The Context Machine

A consultant is a professional who provides expert advice in a particular area of expertise such as IT, management, marketing, or finance etc. Consultants identify companies’ marketing or business needs, and they help companies improve their performance and profitability by analyzing existing business problems and developing future strategies. They help determine the most effective marketing and business solutions to your business, as well as the best ways to execute these solutions for the betterment of your business. Consultants generally use formal methodologies to analyze problems or to suggest better ways of completing business tasks. Consultants help execute your business plan and strategies, allowing you to focus on other important business issues and business meetings.

Management and business consulting grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s with industry growth rates of 20%. Consulting is highly cyclical and is sensitive to general economic conditions. The consulting industry declined between 2001 to 2003, but has been experiencing some growth since.

Nowadays there are three major types of consulting firms. One type is the larger consulting firm that offers a wide variety of consulting services, ranging from IT consulting to management consulting. Another type is the established management and strategic consulting firms that focus mainly on management consulting that covers any specific industry. Yet another type is the smaller boutique consulting firms with consulting focus and expertise on specific industries or technologies.

The more established consulting firms today include Arthur D. Little, a general management consulting firm; Booz Allen Hamilton was the first consulting firm to serve clients in both the government and the industry; McKinsey & Company, was one of the first pure management consulting firm and currently leads the field. It was also one of the first consulting firms to hire graduates of top MBA schools rather than hiring experienced industry personnel. Boston Consulting Group brought an analytical approach to the study of strategy and management. Bain & Company introduced its focus on shareholder wealth. Traditional accounting companies such as Arthur Andersen and global IT services firms such as IBM also set up consulting departments.

Businesses or companies can engage a business or management consulting firm or an individual business consultant who will draw up suitable business plans and strategies and implement them. Consultants are generally well paid with some business consultants charging $150 per hour, and sometimes even as high as $2,000 per day for their services.

“I didn’t have 3000 pairs of shoes. I had only 1600 pairs.” Imelda Marcos

Everything’s relative. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money to someone who
makes an average salary, but it’s a drop in the bucket to a Warren Buffett or a Bill
Gates. Running a hundred metres in a few seconds seems like a miracle to ordinary
mortals, but a track and field athlete will work hard to shave even more off that
time.

Yet presenters often quote statistics without benchmarks, so the audience doesn’t
know how to evaluate them. Is $10,000 a lot of money? Well it is for a bicycle. It’s
not much for a house, unless that house is in a small village in a third world
country, where it might be exorbitant. If you quote numbers this way, you will lose
the audience while they try to decide whether $125,000 is good, bad or indifferent
in this context. Your statistics lose their power.

In a presentation skills workshop for a group of lawyers, one participant was
practicing his delivery of an address to the jury in an upcoming trial. He was asking
for damages in the amount of $750,000, and hoped the jury would consider it
reasonable. It’s quite a large sum, and most ordinary folks think of that kind of cash
as a lottery win. He needed to put it in context for them.

He might, for example, ask the jury to suppose they were thirty-five years old and
earning a salary of $40,000 a year. By the time they reached the age of sixty-five,
allowing for reasonable increases, they could expect to have earned a certain
amount. (He would do the arithmetic and insert the actual sum.) That amount would
be what is called their “expected lifetime income”. However, if they were involved in
an accident and suddenly unable to work any more, that amount now represents
their “forfeited lifetime income”. That is what happened to this claimant, and the
amount he would have lost was $750,000. So in fact, counsel was asking no more
than the amount the man would have earned, had he not met with this unfortunate
accident.

Don’t you think the jury is more likely to agree when given this background
explanation?

Here are three ways to put figures in context for your audience.

1. Compare them to something to which they can personally relate, as in the
courtroom example.

2. Compare them to a similar situation. If a new manufacturing process takes fifteen
minutes, mention that the old one took two hours, so we save 1-3/4 hours.

For
even more effect, tell them how much time this will save in an average shift or on a
certain number of product units. Go further and translate that time into money and
the statistic will now be a strong argument for change.

3. Create vivid word pictures to illustrate size: That’s the equivalent of five football
fields. That’s enough to fill ten Olympic-size swimming pools. If laid end-to-end
they would stretch from New York to L.A. and back again.

Statistics can be great persuaders, but only when the audience has the means to
evaluate them.

Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker, workshop facilitator and author,
helping companies save their money and people save their sanity through better
communication. Her latest book is “The Hidden Profit Centera tale of profits lost
and found through communication.” For more articles and other information, visit
http://www.mhwcom.com While you’re there, sign up for Communi-keys and
receive monthly communication techniques directly from Helen.

If you find yourself participating often in industry conferences, either as an instructor or a vendor, you may be able to develop an additional income stream by publishing your own books or producing DVDs or CDs to supplement the information you provide.

No matter what your industry, chances are your customers or students could benefit from additional information in an easily accessible format. In addition to self-published books or booklets, instructional videos featuring creative uses of your products, background information on your industry, or business advice gained from your own personal experience all have the potential of adding value to your seminar or conference participants.

One prominent educational seminar company holds workshops, conferences, and conventions throughout the United States for elementary schoolteachers. At some point the company decided to supply a few books on subjects relevant to elementary education for sale at their events; eventually they began to publish their own materials, written by their presenters, to supplement the seminar materials. This effort evolved into an entire book division, with the company selling their own publications and those of other educational authors at their conferences, through a mail order catalog, and over the Internet. What began as a small and simple addition to their seminars became a major source of income for the company.

So what can you bring to your seminar students or customers which enhances your public presentation? If you sell video equipment for a living, or instruct people on the use of video equipment, you can put together a book of basic videography techniques; or a simple interactive CD spreadsheet program which helps create budgets for video projects. If you teach a quilting seminar, you may be able to assemble a collection of your own designs with instructions for quilts, wall hangings, or quilted garments. Whatever your area of expertise you should be able to come up with a wealth of ideas to offer your audience.

One caution: If your business is to offer seminars in a particular subject or group of subjects on a regular basis, it would be a mistake to simply recreate your seminar in book form or as a DVD. Of course you would want to cover the basics of your subject, but your goal should be to design your seminar and book or DVD so that they complement one another, each offering information and ideas the other does not, so that people who sign up for your seminar will get additional benefit from the book; and of course, people who are exposed to your books will want to attend one or more of your seminars.

It’s a simple matter these days to self-publish books and even to sell them via websites like Amazon.com, for still another income stream. Make sure you include contact information and mention your seminars so that people intrigued by your book can contact you for seminar info.

If you do decide to create and sell informative books, CDs, and DVDs for your seminars, make sure you contact the conference center or the company sponsoring the seminars to arrange for a display area. Inventory what you need to create a display, and either provide the materials and supplies yourself or arrange for it to be provided. And don’t forget, if you’re at a conference or convention that is a day-long or multi-day affair, make sure to hire or otherwise commandeer someone to man your display during times when you are teaching or are otherwise occupied.

Offering the right supplementary materials for sale at your seminars or conferences can not only provide you with additional income, it can solidify your reputation as an expert on your subject; it may even expand your influence in your industry well beyond your present student or customer-base.

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire. She has written numerous articles for local and regional newspapers and for a number of Internet websites, including Tips and Topics. She expresses her opinions periodically on her blog, http://beyondagendas.blogspot.com She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com

There’s a world of difference between having a strategically
crafted crisis management plan in place and simply having to
manage a crisis, “from the back foot.” The world was served a
painful reminder on the subject, by the inept and vintage
cold-war era handling by Russian President Vladimir Putin, of
the Kursk submarine disaster.

Blunder number one was the (then) strangely paunchy Putin not
cancelling his holiday to, guideline number one: Be there. The
most senior possible person must always be dusted off and
wheeled out. The level of seniority demonstrates the seriousness
with which the issue is viewed.

The Russians are still locked into a quasi cold war mentality.
In which anything to do with the military is shrouded in a fog
of disinformation. That might have worked OK in USSR days, but
in the days of the media-enabled global village, there’s no
place for inept “spokespeople” adding to confusion and grief.
Guideline number two is: Tell the truth. There is no possibility
of having to argue later, like so many politicians, that you
were “misquoted” or that your comments were “taken out of
context.” Telling the truth, up front, is the simplest and most
effective way of defusing public hostility, however vexatious
the issue.

