One of the easiest and fastest ways to grow your business is revealed in an ancient proverb: Ask and you shall receive. You’ve probably heard this phrase countless times in your lifetime, but how many times have you put this fundamental truth into practice recently? When was the last time you asked for a written endorsement from a client or colleague? How about feedback from your customers? Or the opportunity to renegotiate something that just doesn’t work for you?

Too often, business professionals—especially those in sales and marketing positions—falter because they simply stop practicing the art of asking. But if you were to ask successful top executives how they got to where they are, most would admit they “asked to get to the top.” They knew when and how to ask the right questions so they could gather the right information, build their reputation, seek useful referrals, generate new business, and expand their audience or customer base.

The simple act of asking is critical to success. Yet many people don’t do it because for some reason, people falsely believe that asking implies weakness and sets one up for potential rejection.
Here are seven asking strategies you can implement in your business (and in life) to boost your results:

1. Ask for Information. You can never have too much information. In fact, the higher up you go, the more you need to know. For example, to win potential new clients, you first need to understand their current challenges, what they want to accomplish and how they plan to do it. Only then can you proceed to demonstrate the advantages of your unique product or service.

Ask questions starting with the words who, why, what, where, when and how to obtain the information you need. Only when you truly understand and appreciate a prospect’s needs can you offer a solution.

2. Ask for Business. It’s shocking, but true: more than 60 percent of the time salespeople never ask for the order after giving a complete presentation about the benefits of their product or service. If you fall into this trap, beware: it’s a habit that could put you out of business quickly. Always ask a closing question to secure the business. Don’t waffle or talk around it—or worse, wait for your prospect to ask you. There are numerous ways to ask, “Would you like to give it a try?” Find the phrasing that feels most comfortable to you and ask.
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In my book, The Success Principles, I teach 64 lessons that help people achieve what they want out
of life. From taking nothing less than 100 percent responsibility for your life to empowering others,
these are the fundamentals to success—and to great leadership. When people ask me for the single most important principle, I share a simple formula. For years I’ve been teaching top leaders and thinkers in our world this formula that helps guide their decision-making and pathway to success. I don’t know any successful leader who doesn’t keep this on the mind daily:

E + R = O
(Events + Responses = Outcome)

The basic idea is that every outcome you experience in life (whether it’s success or failure, wealth or poverty, wellness or illness, intimacy or estrangement, joy or frustration) is the result of how you have responded to an earlier event (or events) in your life. Great leaders don’t just know this instinctively, but they make it a habit to respond in ways that generate the outcomes they want, even during extremely tough experiences or events seemingly beyond their control.
Continue reading “The Most Important Principle to Great Leadership from Jack Canfield”