Hi ! How are you today ....

This article is based from Joe Pici's sales teaching on value proposition CD that I bought in one of the sales function. The key points that this article is sharing with the readers on how to connect with people in the workplace and develop your ideas to get support especially with the management by using the skill taught by Joe Pici.


In the first period of his speech, Joe was highlighting the importance of understanding people's behaviour before doing business with them, i.e. we need to understand what type of people are we working with here. Are they the slow paced type for are they the fast pace type?


The slow pace type of people are people who are being analytics before making decision.  They need facts and logics before getting to buy your idea.  The fast pace people are people who are talkers, think fast and energetic ... and usually get things done fast.


Learning from these two type of people, I beginning to realize that there are these people in our workplace.  Usually we find slow pace people among the accounts and engineering side. The fast pace people are usually the sales, marketing and the top managements.


So, how are we going to work with these type of people? Below are some idea that I expand from Joe Pici's teaching.


1. Know yourself first.


Understand which side are you in.  Look at yourself at your workplace.  Are you analytics where you like to spend sometime to study, analyse and then logically articulate your idea or your understanding to people or do you like to be a moderator, where you induce people to talk through various casual and official interaction?


There's nothing wrong with being slow pace or fast pace. It is just to differentiate what type of people you are and how you can use your type to adapt in your working environment.


2. Understand who are the people you're going to work with.


In any event, people appreciate some courtesy.  You will find it quite easy to blend in with people if you understand and know what things that people like and what things that people don't.  Again try to understand what type of people that you're going to work with. Are they the slow pace type or are they the fast pace type...


3.  Start the connections


Once you understand what type of people you're going to work with it's time to connect with them.  Do not go straight to the point and do not irritate them ... you won't get you idea or your intention developed if you irritate the people you're going to work with.  Usually connection starts with simple "Hi .. how are you?" or "Nice dress you have today .... " or some nice and warm wording ... 


See how easy it is to start a conversation.  You can do this with anybody.  Now lets move further on how we relate this to our workplace.


In our day in day out, we usually have ideas what we wanted to share, solution to present to our team members and management.  You may experience your idea been turned down.  Sometime, it been cut down even you've not finished explaining the idea.  It happens to me when I was a junior engineer back 10 to 11 years ago.  


It is quite frustrating when that happen.  I was thinking why that happen until as I gain some experience over the years, I realize that I forgot to start the connection and do my homework on with what type of people I going to work with.  

Connection usually don't start on the desk, it usually start before the office, on the hallway or during lunch.  Upon understanding the type, start with a genuine "hi how are you ..." ... and then have a casual talk about weather, traffic or lunch .. anything that set up the environment.  


Upon establishing the comfort in conversation, then start approaching the person with issues or challenge that you're facing to create some awareness in him/her.  Make sure he/she understand the issue/challenge then offer a time to further discuss the issue.  You can give some initial idea about the solution you have but don't give too much information to him/her, you can expand that idea in a follow up discussion with him/her.


Then, when you got the time from him/her then start sending email to him/her confirming the time.    This usually works for ideas or solution that you feel going to give some turning point in your career or your next appraisal session.


Some mistake that I made in my early days was sending email to a list of people mentioning about the issue/challenge and straight away mention about the solution.  Then I called for a meeting without giving some chance for those people to fully understand my intention.  


The teachings from Joe Pici in his Value Proposition speech, helps to properly articulate the manner to make connection to people and present the ideas and solution in workplace. 


In the next entry of Hi ! How are you today ... I'll share the choice of words that worth trying when presenting some ideas....