Many corporates fall into the trap of, “we can fix this
ourselves.” Sometimes you can’t. When it’s something requiring
outside or specialised help, it’s better to bring in early, an
excess of help, rather than too little, or none. Your public,
whoever they may be, will always be impressed by your “all hands
on deck” approach.

Guideline number three is: Tell them what you’re doing to fix
it. Bring the families or close ones of victims, or those
affected, to the heart of the operations control area if
possible and safe. Accommodate and feed them. Provide them with
communications to family and friends. Above all else, keep them
fully briefed. Think of then-Mayor of New York, Rudi Giuliani,
and his tireless communication with the media and those affected
by September 11th 2001. Corporate heads around the world can
learn from his example. Provide counselling, support and any
other facilities that might be needed to help the affected to
cope. Airlines now have this down to a formula.

So, guideline number four: Handle those affected, with utmost
sensitivity. Expect and treat their emotive outbursts with
empathy. They’re “normal”, given the circumstances. A South
African case in point is the insensitive media statement made by
the Everite (they of asbestos products notoriety) “Reputation
Management” spokesperson, via the media, to the bereaved, in
defence of his client. He said something to the effect that “the
circumstances surrounding the death are most unfortunate, but
future statements will be made only within the strict confines
of the law.” That truly is, as the Zulu aphorism says, “speaking
out of both sides of the mouth.”

Company responses such as this and those from Cape PLC - also
involved in slow-and-painful-death, asbestosis claims-related
issues, don’t win themselves any friends with such undiplomatic,
cavalier, hide-behind-the-legal-veil pronouncements. Remember
that potential investors today look to your triple bottom line
of fiscal, social and environmental performance and sensitivity.
Companies exhibiting scant regard for their past ill-doings,
deserve to go bust.

If ever there is a need for unambiguous, simple, clear
communication, this is it. Set up a communications task force
and ensure that they’re all at the same stage of familiarity on
the situation, at all times. Guideline five is: Sing off the
same, simple, song sheet. There’s nothing more awful than
conflicting views or “updates” on the situation. This can do
image and share price damage and anger the public - as did the
Russians, or years previously, those mismanaging the Exxon
Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska. It will look as if you
don’t know what’s going on and haven’t got a handle on the
situation. Which clearly will be the case.

Guideline six is: Come up real quick with A plan showing how you
propose to avoid a repeat in the future. Think of the French
authorities and the Concorde crash. They swung speedily into
action - for which air crash investigations are not renowned -
and along with British Airways, grounded all Concordes until
designers came up with a fuel tank protection solution.

Guideline seven says: Don’t be tempted to lie or “cover” for the
boss or the corporation. South African National Minister of
Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has made a right royal dolt
of herself, by refusing to make HIV/AIDS-related statements at
odds with those of President Thabo Mbeki. This guideline is not
in conflict with the “sing off the same song sheet” dictum. It’s
a warning to remember that your responsibility does not include
“covering” for someone else’s maverick stance. When they’re
discredited, so will you be. This may pose a moral and career
dilemma for you. Look long-term before you act.

Guideline eight is: Go the added mile. Deliver the unexpected,
go beyond the requirements of the situation. Set up a trust.
Establish a bursary fund. Create an institution. Shell, Sappi,
Sasol and numerous other environmental sinners have very
cleverly implemented wild life, ornithological or other
environmental awareness programs. You may have noticed the
inordinately frequent flighting of Shell “environmental
friendliness” commercials during Discovery Channel’s damp-squib
Egyptian, “drill through the pyramid wall” broadcast. These
“show that they care” about the environment, right? Well, that
stuff works on unthinking people, even if it does mean sailing a
tad close to the wind at times. Thank God for Greenpeace though,
to keep the record straight.

Guideline nine: When it’s good, localise or take credit for it.
When it’s bad, globalise it and “share the problem.” Example:
You’ve had (as did Shoprite Checkers, following the acquisition
of OK Bazaars) a dreadful year, because OK Bazaars “shrinkage”
had dented their bottom line. Globalise by stating quite
truthfully that no retail chain in the world is impervious to
staff theft. Tell ‘em that the people in the newly acquired
company were disaffected and demotivated and hence, destructive.
Then localise, and say what you’ve done to reassure and
remotivate the staff, and improve the security aspect. So you’re
sharing the bad and claiming the good. You should not attempt to
do this dishonestly, or hide the real story. It’s simply being
candid - but intelligently so. Tony Blair did this well, when
discussing the intoxicated and very public behaviour of his
errant son, Euan.

