The intention of The Connector is to connect you with tools and resources that are focused on your success. In this issue, you will find:

• The edge that one university is bringing
  to its corporate clients
• How our environment can facilitate or
  detract from our success
• How to have powerful business conversations
• A diagnostic tool that quickly tells you what's working, what's not in your conversations
• Access to a live webinar about
  2013 sales success

To contribute: Connect with Arlene

I encourage you to be a part of The Connector
by sharing what you have done to accelerate individual and company success.

University of Texas at Dallas School of Management, Executive Education, addressed  this issue for their corporate clients in a recent executive briefing where Arlene spoke on Developing a Culture of Change Leadership.

Why is this so critical?

When an organization consistently brings high value to their customers and market, there is always one key “win indicator” – their ability to discover and effectively act on relevant change, change that directly impacts bottom-line results.

Developing a Culture of Change Leadership includes the key concepts:
- Discover and implement relevant change
- Promote full and collaborative change engagement
- Coach, track, reward individual/team change strategies

After Arlene's presentation, Tom Henderson, Assistant Dean, UT at Dallas School of Management, Executive Education commented, "Arlene Johnson presented an extremely dynamic and thoughtful executive briefing for clients of UTD Executive Education ... It was delivered in an entertaining yet serious manner. Arlene’s style is warm yet compelling. We couldn’t have been more pleased with the job she did. ... a top notch facilitator, presenter and thought leader in her field. I would recommend her ... " read more

We would like to thank Jack Canfield again for endorsing Arlene's book, SuccessMapping:

"There really is a map, that if followed will lead you to the success you've always wanted.  Arlene Johnson has captured that map and presented it brilliantly ... All you have to do is buy SuccessMapping and follow the steps."

Here's what Jack says about how the elements of our environment will either inspire us or expire us.

The environments that we live in—all nine of them—either inspire us or expire us. They facilitate our success or they detract from our success. They energize us or they drain us. They relax us or they stress us. The good news is that we have a lot of control of the environments that affect us. We can de-clutter our office, create better filing systems, paint a wall, redecorate a room, clean out the garage, join a health club, hire a personal trainer, buy a treadmill or some free weights, join a yoga class, join a mastermind group, move to a new area, take walks in the park, schedule more time with friends, stop hanging out with negative people, hire a coach, hire a financial planner, join an investment club, feng shui your home or apartment, or subscribe to a positive magazine. While it is true that our environments exert a lot of control over our feelings and behavior, we have the power to create environments that positively impact us.

The only thing you can do to transform an environment is to add something (a new person, a new piece of equipment, a new belief), delete something (a negative person, the TV from your bedroom, a self-limiting belief, clutter), or modify ... read more

It happens to us all…an important colleague or customer meeting with “less than desired” results.

With a little planning and a partnering process used with each important business conversation you can replace that sinking feeling with the comfort of knowing that you’ve advanced approval for an important internal project or customer opportunity, or at minimum discovered where more work is needed to move past an obstacle.

Are You Prepared for The Conversation?

Suppose you are preparing for an important conversation. With an internal or external customer… beware of planning or conducting a solution-focused meeting. With less than complete customer knowledge and if not “target on” to your customer’s buying situation and concepts, your meeting outcome could easily result in project or buyer delay or an uninformed refusal.

On the other hand, planning … read more

Use Arlene's Conversation Diagnostic Checklist to quickly assess and diagnose the effectiveness of your
business conversations.

DATE/TIME: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 1 pm ET / 10 am PT

Rapidly shifting buyer behavior necessitates an equally, if not more aggressive, shift from the sales professionals that engage them.  Professional social networks, such as LinkedIn, provide a fertile ground to identify and influence today's B2B buyer. 

Attend this webinar to learn a 3-pronged approach that will help you coach your team on how to sell more effectively to today's increasingly demanding customer. This approach includes strategies to help you:

- Incorporate a 'startup mentality' that will improve your teams' sales ability to move deals forward, quickly and effectively.
- Help your reps effectively identify and influence prospects and customers.
- Make strategic shifts in the sales process based on new buyer behaviors.
- Incorporate social networks, such as LinkedIn, as a core component of your sales teams' process.

Register for Webinar

Contact Arlene to discuss how she can work with your organization to increase profitable sales and map relevant change to directly impact your bottom line results.