where they could play their own music they fell out. They fell out in a way that they've never been able to fix up ever since. I remember backstage at Wembley, when Holly [Johnson, the singer] had a bodyguard in case Mark [O'Toole, the bassist] tried to kick him."

By the time they recorded their second album, Johnson was largely absent from the studio, Lipson says. He even said he'd need two days' notice if they wanted him there. Soon after, the band members went their separate ways, but one of the tracks they'd recorded but not released became a worldwide hit – albeit with a different artist, who herself was not adverse to controversy.

Grace Jones's million-selling record Slave to the Rhythm created a whole new sound for her – a sound many others tried, and failed, to emulate. Creating it was an arduous task, however (though not for Jones, who, according to Lipson, showed up for as many hours as the number of months he and Horn worked on the record: nine).

Though the track eventually spawned a concept album, featuring different interpretations of the track, it was only brought to the attention of Chris Blackwell, the owner of Jones's record label, Island, when he was looking for a single for her greatest hits album. Horn dug up a track Bruce Woolley had written for Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

"The original recording had a very Germanic beat, and it was pretty obvious it wasn't going to work for them," says Horn. "I thought that if it was called Slave to the Rhythm it should be a better rhythm – and the only rhythm I could think of that was good enough was Go-go music, which was really happening at the time.
"It was such a daft idea when I look back on it. We had a band of really great Go-go musicians: some people from Experience Unlimited, some from Trouble Funk … and they could all really play – but nobody could remember an arrangement. In fact, they were baffled by the idea of an arrangement. They just started, kept going and then they stopped."

And they'd all play together all the way through, with all instruments leaking into the drum microphones. "At one point the guitar player went to the toilet for about two or three minutes, and that ended up being the only time we had the groove without the guitar all over the drums," says Lipson. "That was our window of opportunity to make a loop out of that little bit and make a rhythm track out of it."
"Story of our lives," sighs Horn.

Horn had recorded the bits he liked on his cassette player and played it for Woolley, who swiftly rewrote the song over it. "I loved it when he played those chords at the start," Horn reminisces. "We left the studio went back to the Parker Meridian hotel with a load of equipment, went upstairs and finished the song. Literally, the first day we got everything out of that Go-go band we were ever going to get."

Whether it's waiting for an artist to come into the studio with a new "girlfriend" at 2am, after a night out, to be able to record their vocals or playing all the instruments on the record because the band can't play, Horn and Lipson have spent far, far more time in studio than any of the artists they worked with, perfecting their records.

"I was having a conversation with an old rock star, who shall remain nameless, a couple of weeks ago in the kitchen at Sarm [Horn's studio]," Horn says. "He was talking about how they spent a year making a record and how they all got completely wasted. He said: 'But you know all about that – you got wasted and took ages over things.' I shook my head, and said: 'I took ages over things but they were generally successful – and I was working, not getting drunk.'"

Behind the music: how to make a singer sound great

Super-producers Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson on the subtle art of coaxing an outstanding performance from a singer

When technology companies say artists should view recorded music as a promotional tool and make their living by touring, they forget that making records is almost always a group effort. The person who pulls it all together is the producer. Now, three legendary producers have decided to come out of the shadows, releasing an album and touring under the name of, you guessed it, the Producers.

The supergroup – Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson and Lol Creme, along with session drummer Ash Soan – have over the last 40 years racked up more than 200 hit singles and albums between them. Creme, one half of Godley and Creme and a quarter of 10cc, directed some of the most famous 80s videos, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Two Tribes. Horn's discography reads like the soundtrack to our lives. A member and producer of Buggles (Video Killed the Radio Star), the Art of Noise and Yes, he produced some of the most groundbreaking records of the past three decades, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome and Grace Jones's Slave to the Rhythm, as well as albums by Seal, tATu, Pet Shop Boys and Robbie Williams. Steve Lipson was Horn's right-hand man in the 80s and has since then produced Jamie Cullum and Paul McCartney.

Horn, we learn, is not a fan of Auto-Tune. "There used to be a lot more people who sang out of tune [before Auto-Tune], and there was something quite interesting about that," he says. "Nobody gave a damn back then, because you were used to everything being a little bit out of time and a little bit out of tune. The generic sound of this generation is thin little voices perfectly in tune."

That's not something, though, that Seal can be accused of. But Horn was not impressed the first time he heard him. His wife (and business partner) had been looking for a modern-day Nat King Cole and claimed she had finally found him. She played him the demo of Crazy. "I liked the line, 'We're never going to survive unless we get a little crazy,' but for some reason Seal had put a phaser on his voice and I thought: 'He doesn't sound that good.'"

Still, Horn decided to meet him. "He's an imposing-looking fellow – 6ft 7in. He said: 'Can I play you something I've just written?' He put a cassette in and it was the backing track to Violet. He started: [Horn sings] 'Ooh, I see you comb your hair in different light/ Change the chair and seem to think it's alright.' He was singing it into my ear and I got goose bumps all the way up my back. I said to my wife: 'I've got a musical hard-on.'"

He says he's a great believer in not crowding musicians or jumping on them too quickly – it makes them "turn off" – instead he gives them breathing space. "If you use good people, what comes naturally is what you want," he explains. "And it never, ever helps to lose your temper."

Lipson's tip is to beware of the "the big moment" when recording vocals. He used to produce the American Idol winners' singles, each of them recorded by the four finalists in LA. "I'd have them for two hours. They'd come into the control room. We'd sit and talk for about an hour and 50 minutes. I'd keep an eye on the clock and then they'd go in and do two takes. It worked every time."

"I never used to organise vocal session with Seal, because if I did he wouldn't be there," Horn says. "I'd stay in the same house with him and he'd come back at about 2am. If he brought a girlfriend [into the studio] it was always a great moment. Seal would sing the song to them. I'd say: 'Give me black Elvis,' and he'd do the moves. Robbie [Williams] used to like to have somebody to sing to, too."

For his second album, Seal tried a few other producers before coming back to Horn. "One of them phoned me up, asking: 'How do you get him in the studio? He's been gone for two weeks.' I said: 'He probably doesn't like the tracks, and just hasn't told you. I used to live with him. That's the only way I could get him.'"

He dispels the myth of the tyrant producer. "You're a hired hand. You don't have that much power. If you had a contract that said somebody's got to sing and they wouldn't, and you went to court, you would lose.

They'd say: 'I don't want to sing for him because I don't feel happy singing,' and there would be nothing you could do about it."

• Next article: the secrets behind some of Horn's and Lipson's biggest records