Guideline ten is: The media is your umbilical cord to your
public. You need to be available to the women and men of the
media day and night. You should set up a media crisis centre.
Appropriately catered with food, plenty of caffeine and
non-alcoholic beverages. The American mine management and their
State Governor did well with the coal-mine cave-in in
Pennsylvania. TV viewers valued seeing the pale, drawn,
exhausted, bags-under-the-eyes Governor, investing some “sweat
equity.”

As they did, you should have someone senior and diplomatic from
your corporate affairs team, on duty at all times. Don’t be
smart with the media. Don’t try to feed them “spin.” Don’t think
you can manipulate them. Don’t put them down, or belittle their
perspectives. The better you keep them in the loop, the less
vitriolic they’re likely to be. You need them at this time more
than any other. How you treat them will be reciprocated. If you
don’t already have a media relations program underway, you’d
better start one. You don’t know when you’re going to need it.
Don’t use a crisis as your getting-to-know-the-media opportunity.

The bottom line? What I call the “three A’s.” Acknowledge or
admit to the situation. Specify what Action you’re taking right
now to contain or repair the damage. Tell them what you’re going
to do to Avoid a repeat in the future. If you don’t, you might
well be blowing the accumulated benefits of your combined
marketing, advertising, and communications budgets and efforts,
in one fell swoop. You don’t have to.

When your enterprise decides to undertake a new endeavor — whether it’s designing a new training program, planning a new service, or revamping an existing product — this endeavor is called a project. It involves people, funding, resources, schedules, requirements, testing, fine tuning, and deployment, plus a host of other activities.

You may have seen this phenomenon by now: projects are risk magnets. Why is that?

There appear to be several factors involved. Managing project risk is a process that seems to be poorly understood by business owners and project managers. As a result, projects frequently experience problems with understaffing, schedule overruns, cost overruns, and unmet requirements. This article (the first of a series) explains six common traps that, when not fully recognized, can lead to unpleasant surprises.

Here’s what I’ve observed over many years as both a project leader and participant:

1. Each project differs in some way, shape, or form from the last one.

If all your projects were exactly the same, you could simply use a cookie-cutter approach to crank ‘em out without losing any sleep at night. Although projects may share some similarities, a new project could very easily introduce several new, unfamiliar elements that can completely throw off your sense of balance - often without your even realizing it until it’s too late.

2. Projects are often constrained by finite conditions.

Initially, you might hear limitations such as, “We only have $1,200 and three weeks to have you complete all 18 training modules for this project.” (What? You’re thinking that based on the requirements you’ve heard so far, this project should take a year and a half and cost three hundred grand!)

Speaking of constraints, it’s not unusual for project sponsors or clients to ask for 1) low cost and 2) fast completion and 3) high quality and 4) many features in the final project deliverables. Although it’s understandable to want the greatest value for the money, unless the project is blessed with an infinite schedule and an unlimited budget, tradeoffs become necessary.

Usually it’s only possible to achieve two or three out of four of these goals on a typical project. The tradeoffs might constrain the number of features, limit the quality, or both.

3. People chronically underestimate their time and effort.

Whether it’s because of a perceived social stigma or a cloudy crystal ball, people typically have a difficult time deriving realistic project estimates. Given the number of project unknowns, coming up with accurate predictions can be tricky. (Smart project managers know this and frequently add buffers derived from records of actual past experience, commonly known as “fudge factors,” to project bids.)

To complicate matters, people often feel pressured to further “reduce the truth” — that is, to minimize whatever their already low calculations tell them it should take when they put together a bid. Whenever management pushes people to underestimate this way — perhaps for fear of losing the project — the risks can easily overwhelm and even destroy the project’s success.

4. Project requirements are typically fuzzy at the beginning.

Whether you’re talking to a client, your boss, your colleagues, or your clients to figure out what the project should produce, whatever they say initially may sound as clear as a bell in some areas but very sketchy in others. Getting clarification on the fuzzy parts might entail many conversations with many people, and much more time than anybody ever imagined.

5. Requirements invariably shift over time.

The minute after you’ve cemented the requirements with everyone’s agreement, “scope creep” begins. This means that the project needs may expand, shrink, or morph into something altogether different! These situations arise because the very act of creating something new can produce a result (or a series of results) that may exceed or differ from what people were capable of imagining at the start. And even when the team guards against it, pressure to include “add-ons” can stretch the scope beyond its limits.

6. Nearly everything else about the project is dynamic!

Aside from the requirements changing, many other things can stop, start, or fluctuate during the project. Experienced people may leave and new people may come on board. Budgets could get chopped. Schedules might get slashed or — sometimes even worse — delayed. Resources may evaporate or not materialize in the right forms. Politics can sneak in and remove support, or require skipping critical steps such as testing. The list goes on and on.

Studies of failed projects have revealed how difficult it can be to detect all of the red flags in advance. Unbridled optimism can block everyone’s ability to see clearly. Yet turning down an iffy project may be better than letting egos rule.

What to do? As we’ve seen, projects can involve several highly dynamic variables. They often operate under tight budgets and schedules. People tend to miscalculate time, effort, and resources. Requirements frequently expand, shrink, or change. And shifting circumstances can pull the rug out from under everyone’s plans. Add these together and many projects will cook up a recipe for failure.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You and your team can learn to avoid project pitfalls by paying close attention to the cause-and-effect relationships among these six important keys!

Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the creator of the award-winning “Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance” success program. To learn more about her tools and resources and sign up for other free tips like these, visit her site at http://LearnShareProsper.com.

Let’s say that you’re in charge of buying new computer equipment for your company. How would you get a salesperson to give you the lowest possible price? I would let the other person come in and have her go through her entire presentation. I would ask all the questions I could possibly think of and when I finally couldn’t think of another thing to ask, I would say, “I really appreciate all the time you’ve taken. You’ve obviously put a lot of work into this presentation, but unfortunately it’s just not the way we want to go; however I sure wish you the best of luck.” I would pause to examine the crestfallen expression on the salesperson’s face. I would watch her slowly package her presentation materials. Then at the very last moment, just as her hand hit the doorknob on the way out, I would come back with this magic expression.

There are some magic expressions in negotiating. If you use them at exactly the right moment, the predictability of the other person’s response is amazing. I would say, “You know, I really do appreciate the time you took with me. Just to be fair to you, what is the very lowest price that you would take?”

Would you agree with me that it’s a good bet that the first price the salesperson quoted is not the real bottom line? Sure, it’s a good bet. The first price a salesperson quotes is what I call the “wish number.” This is what she is wishing the other person would do. If the other person said okay to that, she would probably burn rubber all the way back to her sales office and run in screaming, “You can’t believe what just happened to me. I was over at XYZ Company to make a bid on the computer equipment they need for their new headquarters. I went over the proposal and they said, ‘What’s your absolute bottom line price?’ I was feeling good so I said, ‘We never budge off list price less a quantity discount, so the bottom line is $225,000,’ and held my breath. The president said, ‘It sounds high, but if that’s the best you can do, go ahead and ship it.’ I can’t believe it. Let’s close the office and go celebrate.” So, the first price quoted is what I call the wish price.

Somewhere out there, as the song says, there’s a “walk-away” price. A price at which the salesperson will not or cannot sell. The other person doesn’t know what the walk-away price is, so he or she has to do some probing, some seeking of information. He or she has to try some negotiating Gambits to see if they can figure out the salesperson’s walk-away price.

When you play Reluctant Buyer, the salesperson is not going to come all the way from the wish price to the walk-away price. Here’s what will typically happen. When you play Reluctant Buyer, the salesperson will typically give away half of his or her negotiating range. If that computer salesperson knows that bottom line is $175,000, $50,000 below the list price, he will typically respond to the Reluctant Buyer Gambit with, “Well, I tell you what. It’s the end of our quarter, and we’re in a sales contest. If you’ll place the order today, I’ll give it to you for the unbelievably low price of $200,000.” He’ll give away half his negotiating range, just because you played Reluctant Buyer.

Remember that when people do this kind of thing to you, that it’s just a game that they are playing on you. Power Negotiators don’t get upset about it. They just learn to play the negotiating game better than the other side.

Key points to remember:

Look out for the Reluctant Buyer.

Playing this Gambit is a great way to squeeze the other side’s negotiating range before the negotiation even starts.

The other person will typically give away half his or her negotiating range just because you use this.

Roger Dawson

Founder of the Power Negotiating Institute

800-932-9766

RogDawson@aol.com

http://www.rdawson.com

Roger Dawson is the author of two of Nightingale-Conant’s best selling audiocassette programs, Secrets of Power Negotiating and Secrets of Power Negotiating for Salespeople. This article is excerpted in part from Roger Dawson’s new book - “Secrets of Power Negotiating”, published by Career Press and on sale in bookstores everywhere for $24.99.

Anytime we find ourselves part of a group, we feel some susceptibility to peer pressure and/or the opinions of others in the group. The more esteem we feel for the group, the more their opinions matter to us, and therefore the more we feel pressured to align our own opinions with those of the group. Even when we don’t really agree with the group, we will often go along with the group in order to be rewarded instead of punished, or liked instead of scorned.

In an interesting study, researchers had very young children who were terrified of dogs watch a little boy play with his dog for twenty minutes a day. After only four days, 67 percent of the children were willing to sit in a playpen with a dog and even remain with it when everyone else left the room. The results were lasting, too: One month later, the same children were just as eager to play with dogs. In a similar study, children who were afraid of dogs were influenced just as readily by films of a child playing with a dog as they were when watching a live child play with a dog.

In another study, participants were asked to identify the longer of two lines displayed on a screen. One line was clearly longer than the other, but some participants had been privately instructed prior to the study to state that the shorter line was longer. The surprising result was that several of the unsuspecting participants actually gave in to social pressure and changed their answers! Over the course of the entire study, 75 percent of the participants gave the incorrect answer at least one time. In a related study conducted by Asch, it was determined that even when the correct answer is obvious, individuals will knowingly give the incorrect answer 37 percent of the time, just to go along with the consensus.

Another study was set up to test whether passersby would stare in the same direction and look up if there was another group of people already doing so. The researchers arranged groups of one to fifteen people to congregate in New York City at 33 West 42nd Street. A video camera was set up on the 6th floor to catch the results on tape. Sure enough, the more people in the group who were already gawking and looking into the air, the more passersby who stopped, came over and stared, and looked up themselves!

When participants were asked to view a political debate among George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot, it was found that the mere presence of a confederate who cheered for one of the candidates influenced the participant’s overall evaluation of that candidate in a positive manner. Obviously, when receiving information in a social setting, the audience can be skewed to perceive the information the way the group tends to hear it.

You know how you often you have heard canned laughter on television sitcoms even when there isn’t anything really funny happening? Studies prove that using canned laughter actually influences audience members to laugh longer and more frequently, and to give the material higher ratings for its “funniness.” Even for the portions of the show that seem to have no humor at all, producers use laugh tracks to get us to laugh along. The sad part is that it actually works! There is evidence that canned laughter is most effective when the joke is really bad. When two audiences watch the same show, and one hears a laugh track while the other doesn’t, it’s always the audience that hears the laugh track that laughs the most!

In a way, this is an obvious observation. Anyone who has ever been to the movies knows that the size of the crowd in the theater has a big effect on how good the movie seems: The larger the crowd, the funnier the comedies are. The larger the crowd, the scarier the horror flick is. Consider the following other examples:

* Conforming because you believe everyone else is correct

* Conforming because you fear the social rejection of not going along

* Conforming simply because it’s the norm

* Conforming because of cultural influences

In yet another study, researchers wanted to see whether mothers who had just given birth to their first child would be more likely to adhere to guidelines for their new babies’ nutrition when instructed individually or in a group. The mothers were told that it could be important to give their new babies cod-liver oil and orange juice. The mother’s were taught either one-by-one by a nutritionist associated with the hospital or in groups of six. The study found that when taught in a group setting, the mothers were far more inclined to give their babies cod-liver oil and orange juice than those who had been taught individually.

Kurt Mortensen’s trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; rather than convincing others, he teaches that you should attract them, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available! If you are ready to claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know, begin by going to http://www.PreWealth.com and getting my free report “10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands.” After reading my free report, go to http://www.PreWealth.com/IQ and take the free Persuasion IQ analysis to determine where you rank and what area of the sales cycle you need to improve in order to close every sale!